Dan Bylsma demanded a lot of his Sabre players and, by his own admission, couldn't connect with a lot of them on a personal level.
This all-business approach to coaching doesn't fly in today’s NHL, where player power reigns supreme, and Disco Dan was subsequently sacked.
Clearly, ownership didn’t want to get on the bad side of their franchise draft picks, and the result was a massive power shift of away from the coaching staff. New coach Phil Housley's influence over the players was undercut from the jump. Sure, he engineered the powerhouse Nashville blueline, but without past head coaching experience, he appeared in over his head, especially given that his predecessor has a Stanley Cup on his resume.
Just down the bench from Housley last year, assistant coach Chris Hajt just didn't have the CV to command player respect either. His NHL playing career includes just 11 games and 0 points. Before his Buffalo gig, Hajt's coaching career included just a 2008-09 stint as an assistant coach with the Guelph Storm. At the ripe old age of 39, he hardly carried around the gravitas needed to direct grizzled veterans or young hot shots.
Enter Steve Smith. Smith came with impressive pedigree: He won three Cups with the vaunted 1980s Edmonton Oilers and been working in NHL front offices since 1997. The arrival of Smith also relegated Hajt to a tertiary role. He now spends games analyzing from the press box as opposed to affecting players from behind the bench.
A statistics scan of how this year's Sabres stack up against the rest of the league won't reveal much. Two recent articles have twisted themselves in knots trying to explain it, but those articles have neglected to mention the potential Smith effect.
Since Smith has arrived, all the tell-tale signs of a good assistant coach have appeared. The special teams are better and the defense has improved. However, the Smith effect seems to go beyond that.
Sure, Eichel and Skinner are near the top of the league in offensive categories, but different players have scored deciding goals during the current winning streak: Rasmus Ristolainen, Casey Mittelstadt, Kyle Okposo, Conor Sheary, Pominville, Jack Eichel, Evan Rodrigues, Jeff Skinner and Sam Reinhart.
Also, nothing from the team stats or individual stats for the year really jumps out. The same goes for Carter Hutton's numbers. He’s been a major key this season, but you can’t exactly hang your hat on his stats.
On the other hand, veterans like Pominville and Okposo, who had milquetoast seasons last year, have been re-energized. Recent acquisitions Beaulieu and Scandella look more steady, less like bolted-on misshapen parts. Even young players like McCabe and Dahlin are coming into their own.
When a team is losing despite having loads of talent, there’s always talk about the coach having “lost the room” -- meaning his players aren’t buying into his vision. With the hiring of Smith, the Sabres organization has done the opposite; they’ve gained the room and the results can be seen in the win column.
While you can't credit Smith with everything good about the Sabres right now, it's hard to ignore that, in lieu of outstanding individual performances, he's had a massive effect on the group as a whole. If that's true, it bodes well moving forward and it shifts the balance of power away from the superstar players and back where it belongs, behind the bench.
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