Robviously

It only took Ruff maybe 2-3 seasons to become the winningest coach in Sabres history. It was impossible not to love him as our coach. That was 10 years ago though, and now it's impossible not to wonder what someone else could do. Regier's entire career has been built on occasionally making ridiculously lopsided trades like Michel Grosek for Doug Gilmore and JP Dumont, or Mike Wilson for Rhett Warrener. More recently, he got Robyn Regeher and a 2nd round pick for Chris Butler and Paul Byron. That said, I've never seen him put a plan in place to build a contender. He inherited the Hasek team and the 2005-2006 team was something of a happy accident that I don't think anyone anticipated (they benefited from rules changes that happened during the 2005 lockout). The gutsiest move he ever made was probably Keith Ballard and Rhett Warrener for Chris Drury (as part of a more complicated three-way deal), and even that wasn't a terrible risk (a defenseman we liked and a prospect for a super popular player). He's never made a major deal that would significantly risk his reputation by radically altering the team. I've never been sure that he has a clear vision for how the Buffalo Sabres are going to win the Stanley Cup and, worse, I don't know if he has the guts to make the moves to bring that vision to life even if he has it.

This is pretending that Ruff has no say in roster moves, and there's literally no chance that's true. Unless you believe Ruff would willingly stay in a coaching situation where he is constantly being given lousy players he doesn't want and held accountable for their production. If you had your choice of jobs, would you stay in the one where your boss constantly made decisions that made it impossible for you to perform?

It actually might be worse than just missing the playoffs six of the past 10 seasons. We've won four playoff rounds in those 10 seasons. You have to win four rounds in ONE SEASON to win the Stanley Cup. Our team has won four rounds over the past TEN SEASONS. Nice.

It might be weak. Compare it to the disaster that was our centers to start last season. Ennis, Hodgson, and Grigorenko all have no.1 center potential. They won't all reach that potential, but at least we have a fighting chance down the middle now and possibly a really bright future. I hope we make one more move to clear out the old "core." Trouble is, if anyone from that core (Pominville, Vanek, Stafford) has a good season and ups their trade value, there's no way we're moving them.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

Good Lord, everything in bold sounds extremely plausible -- and terrifying. This touchy-feely crap about how wonderful everyone in the organization is and how everyone in Buffalo (Buffalo!) is too hard on the players and management isn't a recipe for success. Hockey Heaven is not the place you go to have your owner pat you on the head and shield you from criticism from an already-mild press. The real "Hockey Heaven" is where the team wins championships. The reason baseball players are drawn to the Yankees is because they exist to win championships; not because they're all a big family where mediocrity wins you love and adoration. There was zero reason to extend Regier today. In the post-Hasek era, his teams have mostly underachieved. We should have waited to see if his latest attempt to build a winner actually pans out before declaring his greatness. This is part of the problem. I don't want an owner who goes wobbly when people accurately point out the flaws in his team and management. The Sabres sure as hell aren't the best-run team in hockey. They should do a better job if they don't want criticism. And the leads in the Sunday editorials should be wondering what Regier did to deserve this considering the Sabres haven't won a playoff round since Chris Drury and Danny Briere were co-captains. If anything, wouldn't this increase the pressure to do well this season? And prove that the team/coach/management actually deserve the accolades/money they're getting?

This might be stupid but....you're sure you're looking at tomorrow's listings right? Everyone starts today except for us adn Calgary. Our game tomorrow is on NBC.

Nice to see Leino's comeback season is off to a great start. Good thing he's only signed for five more years.

Well, he certainly earned it with all those playoff wins these past five years. And his excellent judgment in picking Kotalik and Afinogenov over Dumont in 2006. And trading for Fat Raffi Torres. And the Connolly extension that kept him here two more years. In the 10+ years since Hasek was traded, we've had two seasons where we were contenders and both of those were at least a little fluky based on how much the league changed after a lost season. And yet somehow Regier has basically earned "GM for Life" status. Brilliant.

His first of many...

Even with the success of the FES line, I am not thrilled about Stafford still being around. I hope he proves me wrong. We still have one A left to stitch on. I'd like it to go to Myers. I've thought of him as our franchise player since his rookie season and I'd be happy to see him take on more of a leadership role now. (Note: not sure if he's ready; just saying I'd like to see it happen.)

This one? He also scored the GWG in game 2 against the Rangers in the 2007 playoffs. The part where he's 4th all-time in GWG for the Sabres isn't an anomaly. He does come through with big goals. Imagine his career if he'd had a real center at any point.

I'm not the guy inverting reality by saying Vanek "disappeared" in a playoff series where he scored five goals. Has any other hockey player ever scored five goals in seven games and been criticized for it?

A team's identity isn't about seniority; it's about who the best players are. So if Foligno, Girgensons, and Grigorenko are all as good as we want them to be, they'll be the team's identity (hopefully along with Myers, Ennis, Hodgson, etc.) regardless of whether or not Vanek and Pominville are still on the team. It takes a lot of good players to win the Stanley Cup. I don't want to ditch the few that we do have just because I think they've been here too long. (Though I am open to trading them if it's part of a strategy to bring in younger players to mesh with the guys we're building around.) Yes, we should certainly criticize him for only scoring 5 goals in 7 games, and for scoring those goals in the wrong periods of those games. How many goals should Vanek have scored in that series for people to stop bitching? Seven? Ten? Maybe fourteen (2 goals per game)? Obviously these are very rational standards to use when judging a player.

