Noted hockey writer Adam Proteau has very little to write about this summer. Just like the hockey world in general.
It's the dog days of summer and we're just getting off a week where fans of the big-four North American sports were relegated to MLB's Home Run Derby and All-Star Game, The ESPY's and the International League All-Star Game.
"It’s nearly August, for hockey gods’ sake." cries out Proteau. "Does anyone want to tell Sabres GM Darcy Regier and his Capitals counterpart George McPhee?"
That was the opener to his piece Sabres, Caps must stop standing pat, and Proteau proceeds to bemoan the lack of activity from two teams he says are "doing their best statue impersonations at a time in each team’s history that cries out for at least a modicum of change."
Sabres fans know that goalie Ryan Miller and winger Thomas Vanek are on the block. We also know that Regier is slow, calculated and meticulous when it come to moving pieces. We know that it takes two to tango and that there are many GM's in the league who are just like Regier when it comes to valuing their players.
Therefore, nothing is happening right now with Miller and Vanek and there's the possibility that the Sabres could enter camp with both on the roster. Which, for Proteau, constitutes a "devotion to the core [which] is more than a little curious. It’s bordering on pathological and getting closer to crossing that border with every day of transactional inactivity."
Miller and Vanek are the last two pieces of Regier's "core." And they happen to be the best two players of that underachieving group that havd not gotten past the first round of the playoffs since 2007.
"Loyalty," writes Proteau, "is admirable to a degree, but eventually that attitude turns into organizational inertia and that’s what puts teams in a competitive death spiral."
Proteau is about two years behind his "loyalty" assessment with Regier and the Sabres.
When owner Terry Pegula took over, he allowed Regier to keep his "core" intact and allowed the GM to add whatever pieces that were necessary.
They failed. And Regier's "core" is in the process of being dismantled.
Since their last playoff appearance in 2011, (Pegula's first few months as owner,) only five players who played 60 or more games for the team that year remain with the big-club: Miller, Vanek, Drew Stafford, Tyler Ennis, and Tyler Myers.
Defenseman Mike Weber, forward Patrick Kaleta and back-up goalie Jhonas Enroth, although not playing in 60 games, also played significant roles on the team.
That's a roster turnover of nearly two-thirds in the last two seasons, and of those eight players that are presently on the roster, only three are over the age of 26: Miller (33,) Vanek (29,) and Stafford (27.)
Despite Proteau's claim that the Sabres shouldn't "make a deal just to make headlines," that seems to be what he's getting at.
Proteau wants, needs, "headlines."
That's his concern.
As for us Sabres fans? We know the drill.
Regier will pull something off that no one expected at a time when no one is watching. That's how he rolls.
No cause for concern at this point.
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