End of An Era. Lindy Ruff Out as Sabres Coach

It has finally happened. After 1,165 games coached and 571 wins behind the bench, the Buffalo Sabres relieved Lindy Ruff of his duties Wednesday. Ruff was named coach on July 21, 1997, and since then, 170 coaching changes have been made around the NHL. Only Gregg Popovich, the coach of the NBA's San Antonio Spurs, has been employed as a head coach longer in the four major North American professional sports (he started in 1996). The Sabres are the only team Ruff has served as coach, and he has more wins than any coach with his first NHL team. Ruff finished in Buffalo with a record of 571-432-162. He won the Jack Adams Award following the 2005-06 season. His 571 wins are second-most by a coach with a single franchise, trailing only the New York Islanders' Al Arbour (740). Barry Trotz of the Nashville Predators, now the longest-tenured coach in the League, was hired two weeks after Ruff in 1997. Under Ruff, the Sabres won a Northeast Division title in 2009-10 and the Presidents' Trophy in 2006-07. They reached four Eastern Conference Finals (1998, 1999, 2006 and 2007) and the 1999 Stanley Cup Finals, where they lost to the Dallas Stars. Unfortunately for Ruff, the Sabres have failed to win a Stanley Cup Playoff series since 2007 and have missed the postseason in four of the past five years.

This somewhat comes as no real surprise, with the fact that the Sabres are sitting four games under 500 on the season and are in last place in the Northeast Division. Most of the players that are currently on the Buffalo roster have had Lindy as their only head coach in the NHL so its going to take some time to getting used to a new bench boss. I think the reason behind Lindy getting the Ax is the team isn't playing up to standard this season. Granted it is a lockout shortened season, but still with a team that, in the past, has normally been a good team during the regular season, just isn't at the moment. Scoring goals in Buffalo this year hasn't been a problem, its stopping the other team from scoring that has become a problem. And since it doesn't look like any of the players are going to get fired over it, the coach is usually takes the fall for it and loses his job.

Lindy Ruff had a great run as head coach of the Sabres. There is only none possible downside to his time as bench boss in Buffalo, and that is that he was never able to lead the Sabres to a Stanley Cup title. Closest he came was in 1999 when Buffalo lost to the Dallas Stars in six in the finals. Lindy has had great years coaching in Western New York, there is no denying that. The problem is though it seems that under Ruff the team has hid a bit of a skid the past few seasons, missing out on the playoffs four of the last five years.

So with Lindy Ruff now out of a job, his replacement is going to be Ron Rolston.  After spending his first ten years as a coach at the college level, Rolston has spent the past two seasons as head coach of the Rochester Americans of the AHL. He now takes over as head man in Buffalo for the remainder of the season. Ron is the older brother of former NHL player Brian Rolston.

Will the coaching change be the spark plug the Sabres need to possibly turn their season around? Only time will tell.