LTS

Schopp sounded like a complete idiot during that rant. I think it's absolutely ignorant to think that Pegula did not know what he was buying. His management team with Ted Black, etc. are not complete idiots. If anyone expected him to come in and say, "The team I'm buying today is a complete group of failures. I'll can everyone and start from scratch." they were idiots. He came in and said what any successful business person would say. "I'm here to be successful, in this league that means winning the Stanley Cup." What people HEARD was that we would immediately win the cup. They've been making moves on all fronts. Draft picks don't pay off overnight, ask Edmonton about that. Very few people were pessimistic about our draft results last year. Most were encouraged by the KAssian/Hodgson trade. More were encouraged by the Roy/Ott trade. I think many were shocked we got a 1st rounder for Gaustad. At the same time we've plugged some holes and others take a little longer to fill. We weren't going to get Parise and there was not a lot of scoring to be had on the UFA front. So where would it come from? We've drafted a gifted center, a shutdown center, and we have Armia coming. There is a lot of talent that will be arriving (yes young talent) but it will be coming. People just need to get over the fact that you don't win overnight. I think Pegula is doing a fine job. He's made massive investments in the team, the arena, the surrounding area. He is almost single-handedly trying to revive parts of Buffalo that should be flourishing. One of these days I half expect him to say he'll foot 50% of the cost for the Bills to move downtown. He's undoubtedly investing in the area and would make money from having them downtown as well. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if he's in on buying the Bills at some point. The guy is not an idiot. I think his reliance upon Ruff and Regier are along the lines of they may need to be replaced but before I make a solid judgment on them why not try and give them the tools to succeed. If they don't.. then you take action. I feel that at the end of this season if the Sabres are not improved over last year there may be changes in the leadership of the team. We shall see how it gets in April.

Nor mine. I outlined reasons why I thought he'd be staying somewhere else. The lineup flexibility of having him is just too great to not have him here. Ruff this morning also talked about how the off ice conditioning and training at the NHL level were improved over the Q and that would benefit Grigorenko as well. He did mention the drawbacks of not having many team practices but followed that up with a statement about him then getting more one on one focus for development. All in all everything that Ruff said this morning on WGR made me 100% confident he was staying. This is great news. He no longer has the pressure of a tryout. He cannot be sent down... the worst that can happen is that he is scratched on any given night. He should feel better about this and I am hoping that he carries this positive feeling into tonight's game and completely electrifies the fans. There would be nothing better for him to have a fantastic game tonight and the Leafs are certainly a team to have it against. Game.... ON.

A game will be played... that's my prediction. Go Sabres. That is all.

I've been down on Myers this season (just been too busy to get on here and say it). I did not see the Caps game although I heard he played better. Myers, from what I see, has a physical issue at the moment. Not a question of his physicality (that sucks too) but he looks as though there is a problem in his stride. He spoke of trying to bulk up and I'm wondering if that weight change is throwing off his skating ability to a certain point. When you are 6'8 you fight the higher center of gravity for turning and his legs have to be able to compensate so he doesn't lose acceleration. In addition he looks TIRED out there. He might have a few shifts of energy but many times it appears that he just doesn't have the energy to get to where he has to go. His response to the hit on Gerbe disgusted me to the point that if I were on the Sabres bench I would have torn him a new one (as a player or a coach). If I were on the ice i might have would have wanted to hit Myers even though he were on my team... I wouldn't of course because I would be too busy going after the guy who hit Gerbe. Perhaps he's lost on what he's supposed to be. Someone needs to snap him out of it but for now I would dress Brennan and see what happens.

Insanity.. we just love to find something to whine about. If he is talking to Darcy then perhaps he's bringing up ideas that Darcy is NOT considering because of his past "hand-cuffs" and saying you know.. we might be able to do this financially if you think it works from a team perspective. All we KNOW is that they talk a lot. I talk to my employees a lot as well. I provide suggestions, we talk about them, and some get canned and some don't. It's generally better than unilaterally commanding how something should be done.

Look.. he's RJ and in Buffalo.. I'm pretty confident that any medical assistance he needs he's going to get. I'm not worried.

Apparently he was comprehensible enough to get the taco point across. At that point I'm sure I'd start looking for some ground beef, spices, and tortillas. :) Ahh yes, his anecdotes. So what did he do after the second whistle?

