Reprinted with permission from hockeybuzz.com
Sabres beat writer Mike Harrington of the Buffalo News has been railing against a perceived be tank-job by the Buffalo organization for quite some time. Back on January 31st he penned an article, Sabres are disgusting, all right, that aptly and bluntly captured his dismay .At the time Harrington was not amused by the Sabres road to the top of the 2015 NHL Draft. He wrote of the Edmonton Oilers having "a lot of road trips" the rest of the season while the Arizona Coyotes, he wrote, "have a lot of trades to make" if they were thinking of overtaking the Sabres for last place.
Buffalo had just finished an 0-fer January and was on a franchise record 14-game losing streak. "Hockey folks are laughing at the product the Sabres have put on the ice," he wrote, "but much worse they're laughing at the organization itself and that's not how it's supposed to be going."
Sabres GM Tim Murray was sitting on his hands during this debacle leaving head coach Ted Nolan with very little on the ice and even less to say post-game save for "these are the 20 guys we have," and "we've got what we got." Harrington was so disgusted that it only took him a one paragraph lead-in before he wrote, "I think it's safe to call right now. The Buffalo Sabres are the worst team in the NHL by a lot at this point. They're going to finish 30th and get Connor McDavid or Jack Eichel.
"You may call it mission accomplished. But the mission doesn't need to be an open disgrace."
As we fast-forward just over a month later to yesterday's trade deadline, the Edmonton Oilers were still in 29th place and the Arizona Coyotes did, in fact, make a lot of trades. They did so over the course of three days as they purged three quality players from their roster for futures. Coyotes F Antoine Vermette went to Chicago on Saturday, D Keith Yandle went to the NY Rangers in a huge seven-piece deal on Sunday and F Zbynek Michalek was sent to St. Louis yesterday.
This was an outright purge of nearly all of their best players in Arizona and was coming on the heels of a current nine-game losing streak. Their objective was pretty obvious, although Matt Larkin of The Hockey News refrained from calling it a tank-job when he wrote after the Yandle trade that "Arizona is really committed to a rebuild." No mention of tanking for a top pick from the major Canadian media outlets either nor any derision thrown their way for trading away a player that's not even a pending free agent. Perhaps they used up all of their soap-box platitudes chastising the Buffalo Sabres earlier in the year.
For the last two weeks it's looked as if Arizona and Buffalo would be battling it out for 30th. Coyotes GM Don "the Desert Fox" Maloney had fired his early salvos with the Vermette and Yandle deals prior to Monday. Buffalo would fire back and at 10:45am on trade deadline day as TSN's Bob McKenzie tweeted that Montreal had acquired Buffalo forward Brian Flynn, a restricted free agent, for a 2016 fifth round pick. It didn't take long for Maloney to counter as the Michalek trade hit the wire 15 minutes later.
But that's all Maloney had left yesterday.
WGR's Kevin Sylvester and Andrew Peters said it best when they said Maloney was "dumping fuel." About the only thing left for him to do was to trade Shane Doan. But that, I'm sure, they'll save for next season as he and Sam Gagner will be pending UFA's and the 'Yotes will have their eyes set on Arizona native and 2016 phenom, Auston Matthews.
Murray was not done, though, in fact he was just getting started and had an all-out barrage ready to be released.
After a real slow two-hour time period where llamas parading through the TSN studios were the only thing of interest, Murray unleashed a Gen. Bernard Montgomery-like Operation Lightfoot by sending goalie Michal Neuvirth to the NY Islanders for backup goalie Chad Johnson and a conditional 2016 third round pick, something our very own SABRES89 broke at 1:38pm when he posted, "Neuvirth to the Islanders."
The battle of El McEichel was really on now.
Neuvirth, a pending UFA, had been the Sabres best player since Murray traded Jhonas Enroth to Dallas on February 11th. Although Neuvirth only had a 3-4-2 record in February (3-3-2 after the Enroth trade) he brought down his goals-against average from 3.39 to 2.99 and increased his save percentage from .907 to .918 during the month. Team-wise, it's safe to say that he was solely responsible for at least a win or two as well as more than a few points. Points which really weren't in the best interest of the Sabres long-term.
Earlier in the day WGR's Paul Hamilton had mentioned the Sabres' names floating around and Neuvirth's came up. Goalies are tough to move at the trade deadline with Hamilton looking at any trade involving Neuvirth as "a specialized trade."
And specialized it was.
The NY Islanders were in need of a reliable back-up for Jaroslav Halak as Johnson wasn't the answer. He was 8-8-1 for the Isles with a 3.08 gaa and a .889 sv%.
