Sabres traded that made you sad to see them go

[Ross Rhea]

Brad May

[TheAud]

Danny Gare and Mike Foligno

[Doohicksie]

2 hours ago, Buffalonill said:

 Kozlov

1 hour ago, centralparkhockey said:

Marcus Foligno

Actually, yes.  He would be been a great vet to lead the way with Girgs and Okie.  I think he would have had over-the-top hometown vibes with Tuch.

Edited July 13, 2023 by Doohickie

[PerreaultForever]

The entire Peca situation.

Also Gare, Foligno(s) and I agree about Dudley. 

[Weave]

6 hours ago, Ross Rhea said:

Brad May

I think May tops my list too.  I’d add Mogilny but he did return Peca so I got over it quickly enough.

Trading Playfair to LA hurt too.

[mjd1001]

11 hours ago, JoeSchmoe said:

Andreychuk... Especially given losing him also meant we'd be playing Fuhr instead of Hasek.

We win the cup if this trade is not made.

Andreychuk 100%.  I remember a lot of fans hated him because he was 'slow' and didn't skate well, didn't have a great shot or scored any 'pretty' goals.  But he did score.  He was one of the best, if not THE best in the league at turning rebounds or loose pucks in front of the net into goals.  Without him,  all those 'pretty' plays other players on the team made ended up with a loose puck in front of the net being cleared out of the zone instead of turning into a goal.  He was a player disliked by many because his style of play 'didn't look good' and thats too bad.

I'll also add Marcus Foligno. He wasn't going to turn the franchise around by staying here, but he was likeable to most fans.

Edited July 13, 2023 by mjd1001

[MattPie]

Paul Gaustad (Ducks... wait, Gooses? I dunno)

[Stoner]

Barrie Moore.

[SwampD]

11 hours ago, Zamboni said:

I couldn’t care less the heat I get…

 

Hasek,  Andreychuk, Drury, Peca

I’m just curious why you would think you’d get heat on any of those names.

 

For me it’s Reinhart.

It wasn’t so much him individually (although I really liked him), but it seemed to highlight the absolutely dismal state of the team, and yet another reminder of what a completely disastrous mistake the Tank was (or, to write it so I don’t have LGR telling me the Tank worked - what a completely disastrous mistake the tanking strategy was.)

[Pimlach]

Yes, it shows my age but the dismantling of the Punch teams into the Bowman teams.  It taught us  about the inevitable change in hockey.  
 

Robert, Martin, Shoeny, Gare, Luce … they were a part of the Buffalo community and key players on the great teams of the 70’s.   

Edited July 13, 2023 by Pimlach

[Goldseatsaud]

Overrated come on.

11 hours ago, klos1963 said:

While I hated Schoenfeld, the most overrated player in Sabres history, it's pretty funny that 2 of the 3 here lamenting his trade spelled his name incorrectly.

Now we’re about spelling. 

#6 overated how?

[Quint]

I was sad that they didn't trade Gil Perreault at the end of his career to the Habs.

[Hawerchuk]

It was just mentioned above, but Mogilny for Peca was a killer for me. HOWEVER, Mike Peca became my favorite soon enough. So it turned out to be a "win" in the end. 

Edited July 13, 2023 by Hawerchuk
spelling

[Cage]

Keith Ballard.... he ended up playing 604 NHL games.  He was an our #1 pick, 11th overall in 2002.  He's the only first round draft pick of the Sabres that I have absolutely no recollection of.

[Pimlach]

13 hours ago, klos1963 said:

While I hated Schoenfeld, the most overrated player in Sabres history, it's pretty funny that 2 of the 3 here lamenting his trade spelled his name incorrectly.

You hated Schoenfeld?   The guy came to our church and played guitar with our priest to support a big fundraiser.  He was kind and generous with his time while in Buffalo.   I met him three times and he was a gentleman all the way.  What do he do to you?  
 

He was not overrated either.  He was a hard worker that laid it on the line. 

[klos1963]

5 hours ago, Pimlach said:

You hated Schoenfeld?   The guy came to our church and played guitar with our priest to support a big fundraiser.  He was kind and generous with his time while in Buffalo.   I met him three times and he was a gentleman all the way.  What do he do to you?  
 

He was not overrated either.  He was a hard worker that laid it on the line. 

The other 'Punch' said he should have traded him years before.  Once he found god, he stopped fighting and being the tough guy that made him effective.

Constantly out of position,  lived off a reputation from his first couple years.

It's great that he was nice to you and did stuff for his church, I was referring to his on ice performance, not his off ice. But you make part of my point of him being overrated, your first reaction is how nice a guy he is, which is why all the old ladies loved him back then.  But that has nothing to do with hockey.

And this is just one play, but when Kelley scored the cup winner in 1975, right off the faceoff, Schoenfeld is a center ice for some stupid reason and the front of our net is wide open , right where he should have been. Very typical of him. But people don't care, they love him anyway.

[Pimlach]

2 minutes ago, klos1963 said:

The other 'Punch' said he should have traded him years before.  Once he found god, he stopped fighting and being the tough guy that made him effective.

Constantly out of position,  lived off a reputation from his first couple years.

It's great that he was nice to you and did stuff for his church, I was referring to his on ice performance, not his off ice. But you make part of my point of him being overrated, your first reaction is how nice a guy he is, which is why all the old ladies loved him back then.  But that has nothing to do with hockey.

