Sabres to send three down to Rochester

Buffalo Sabres interim coach Ted Nolan had mentioned yesterday that the team would be making some moves.

According to WGR, and their weekly interview with Nolan, three youngsters will be headed to Rochester today:  defensemen Mark Pysyk, Brayden McNabb and forward Luke Adam.

Of the three, the most surprising was Pysyk. The young defenseman had been playing extremely well whether it was on the top-pairing with Christian Ehrhoff or on the bottom with Mike Weber, as well as all points in between.

Nolan had said in the interview that when it comes to Pysyk, "it's not about playing well right now with this team. It's about playing well on a good team."

The interim coach who's main task right now seems to be player evaluation more than anything else laid out the team's approach to youngsters going forward, "Where we're going with the organization, it's not a three week fix, it's not a month fix, it's about putting kids in a position of success" said Nolan.

He also mentioned that for Pysyk it won't be long-term, unlike McNabb and Adam "who," he said "could be a little bit longer-term development."

It should be noted that the Rochester Americans will be competing in the Spengler Cup.

The Spengler Cup is an annual hockey tournament in Switzerland that has been held since 1923.

For those who may be history buffs, according to its Wikipage, "It was originally devised by Dr. Carl Spengler as a means to promote teams from German-speaking Europe," who might have suffered ostracism in the aftermath of World War I."

The Amerks will be competing in the six-team tournament for the first time since 1996 when they came in third behind the host team, HC Davos and Team Canada.

Interesting to note, as pointed out by the Spengler Cup Rochester page, that same year the Amerks went on to win the Calder Cup.

For Pysyk, it's a grand opportunity to step away from a struggling team and join a pretty good Amerks squad.

He's a smart kid, pretty sure he's looking at this as a reward.




Edit:
Special thanks goes out to the dude who called WGR alerting us listeners to the Spengler Cup.

Nolan mentioned that Pysyk will be back with the Sabres after the tournament in Switzerland is over.