Johnathan Willis of the Edmonton Journal called Johnson "a nightmare" for the Islanders writing, "[Johnson's] record doesn’t seem bad until one realizes that the Isles are 33-13-1 when he doesn’t record the decision. He’s been a train wreck, and while he might rebound New York could have been in a very bad position if anything were to happen to starter Jaroslav Halak."
Enroth and Neuvirth were the Sabres best players on more than one occasion and helped inch the Sabres towards respectability. Both were traded within a three week span for goalies who look to be far worse, something that's not lost on Willis.
"The loss of Neuvirth to a playoff-bound team leaves Buffalo with what is without question the worst goaltending tandem in the NHL today," wrote Willis, "a duo which (not counting injury) has to be competitive for the worst tandem of the lockout era. We’ve described Johnson’s issues this year in detail. His new netminding partner Anders Lindback is even worse.
"The Sabres’ laughably bad goaltending should give the team the push it needs to finish dead last. The gap between a bad Edmonton team and a bad-and-rapidly-deteriorating Arizona squad had narrowed to three and four points, respectively. Johnson and Lindback should ensure it doesn’t get any tighter."
It was a move that laid the hammer down causing Harrington to tweet, "Hey Arizona. You call that a tank? Chad Johnson 8-8-1, 3.08, .889."
The Flynn and Neuvirth trades were rather surprising in their own right. Flynn was playing consistent two-way hockey and posted a plus-7 rating through the month of February. He had modest totals of five goals and 12 assists through 54 games but is one of those guys who do a lot of the things that go unnoticed. He's fast too. And, as mentioned, finding a "specialized trade" for a goalie like Neuvirth is rather difficult at the deadline.
Still out there waiting for word on their fates yesterday afternoon were five UFA's and Harrington noted that while Chris Stewart "remained with teammates watching TV (after practice in Tampa,) we have not seen Torrey Mitchell." Less than 15 minutes later, just before 3pm, TSN's Darren Dreger tweeted, "Mitchell from Buffalo to Montreal." The Sabres received F, Jack Nevins and a 2016 7th round pick. Of Nevins, Murray said, "We got a young guy in Nevins that I tried to sign as a free agent [out of junior] when I was in Ottawa. Is he an NHL player? I don't know the answer to that. He's a prospect. He's a competitive, tough kid who plays the game properly.
"At the end of the day, that was the best offer I had."
Although Mitchell's bottom-six role is less than glamorous, he takes a lot of pride in what he does. He's another one who has modest numbers--six goals, seven assists--but his minus-6 rating was tied for the team lead for players who've played in 50 or more games on a Sabres club with a minus-89 goal differential.
If the HockeyHotline boys thought the 'Yotes were "dumping fuel," Murray had hit the self destruct switch and was ready to eject.
Just after the 3pm deadline and with a backlog of trades still being processed by the NHL, Stewart, who'd been long-rumored to be on the move was said to be traded to the Minnesota Wild for a 2017 2nd round pick. It was the third year in a row that the Sabres and Wild pulled off a trade deadline deal--Jason Pominville (2013,) Matt Moulson (2014) and Stewart.
Michael Russo of the Star Tribune tweeted that Wild GM Chuck Fletcher "didn't want to trade his second this year, and had already traded [next year's] second for Matt Moulson." Later Russo would write of the trade that "Fletcher had been talking to one of his best friends, Buffalo Sabres General Manager Tim Murray, since the summertime about Stewart." but, Russo quoted Fletcher as saying, 'The price never seemed to fit.'
According to Russo, "Murray had shopped Stewart since acquiring him from the St. Louis Blues in last March’s blockbuster for Ryan Miller, but he wanted a hefty return from such teams as the Wild, Ottawa Senators, Boston Bruins and others. Finally, after a couple of scenarios fell through, Murray quickly called Fletcher, who [had previously] called first thing Monday morning to tell him to remember his number if the price dropped.
"Fletcher, agreed to the deal," wrote Russo, "once the Sabres agreed to pay half the $465,000 still owed to Stewart."
A second round pick for Stewart is eventually what Murray wrapped his head around as trade deadline day wore on. Of course he wanted more and maybe because of the Brayden Coburn deal he thought it would be a "seller's market" like Sportsnet's Glenn Healy said in the 8 O'clock hour. A couple hours later Brian Lawton would put those thoughts to rest as he tweeted, "Hearing Buffalo Sabres considering moving Stewart for a fourth round pick and a conditional. Market starting to dry up." That was at 10:22am.