And this is just one play, but when Kelley scored the cup winner in 1975, right off the faceoff, Schoenfeld is a center ice for some stupid reason and the front of our net is wide open , right where he should have been. Very typical of him. But people don't care, they love him anyway.

He was a very good defenseman. He was part of the teams emergence in the early 70’s.  Played in all star games and made a second team all star (what other Sabres defenseman has)?  He was the youngest team captain in the NHL at 22.  Months 

His decision to cut down on  fighting had nothing to go with god and everything to do with his status as a father with kids who would be watching him fight on tv.  
 

He played hard. The Flyers and Islanders both had players go on record saying the Sabres needed more players  like him, not less.  He is popular because buffalo fans appreciated his effort.  
 

As for your assertion that Schoenfeld was at center ice on a face off in our zone -  blame that on the coach, or the ref.   That should never happen were you have a defensive zone face off without all the players on the ice and in position.   If that happened today Granato would be blamed. I don’t remember that and I don’t recall hearing about it until now.   
 

[klos1963]

25 minutes ago, Pimlach said:

He was a very good defenseman. He was part of the teams emergence in the early 70’s.  Played in all star games and made a second team all star (what other Sabres defenseman has)?  He was the youngest team captain in the NHL at 22.  Months 

His decision to cut down on  fighting had nothing to go with god and everything to do with his status as a father with kids who would be watching him fight on tv.  
 

He played hard. The Flyers and Islanders both had players go on record saying the Sabres needed more players  like him, not less.  He is popular because buffalo fans appreciated his effort.  
 

As for your assertion that Schoenfeld was at center ice on a face off in our zone -  blame that on the coach, or the ref.   That should never happen were you have a defensive zone face off without all the players on the ice and in position.   If that happened today Granato would be blamed. I don’t remember that and I don’t recall hearing about it until now.   
 

No, it's not on the coach or the ref(lol). It was stupid play at the worst moment. Watch the video.

https://lancasteronline.com/sports/45-years-ago-the-flyers-won-their-2nd-straight-stanley-cup-video/article_12d1a260-9f79-11ea-abeb-0b8af01066c2.html

Geez, just watched the Clement goal for the first time probably since 1975, Schoenfeld was even further out of position on that goal.

 

Edited July 14, 2023 by klos1963

[Skibum]

This one was not really important in the long run, but I thought it was significant at the time, so I'll mention it since nobody else likely will. 

When they traded Andrej Sekera, in my mind they officially kicked off the tank era. He was a Sabres 3rd round pick who they had developed for several years into a rising star on D, and he had just signed a team-friendly deal. Then they just up and unloaded him for a pick and Jamie McBain. That was when I knew they were no longer trying to ice a decent team in the near term. I also thought he was a consistently really good player, and I was sad to see him dumped. That trade kinda made me sick.

Edited July 14, 2023 by Skibum

[Curt]

1 hour ago, Pimlach said:

He was the youngest team captain in the NHL at 22.  Months 

Wow.  That’s got to be a record.

I can relate.  My daughter is 22 months and she basically runs the ship here too.

[mudberry]

Mike Ramsey. Great defenseman who never stood out but was very effective. Honorable mention: Joe Reekie. Can't remember much about his game, but loved his name

[Pimlach]

On 7/13/2023 at 7:59 PM, klos1963 said:

No, it's not on the coach or the ref(lol). It was stupid play at the worst moment. Watch the video.

https://lancasteronline.com/sports/45-years-ago-the-flyers-won-their-2nd-straight-stanley-cup-video/article_12d1a260-9f79-11ea-abeb-0b8af01066c2.html

Geez, just watched the Clement goal for the first time probably since 1975, Schoenfeld was even further out of position on that goal.

 

I looked at that replay, which is nothing like what you first described.   I can find a lot of people to blame, or I could just give Bob Kelly credit for outplaying everyone else on the ice at the time.  We will just have to disagree on his career in Buffalo.  Schoeny was a very solid D man and a fine leader, he was voted to play in All Star games because he was actually good and respected by players, coaches and hockey writers.  He gave us some memorable and classic moments in the The Aud.   

His 79-80 season, playing under Scotty Bowman, is considered by some to be his best season ever and he had ZERO fighting majors that year but still played a tough policeman role.   He finished 3rd in Norris Trophy votes (HoF'ers Larry Robinson and Borje Salming finished ahead of him) and he made the NHL second team All Star. 

The biggest knock on him to me was he was injury prone do his reckless style and his affinity to block shots (a skill he learned quickly from Tim Horton).  

He was traded by Scotty Bowman, not Punch Imlach, so whatever you think Punch said was irrelevant at the time.  Please recall that Punch was known to pull a punch or two BTW.  

Here is another view of Schoenfeld's career in Buffalo that is very different from yours.  

https://thehockeywriters.com/jim-schoenfeld-1979-80-buffalo-sabres/ 

Edited July 15, 2023 by Pimlach

[Curt]

jfc.  You know it’s the offseason when we have multiple multi-paragraph posts debating one single hockey play from 44 years ago.

[Thorner]

Mogilny, Briere*, Eichel

*Ya I know Briere was to UFA but still, this was the worst one so 

[Curt]

1 hour ago, Thorny said:

Mogilny, Briere*, Eichel

*Ya I know Briere was to UFA but still, this was the worst one so 

Briere and Drury was just gutting.