Friday, April 8, 2016

Dan Bylsma - What have we learned?



credit: CBS Sports
With this Buffalo Sabres season taken about as seriously as a practice round at The Masters, “placing blame” for losing didn’t seem like something we’d be doing in April.

But this is Buffalo, and the local media needs its clicks, so some chucklehead hacks have offer up Bylsma as a sacrifice to the Great God of Low Brow Content.

While I’m not going to put Disco Dan on blast, I don’t think he deserves a pass either. There had to be some signs of progress this season, or at least a sense the Sabres are headed in the right direction.

Assessing ‘The System’

In Pittsburgh, Bylsma’s teams were known for their long stretch passes out of the zone in an attempt to ‘get North’ quick and we watched him implement a similar scheme here, to some degree of success. To be fair, when a doddering David Legwand or brick-fisted Nick Deslauriers is on the receiving end of those stretch passes – the odds aren’t working in his favor.

Bylsma’s teams are also known for their aggressive forecheck without the puck, and precision cycling with it. On the former, we were able to watch ROR and the 2-2-2 line of Foligno, Larsson and Gionta bottle up opposition with regularity. On the latter, the Sabres cycled the puck about as well as a junkyard washing machine. You could say he’s still dealing with either raw or aging talent on that front, but Mike Babcock’s MarLeafs was able to impressively cycle the puck in a few tilts with the Sabres this season…

It probably goes without saying that if Bylsma can get Eichel, Reinhart and Co. to regularly put the opposition in a NutriBullet – this team will be a real beauty to watch.

Assessing Man Management

The Pegulas knew they were getting a players’ coach in Bylsma, and on that front: He’s as advertised.

However, Bylsma’s popularity with the players has been a double-edged sword as his Penguins teams were notorious for chronically underachieving. It’s hard to say if you can motivate a modern hockey player with negativity, but if Bylsma’s Sabres teams fall flat in the postseason, expect him to get shredded for coddling his players.

Bylsma’s also been known to tinker with his lines and the breakup of the Kane-Eichel-Reinhart line had many fans wondering why he had taken away their shiny, shiny new toy. Sure, it was supposed to be in the interest of finding long-term chemistry for a returning-from-injury ROR, but line chemistry is so elusive, so mysterious, so ephemeral – tossing what looked like a sure thing onto the roaring tire-fire of a season could look foolish in time.

The future, future, future, fu--

We all look at Byslma and wonder – Did he learn his lesson in Pittsburgh? Will Eichel get rattled by unrelenting expectations and cruel targeting from the opposition, a la Sidney Crosby? Will Robin Lehner or Tyler Ennis go for weeks on end looking disinterested and in Power Saver Mode, a la Evgeny Malkin?

It’s hard to say at this point, but if the criticism he’s been getting is any indication, the local media and fans will be sharpening the knives if the Sabres are dusting off the golf clubs a year from now.

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