See any Dominican baseball player in MLB.

. What kind of tacos?

That may be the case but there are players in Rochester that can be called up to fill those roles. I'm not sold on Ott being suspended. Kaleta getting hurt? Sure.. that's got history on his side. If you send down McCormick and keep calling him up you run the risk of someone picking him up sure.. but what are the odds? If you want someone to fill in a skating role on the 4th line move up Sekera or play Brennan there and let Weber play on defense.. (yea, I said it).

If there's a trade to be had it will be at the deadline when a team that has no shot is willing to give up a player. The problem is that every team will be looking for someone like Getzlaf and that will drive up the price. Not saying you don't pay it.. just that it won't be easy to get.

While it irritates me a bit under the skin it's not enough to get me upset. If Rob Ray sucked at the job then I would be more upset but I really like his input on things.

I think right now it would be fair to say that he's down the depth chart at Center if you need a guy who you know is responsible and reliable in the position. If you are looking for the "game manager" type player and not someone too dynamic. Hecht, Leino, and Ott all present a more reliable and responsible choice at the position but certainly not the dynamics. This isn't to say that Grigorenko has not been reliable. In fact I like his positioning and he's been down low making some good defensive plays in the past two games (last night especially). Right now I think he 's staying. I think the option to have him in the lineup for the year and filling in a top 6 position if needed is too important to pass up. If you look at who the Sabres have to move to make room it's not real difficult. They can send down Ellis and McCormick. They probably would both clear and if not it's not a big loss at this point. The Sabres have Foligno, Scott, Kaleta, and Ott. Role players are easier to find than skill players. So, you send down Ellis and McCormick (when he returns). Do they need to send anyone else? Brennan, Weber, and Leino are the 21-23 players on the roster at the moment. If you send down Ellis you are down to 22 and can bring Gerbe into the mix. Did I miss someone or something?

Three Heads Brewing Too Kind for me. Whatever. The guy spoke honestly about what happened. If he said he's going to drop the gloves every night then he'd have every pest trying to get him to take a penalty. I don't care what people say, I care what people do. I saw Stafford go after Hartnell. Regardless of what happens next he's shown that he's willing to do it. He did follow up his words with the simple statement that we are holding each other accountable. He felt like he needed to do something, perhaps next time he won't need to feel that way because someone else on the Sabres has dropped the gloves or better yet, people just stop taking runs at guys because they know to a man the Sabres will react. If you hate the guy then just hate him and get it over with. At least he's willing to put a body on people, he showed that last year. If you want him to be the second incarnation of Keith Tkachuk you've gotten yourself a bit off base.

The Sabres are set. Porter and Tarnasky are risks. Pardy has had 4 days of play with this team so losing him is not the end of the world. If he clears, great. If not, so be it. This allows them to keep Grigorenko for his 5 games and if he sticks they have to make another move to clear a spot if/when they bring back Gerbe or McCormick. The most likely would be Ellis I would imagine. If they both come back then I'd bet McCormick gets waived. Right now they are doing just fine. It all tracks. It was doubtful that there would be a trade market today but I'm sure if Regier were making calls he'd be telling other GMs that he's not sure who he's waiving so if you want one of my D men you have to trade to make sure you'll get him.

Extremely valid point.. :) Boston had one bad season around that time..

