hubris

hubris, as defined by webster's dictionary, is "exaggerated pride or self-confidence often resulting in retribution"...


after a 2-1 win on the road against their long-time northeast division nemesis, the ottawa senators, the buffalo sabres returned home the following night for their home opener vs. the new york rangers riding high...and why shouldn't they, right?...that's two wins in a row vs. the sens, their special teams were vital in the win, and they played a very disciplined team-game to pull out a hard-fought, one-goal victory...


as we've seen so many times in the post-daniel briere/chris drury era, this team seems to think that with a victory of substance under their belt, they'd somehow passed through some magical thresh-hold...that they'd achieved a level of greatness where they could simply take the ice, put on a wonderful display of speed and skill and breeze to an entertaining victory over the opponent...any opponent...but, in  nearly every case, mostly in front of the hometown fans, it ends in disaster, like the egg they laid last night in a 6-3 loss to the ny rangers...


"We had a period of maybe 10 minutes in the second period where we put the work boots on," said head coach lindy ruff after the loss last night. "I'm pretty disappointed with our work ethic. We had pucks we didn't want to go get."


in 2007/08 season there were many games like this, and the end result was missing the playoffs...the excuse was there, the turbulent off-season had left this team reeling...the new leadership group which included many from "the core"--derek roy, jason pomminville, and thomas vanek as well as vets like tim connolly and jochen hecht (among others now departed) were in a transition phase and it might take a season for them adjust to their new responsibilities...fair enough


the 2008/09 season saw the team miss the playoffs once again...and, again, the excuse was there--ryan miller was lost for a stretch and the back-ups couldn't hold the fort...thomas vanek went down as well...good-bye playoffs...one of carry-overs from the '07/8 season was their failure to beat the teams they should have...many of these losses, like the previous year, were due to a hubristic lack of work ethic and a vainglorious approach towards their "lesser" opponents; all the while skating with a sense of entitlement instead of a sense of purpose...


last season the additions of mike grier and steve montador, as well as trophy-winning seasons from ryan miller and tyler myers, seemed to balance out "the core's" hubris and the team skated their way to a northeast division title and a #3 seed in the eastern conference playoffs...yet they lost in 6 games to the underdog boston bruins..."the core" was mostly silent in the series and once again, injuries--to vanek, hecht and connolly--were mildly used as an excuse...


the thread that runs through the last three seasons is that when the sabres win, they play a solid defensive team-game in all three zones, which is a 180 degree turnaround from the high-flying, immediate post lockout years of briere and drury...when they lay an egg, like they did last night, more often then not they play an individual game that often times tries to mimic those briere/drury years, ""That's not NHL defensive-zone hockey. That's summertime shinny" said defenseman steve montador last night...montador along with d-partner jordan leopold were the only two sabres with a plus-rating last night (+1)...


that's not professionalism either...and professionalism is something that's been lacking over the past three seasons...yes, the additions of craig rivet, grier and montador, as well as rob niedermayer this season has slowly instilled a sense of professionalism team-wide (and hopefully amongst the youngsters,) but they all play bottom-six roles up-front or lower-pairing roles on the back-end...none of that professionalism was brought in for the top-half of the team as encapsulated by this brief in-game comment from wgr's paul hamilton, "[tyler] Ennis was streaking down the near side boards waiting for a trailer to break to the net but no one arrived. [derek] Roy was too busy trying to draw a penalty and let the referees know there should have been an infraction called."...and that's the sabres #1 center we're talkin' about...


it's real early in the season and just like one should not have been planning the parade after the win over ottawa, one should not be jumping off the bridge after this stinker either...but it will be interesting to see whether or not "the core" can shun their sense of entitlement and follow in the footsteps of their bottom-half counterparts like niedermayer, grier and montador...all the talk about learning their lessons after the first-round loss to the bruins last season and the ensuing  talk about individual sabres "maturing" over the summer, went out the window with last night's performance (or lack thereof)...



http://www.wgr550.com/Sabres-Ruff-lets-two-wingers-know-it-has-to-be-bet/8329798