Back in November of last year, when rumors that were once swirling about a billionaire Sabre-fan interested in buying the team, Bucky Gleason did a background piece on said billionaire, Terry Pegula.
Everyone wanted to know about this guy and Gleason gathered as much info as he could--second-hand, third-hand, whatever.
Seems as if Pegula fell in love with hockey in the early-mid Seventies and was torn between the Broadstreet Bullies and the French Connection, especially in the 1975 Stanley Cup Finals when the Flyers and the Sabres met.
WBEN once quoted Pegula as saying that "It was the Philadelphia Flyers style of hockey that got me into it."
Did he mean stuff like this?
Maybe.
Probably the fact that those Flyers were a tough bunch who never backed down from a fight, a group that always stuck up for each other.
The Boston Bruins/Buffalo Sabres rivalry goes back to that era when a fledgling Sabres club was trying to earn some respect against their divisional rival. The Bruins were two-time Cup winners in the early 70's (1970, 1972,) and the Sabres didn't care.
Sabres d-man Jim Schoenfeld was a rookie in 1972. In December he got into three fights with the Big Bad Bruins. He fought Bobby Orr, Carol Vandais and had this legendary go with Wayne Cashman:
The "Slapshot-era" for hockey is long gone. No longer do we see thuggery and donnybrooks on a nightly basis. You know, the old cliche', "I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out."
But, there's still that intensity, that unbridled anger and ferocity that manifests itself on the ice in the heat of the moment. There are still thugs on the ice and they're still doing things that thugs have always done, namely, intimidating the opponent.
What took place last night in the Bruins 6-2 manhandling of the Buffalo Sabres was just that, a big, bad-ass player intimidating the Sabres by taking out Ryan Miller. And the most distressing part is that this Sabres team, perhaps just like the Sabres teams of the last five or six years, did nothing to protect their goalie.
To this blogger who has been wanting some ferocity and pure anger for a number of years, it was no surprise. To Milan Lucic, the Bruin who made the hit, it came as a surprise that no one on the Sabres meaningfully defended their goalie. He had this to say, on how the Bruins would react, ""Definitely," Lucic said when asked if the response would have been different if Thomas had been hit like that. "We wouldn't accept anything like that. We would have taken care of business, but we're a different team than they are."
The above quote was taken from nesn.com and they also pointed out that the Bruins were once a team like Buffalo, in that no one defended Pittsburgh forward Matt Cooke's hit on Marc Savard. It's a blistering article lambasting the Sabres for being gutless. Goalie Tim Thomas said he was "on his toes" for retaliation, calling it an "old-school way." The author, Douglas Flynn, uses that to set this up, "But the Sabres are a new school type of team. They tucked their tails between their legs and let themselves be run out of the building."
Lucic was smirking all the way into the post-game interviews which can be found here in a Jon Vogl piece that is right on with the way I see it. Vogl adds a couple of video clips, some old-school hockey where the goalie was protected at all costs.
The Sabres are known for wilting when the hitting and intensity-level rises, teams have known that for years, and they also know that the team Darcy Regier built will not defend their goalie with meaning, it's just not in their character.
I'd assume that Pegula's initiation via the Broadstreet Bullies is ingrained in his hockey being. As a fan he's watched the game evolve into a more skillful game, and he's watched the NHL attempt to weed out intimidation and unnecessary thuggery. But hockey is hockey, and plays like the one Lucic pulled on Miller will always be around.
One would also think that he's not thrilled with what his team did not do following the hit.
Pegula has some very sharp hockey minds surrounding him and, to my knowledge, has kept his hands off of the day-to-day operations. He has given them all free-reign to do what it takes to win the Stanley Cup. But, it's pretty plain to see that no matter how good this Sabres team is, teams like the Bruins and the Flyers know how to get them off of their game, simply get physical and harass and/or hit Miller to the point where he loses focus.
It would be welcomed if Pegula demanded some old-school toughness to balance out the vanilla group of skill-players that the Sabres ice. Robyn Regehr was a good addition. Mike Weber should be looked to as another one. And Zack Kassian is having a real good season in Rochester thus-far. He was drafted for his skill and toughness (a Lucic-type power forward.)
Yet they may need to look outside for that savvy veteran with the balls to stand up to a player like Lucic. They may need to add a tough guy sometime during the season so that hits like Lucic on Miller and the Bruins Johnny Boychuk on Thomas Vanek in the 2010 playoffs will be answered.
Peugula has tens of millions of dollars invested in those two players and he can use that as the impetus for directing his hockey men to toughen up the team.
Not that he really needs anything to direct the likes of Ted Black and Regier to make a move. He's the owner, he can do as he sees fit. And if he really did fall in love with hockey because of the Broad Street Bullies, and believes that there needs to be more "old-school" and less "new-age/new-NHL," methinks we'll see a team heading in that direction.
It's a long year, but one thing Pegula should never want to here is that the Sabres are "gutless."
After all, you never heard that about the Broadstreet Bullies. Nor did you here that about the French Connection-era Sabres either.
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