I'm not sold on that. There are teams that have hovered around the bottom for a long time and have nothing to show for it. Perhaps it depends on when you bottom out. Still, I look at Edmonton as the perfect example. They've been bouncing around the cellar for 4-5 years now and while they've acquired quite a bit of talent it doesn't seem to have transitioned into anything meaningful. The same is true with teams like Columbus, Florida, etc. Meanwhile, a team like Detroit barely suffers a let down and keeps rolling year after year, same with Philly, NYR, and a few others. In some cases you get lucky like Pittsburgh did. They bottomed out at the perfect time and ended up with Crosby and Malkin. Washington nabbed Ovechkin but he alone didn't rescue that team. Boston got Seguin but it was the addition of a few other players around him that really boosted the team. I think what we hope for is the Sabres to have that one forward that is considered a scoring threat every time the skates touch the ice. The best the Sabres have in that department is Vanek and he doesn't usually bring people out of their seats. The only player who I think consistently excites people is Ennis but he's not proven to be that scoring threat every time. When Ennis was on his game last year there was a noted anticipation of what he was going to make happen on the ice. If we could get a "Vannis" then perhaps people would feel better overall. :) Outside of that I think people want that blue-collar leader guy. Thus the reason people want someone like Brown so badly. I think the Sabres have their own guy already, Foligno. Normally I wouldn't say such a think about a player even given the run he went on last year but you look at where he comes from and you can immediately see that his Dad has a major influence on him. Watching him play in Rochester you see a few little things that happen. The Amerks would start to falter a bit, getting trapped in their end, etc. You'd see Foligno get on the ice and you'd feel a change in mentality. He'd make sure to finish every check (even a few he maybe shouldn't have) and through his play would almost instill a new determination in his team. That's natural leadership and I think he has it.. just like his Dad. it doesn't hurt to now have Ott in the lineup to keep Foligno honest. So.. what does any of this have to do with trades? No idea. All we know at the moment is that they HAVE to lose a player, through waiver or trade. I wouldn't buy anyone out as that just wastes money. They still have to remain under the roster limit so a 1 for 1 trade doesn't accomplish much unless you can send that player to the minors without waivers. I still think Sekera is gone now and if Brennan plays up to par they would move Leopold at the deadline (depending on where they are in standings). I'd rather keep a solid D man like Leopold for a playoff run and lose him for nothing than not have him... unless Brennan makes him replaceable.

He absolutely needs to clear waivers, and he never would. What I was saying is that in the past he didn't have to clear so he was constantly bumped back down in favor of a player who would have to clear waivers. Now that he's reached the point in his career where he has to clear it's forced the Sabres hand. In my opinion the most likely to move are Leopold, Sekera, or Regehr. All of them have experience which is desired in the shortened season and none of them are irreplaceable. Pardy has size as does McNabb (regardless of current development). Brennan, Gauthier-Leduc, Pysyk all have relatively good offensive upsides. Waiving Weber doesn't seem likely, although that might be the last possibility. His relationship with Ott notwithstanding I think the Sabres like having him as the 7/8 D-man. Ruff stated in one interview that he is leaning towards increased playing time for his top 3 lines and using the 4th as a fill-in/specialist line. Interesting concept and one that would seem to fit the idea that you could play Grigorenko more minutes on the 3rd line and retain Hecht in minimal 4th line minutes but throw him out on the PK. If you go down that road you end up with something like this: Vanek - Hodgson - Pominville Stafford - Ennis - Foligno Ott - Grigorenko - Leino Kaleta/Gerbe - Hecht - Scott/McCormick Ehrhoff - Sulzer Myers - Sekera Brennan - Regehr/Pardy/Weber I'll admit I did not look at the "handedness" of the D.. just threw it out there. I might also be missing someone up front.. hey.. so be it. :)

So, if I followed the past few pages properly.. Lindy Ruff ruined Brennan and we are trading Adam for Leopold and a draft pick who may or may not clear waivers? I think I got something confused... :) I encourage people to think about the trade scenario another way... if you look at the Sabres as they are.. today, with a shortened training camp and a lot of guys not playing during the offseason do you consider them legitimate deep playoff run contenders? Probably not. So, why would you trade Brennan? Leopold is in the final year of his contract and in a shortened season probably has more value to a team than buying the potential of Brennan. Sekera has a longer term buy-in and is good for a team who might need something more proven but longer term. Brennan is more of an unknown for every other team in the league. We argue why he didn't make the Sabres yet? There's been some good comments made already on that. But I feel that the Sabres have had some additional D men hanging around and when you are the guy who can be sent down to the AHL with no risk you end up on the short end of the stick. The argument could be made that he's not worth it then.. could be.. the way I look at it is this. If he's considered as good as Leopold and he can be sent to Rochester I am going to send him down. Why? Because if an injury occurs I have a player who is at least as good as Leopold to call up. If I send down Leopold and he gets claimed then I don't have anyone to call up if Brennan gets injured. It's really more playing the odds. It's building depth and now comes the time when that depth forces your hand. There will be a move, there has to be.. so I'm going to wait and see what happens.

That would only be if he was under contract (aka on loan, etc.). Hecht is a UFA... he can sign with anyone at any time right?

