Game 82: End of the road
The Sabres took down the Flyers 5-4 and gave coach Lindy Ruff his 900th career win.
BUFFALO — If you were wondering how a regular season game between two teams who aren’t headed to the playoffs would play out, it’s basically like a game of pond hockey. For the final game of the regular season, the Buffalo Sabres were the better team on the pond than the Philadelphia Flyers taking a 5-4 win.
The win gave the Sabres 79 points for the season, seventh fewest in the league. They finished below Anaheim and Pittsburgh with 80 and ahead of the Flyers, Seattle and Boston who ended with 76. While it would easy for fans to smile about a few of those teams being down in the dumps with them it unfortunately means they’re still in the dumps. It’s the downside of the “crabs in a bucket” situation.
Even though the game played out like one with very little to play for, it wasn’t being treated like that by those with the most skin in the game, namely the coaches. For Sabres coach Lindy Ruff, the win was the 900th of his career. For Flyers interim head coach Brad Shaw, who took over for John Tortorella when he was fired, it was his last audition to earn a full-time head coaching job in Philadelphia. It also could’ve been his last chance at all to do it.
On the outside it might’ve had all the appearances of a nothing game, but even a game with very low stakes beyond the NHL Draft lottery, there’s a lot that’s worth playing for.
“They’re not easy games to play or to have players motivated,” Ruff said. “But we talked about coming out and playing winning hockey and just being a good pro. Trying to do the right thing. And I thought we got away from it a little bit in the second period, but got that early goal in the third. I thought we came back and played a pretty strong third period.”
Listening to Shaw and Ruff after their teams’ morning skates was a reminder that coaches are in this until they’re not anymore. They can’t take the foot off the gas, not when the teams they’re running aren’t making the playoffs.
Ruff can’t relent, not when the Sabres have been out of the playoffs for 14 years and counting and especially not when the reasons why the team is on the outside looking in again this year are so clear.
“We didn’t get to where we wanted to go,” Ruff said. “That’s the statement. We’re not where we wanted to be. That stretch of games that we went through pretty well killed us for the year. It’s like I said, I take full responsibility for where we’re at and how long it took us to get out of there. I don’t offer up any excuses except, it can’t happen again. I think we’ve used that kind of as the low part to start building for the rest of the year. And then for a period of time, almost fought our way back into position but the hole was too big.”
Getting his 900th win was something Ruff wanted nothing to do with discussing ahead of time. He brushed off questions about what it would mean to get it and say only he was focused on helping get the team to play better hockey. After earning it on Thursday night, he didn’t take credit for reaching it.
“It’s a number, for sure,” Ruff said. “Just means I’ve coached a lot of hockey games, had a lot of good players and a lot of good coaches, from management-down, to put a lot of trust in me. Isn’t about me, it’s about the teams I’ve had and the people around me.”
We’ll hear more from Ruff and GM Kevyn Adams on Saturday afternoon when they have their end-of-season press conference, but having another playoff-free season gnaws at the coach and there’s no doubt that Adams feels the heat. If the heat isn’t coming from ownership, it’s definitely there from the fans. But this part of why coaches take these “meaningless” games so deadly serious.
In Shaw’s situation in Philadelphia, it’s a bit messier given everything that’s gone on there this year with Tortorella’s dismissal. Assuming the job so late in the season is tough at most and awkward at best. The last time he was an interim coach was in the 2005-2006 when he replaced Steve Stirling on the New York Islanders bench 42 games into the season.
Taking over for Tortorella, someone he’s worked with since 2016-2017 in Columbus, had to be difficult enough in the first place, but Shaw has been a runner-up regularly over the years in pursuit of a head coaching job. The last time he was a head coach was with the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks in the AHL from 2002 to 2005 after Mike Babcock was promoted to Anaheim. Working alongside Tortorella for the past eight seasons and suddenly being thrust into the head position was a startling change.
“I’m 61 in a week and a half and you kind of feel like you’re getting a little bit aged out of the game,” Shaw said Thursday morning. “For me, it’s been an awakening a little bit of interest to maybe, possibly run my own bench. Maybe those days are passed, and this was just a little bit of a window into what it’s like, but I’ve enjoyed it. I told everybody, I told the team, I told the media on day one, I have nine games, and I plan on enjoying it.”
The 5-4 loss to Buffalo Thursday night could’ve been viewed as something less than fun. From Shaw’s perspective and where the Flyers are in their rebuild and some of the younger players like Noah Cates, Tyson Foerster, Jamie Drysdale and Matvei Michkov (who scored two goals and became the rookie leader in that category), letting those guys run wild and free after being put through the works under Tortorella, a little firewagon hockey is OK.
“We’re trying to take steps towards getting back to where we want to as an organization,” Shaw said. “Nobody feels good about the fact that we’re not playing anymore games this year, but there are a lot of bright lights there that kind of shine through and that gives you lots of optimism for the future.”
The hockey might’ve been furthest thing from what we’ll see the rest of the way in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, but when teams have players to keep on task, coaches that want to stay coaching, and good habits to instill for seasons to come, a game with no stakes in the present can pay off in the years to come.