Yeah, Vanek is 7th all-time on the list of Sabres goal-scorers. I wish we had "too many Vaneks." We certainly are not a "team loaded with them." Losing Vanek and Pominville won't magically give us Dustin Brown and Evander Kane either. Acquiring hockey players isn't like buying a TV. You can't decide exactly what you want and then just make sure you have the money for it. I get frustrated when fans want to talk about freeing up $7M in cap space by getting rid of Vanek, because there's no guarantee that you'll be able to take that $7M to free agency and land someone as good (or better). There are very few players available and they might not want to play for you, or you might just get outbid. Aside from all that, I've never thought Vanek and Pominville were the problem. The only way I want them gone is via trade where we pick up younger replacements. I guess I'm also confused why you're already fed up with Ennis and Hodgson. They're both 22, should both be getting better, and Cody Hodgson has played only 20 games for us so far. The Sabres DO need to get tougher and I hope Foligno and Girgensons are going to be a big part of that up front. Thomas Vanek in the Philly series: 5 goals in 7 games. The fact that ANYONE EVER says he "disappeared" in that series is completely amazing.

Thanks. Much more succinct and direct way to say what I was trying to say. As a team, your goal should be to have six top-6 forwards on your team. Or more than six top-6 forwards on your team (see 2005-2006 Buffalo Sabres). I don't see how we get there by letting Pominville or Vanek walk.

Chz gives lots of guys extensions. ZING!

The Sabres would be idiotic to let Vanek walk. He's probably the most talented player on the team (hopefully Grigorenko will challenge him on this) and he'll be hard to replace. The last time we tried to bring in a talented forward through free agency, we ended up with Ville Leino for six years (so far that's been the equivalent of shoveling money into a furnace). And that's after failing to sign other star forwards who just didn't want to come here. I'd extend Vanek for sure assuming it could be done at the right price. If it does nothing else, it'll take a ton of pressure off of young guys like Grigorenko and Armia when they get here. If we can't re-sign him (for whatever reason), we should deal him for someone young enough to fit in with the new core of the team (basically everyone we've drafted since 2008, along with Cody Hodgson). If you aren't part of that future, you shouldn't be here. (Same goes for every veteran whose contract expires this year or next.)

Were people really upset when we traded him? I remember people sorta liking him when he came up (not as a future star or anything) but everyone seemed pretty OK with dealing him as part of the Regehr trade.

Or the one from the 90s:

This is one of my biggest problems with Regier. You can't be the GM for as long as he has and ever completely commit to rebuilding the team. Doing so is essentially admitting that the team you built can't possibly win, and that you failed. So you have a lot of seasons where we clearly aren't trying to win the Cup but we also aren't rebuilding. Last year is the perfect example. The team is completely dysfunctional and broken -- and the only rebuilding move at the deadline is Gaustad for a 1st round pick. (Kassian for Hodgson was prospect for prospect and, after the season, Roy for Ott was veteran for veteran.) We could have gotten a lot younger and made a clear push to contend in 2-3 years. In the long run, teams seem to be better off for having bottomed out at some point. We're going to be better this year, but I don't know what the plan is. Miller, Pominville, and Vanek are all signed this year and next, and Miller is already 32 years old. Leopold and Regehr are only signed through this season. We all love our young players but by the team they hit their prime, our best current players may be gone or past their prime.

Cool, except it's really going to depend on who Darcy is trying to trade, isn't it?

Gaustad was drafted in 2000 and his stats in 2000-2001 were still pretty mediocre: 11 goals and 41 points in 70 WHL games. He had a huge last year in juniors (80 points in 72 games) but that was definitely inflated by his being nearly 20 and playing against younger and smaller players. To his credit, Kea's numbers are jumping just months after being drafted: 36 points in 44 games so far. When he was drafted (which didn't thrill me) the Sabres described him as "Paul Gaustad with more offensive upside" (paraphrase). So far, I guess he's living up to that (though it's pretty early). Keep your fingers crossed. Marcus Foligno's OHL numbers didn't get great until his last year there either: http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=106815 And for one more comparison, Milan Lucic's numbers skyrocketed the season after he was drafted and he ended up leaving for the NHL a year early. So some guys really do take off after being drafted: http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=83957

Well, Roy definitely had "personality." But this is the first time I've heard anyone describe him as having "fire." Ever since Drury and Briere left, Roy has been one of our core players and an alternate captain -- and we've been about the most mentally weak team you could imagine. This is the guy who passed out flyers for a toga party at a players-only meeting during a losing streak. "Fire" isn't the first word that comes to mind when you consider that. As for Roy playing better with Drury, well, duh. That's the difference between the two players. Drury made the whole team better. Meanwhile, our team's season turned around two years ago when Roy went down with a season-ending injury. Pretty stark difference.

Sounds like a good deal to me.