In my opinion the game sucks, at least how I play it. I prefer the Be a Pro mode. Rather than go through a CHL season I started in the NHL. I was a Power Forward and was continually getting knocked on my but by 5'8 players that normally don't hit anything. Despite that I was able to ultimately lead the team in scoring and was 2nd in the league in goals (61) and points. I led in +/- as well. Enter the playoffs where I led all scoring categories and +/- even though I kept getting a mild concussion (interesting, I would play out the game but then be taken out of the lineup for 4 days). So, we play the Flyers in the conference finals and I score 2G, 3A in a 5-1 route. I get concussed. I return from the injury only to be sent down to Rochester because I was not performing (still leading the league in scoring despite missing 8 games in the first 3 series. The Amerks are not playing so I'm effectively done for the season. The Sabres go on to lose the Stanley Cup and I get 113xp for the whole season. A complete waste of time. NHL 12, 11, and 9 were never like this. Now let's talk AI. I lead the team in scoring but don't crack the PP unit and am not in shootouts. Defensemen continually ignore the cross-ice pass. This was something that was supposed to be IMPROVED upon in this game and I think it's worse. The physics engine, while a nice idea, does not function well with the Xbox360 limited processing power. There are numerous times where you can feel the game pausing just to calculate what should happen and ultimately what happens is so unrealistic (think guys boucning off the board to center ice) that it's just laughable. I think EA bombed huge on this one. They've got a million other little bugs that I stopped telling them about because there was never ANY response to them. Like my team being #1 on PP with a 53/27 ratio. The team easily had more than 27 PP opportunities and I know for damn sure they weren't scoring on them. This was actually the same bug in NHL 12 as well... I would avoid the game.. it can be fun.. but I wouldn't put a lot of hope into it. Oh.. and despite leading the team in scoring, being 2nd and all that.. I got an amazing $0.7m, 1 year salary offer from the team to stay and that was the best deal I could get. Really? Wow.

Actually with the news coming out that teams can absorb part of the salary cap hit in order to trade away a player this makes moving Leino a bit easier. If there's a prospect to fill the role at a low salary and you can absorb 2-2.5 million cap hit in order to move him perhaps it's the way to go. I'm not saying it would happen and that would be after not opting a buyout on him. My opinion.. he performs like he did last year and he gets bought out. If he steps up he stays on and that's fine too. The Sabres aren't tied to many contracts that are choking them. The Ehrhoff and Myers deals are the most likely of deals and I don't see any reason at this point they would get rid of either. If Myers bombs this year perhaps they buy him out as well? Ultimately it will really depend on what players fit the team and then which remaining players are easier to buy out or potentially trade at what cost. Wait and see as always.. this is why I could never be a sports radio show host.. :)

I agree.. but I also like Hecht when he's in the right role. If he's facing limited minutes per night then he's better off. The upside is that Hecht is a serviceable 2nd liner as well in the event of an injury. With the shortened training camp and with Hecht's status I would expect any signing for him would occur after the Sabres can finish an evaluation of Grigorenko. There's zero need to bring him in during the first 9 games. You know what Hecht has, he's got experience with the team and the system so there's no learning curve. He can easily be signed 10 games into the season if there aren't better options. No need to take on salary you might want elsewhere. Of course Hecht could sign elsewhere too, but that's a risk I would take. A healthy Hecht playing a PK/3rd line center role is something the team could absolutely use, especially for a reasonable salary.

Hamilton is an idiot sometimes, perhaps many times. That's a jackass statement to the nth degree. Even the few games Brennan played in Buffalo he looked light years ahead of Gragnani. I watched Brennan play a game a few weeks ago. He took an elbow from a guy with no call. I watched him clearly pick up the guys number and about 20 seconds later, with that guy standing in front of the Amerks crease and no one around Brennan two handed him across the ankle. It was loud enough that you could hear it throughout the building. He just skated to the penalty box and did his time. I like Brennan.. I like his attitude and his skills. I don't care if he's solid defensively. He's an offensive D and that immediately means he won't be your top +/- guy. He moves the puck and scores. Something that is desperately needed. As for the rest... no comment. We'll see what happens. I can't get into the speculating mode yet.

Demo isn't bad.. I like the new skating system you can get fairly creative moving the puck with it. The physics are nice. The AI is better but eventually we'll all find the flaws and take advantage of it. I'll be buying it.. there's no doubt about that. Curious to see how the GM Connected mode is in this..