For the rest of the day, Hamilton said of Murray concerning the trading of Stewart, "[He] basically got in a staring contest with other GM's. He felt if he played chicken that he'd win. The second round pick was what he wanted all along."
The purge of the Sabres for all intents and purposes is pretty much complete. From Paul Gaustad to Pominville to Ryan Miller to Neuvirth and Stewart and everyone in between, there's very little left to be traded. Others might get moved in a package or eventually waived, and the Sabres still have a pending UFA or two next season, but all of the heavy lifting is done and the build will commence in earnest beginning with the 2015 draft.
Kind of a relief.
The trades:
F, Brian Flynn to Montreal for a 2016 5th round pick
G, Michal Neuvirth to NY Islanders for G, Chad Johnson and a conditional 2016 3rd round pick
F, Torrey Mitchell to Montreal for F, Jack Nevins and a 2016 7th round pick
F, Chris Stewart to Minnesota for a 2017 2nd round pick.
*********
Murray beats back the press as they interrogate him over "tanking."
As much as I respect those who wish to "lose with dignity," or this year "Get Connor with honor," Murray merely did what any last place team would do at yesterday's trade deadline--get whatever he could for pending UFA's before they walk for nothing over the summer. It's been a constant theme of Murray's throughout his time as GM in Buffalo. "Even if [I get] a 5th or 6th round pick," he said recently on WGR, "it doesn't sound like much but that 5th or 6th round pick, and it's [something] that might only happen once every 11 years, but you could hit on that."
He held true to that yesterday at the trade deadline when a thin market for his rentals resulted in a 2nd rounder, 3rd (conditional,) 5th and 7th coming back to Buffalo in four separate trades with none of them being 2015 picks. At his post-deadline presser yesterday afternoon he would find himself constantly on the defensive for what transpired that morning and afternoon.
Right off the bat, the first question he fielded was a trap-question when one reporter asked "How he thought he made his team better," as if this is the first time a bottom-feeder purged UFA's. Murray responded, "We just acquired future assets. That's how we made the team better. We're in 30th place. Our time is the future and we added assets for the future."
Dissatisfied with the response, the "investigative" reporter(s) continued with "interrogation" questions concerning tanking. "Have you been told, or is it your decision to finish last in this league?" Murray was asked. "You see how you've gone. You see Arizona made moves as another team that's going in this tanking direction."
"I've never been told to finish last," was Murray's quick reply.
"Is that your decision that winning is good, that losing is winning?" continued the interrogation.
"No. I've never thought of it that way," came the somewhat agitated reply from Murray. "We're in 30th place. We've got guys who are going away at the end of the year so you can either let them finish the year here and walk for nothing or you could add something. That's been the history of sports. That's been the history of hockey, at least my history in hockey that when you are at the bottom or near the bottom you trade out guys who can help out other teams for future assets.
"That's the way I look at it."
Yet still it wasn't enough.
Granted, there wasn't a whole helluva a lot to discuss player-wise. Brian Flynn and Torrey Mitchell were depth forwards on the move while it was probably more of a relief that long-rumored Chris Stewart had finally been traded. The most intriguing move was the trade of Michal Neuvirth the return of goalie Chad Johnson. True to what he's been saying all along, though Murray would "make decisions based upon looking a little farther ahead in the future."
The interrogation continued, "You say that you're not trying to finish 30th, how has the last year-plus gone for you? What is the objective? What is the plan, the objective for his year?"
"I was brought in here last year 13 months or so ago, to a team that was in the middle of a rebuild," responded the GM. "I'm gonna continue the rebuild and try to get better. I think that's what we did with the Winnipeg trade. I've talked to teams about young goalies. I've talked to teams about young players that may be on the last year of their deal with them and nothing happened with those guys. But certainly those talks will be ongoing.
"Teams out there certainly know the young players I like and would like to acquire. You just continue to work hard every day and get that done."
And it still wasn't enough.
"How do you approach the rest of the season when Neuvirth said that he just doesn't get the idea that you would lose to try and get the first pick overall. We know what's at stake here. Moving forward, is the idea to finish 30th to improve your chances they best you can or is it to try and win games and what happens if you finish 28th?"
"If we finish 28th then that's where we'll pick," replied Murray. "I assume the players we have here will try to win every game. I assume the coaching staff will try to win every game. They've never had any interference from me from Day-1. The players have never been told by me to not win. There's never been any talk of that. The only talk of that I get is from the press.
"A good example of that, I guess, is Neuvirth was playing well and started 10 games in a row. If everybody in here, and I'm putting this on you, not me, everybody in here thinks that Neuvirth is a much better goalie than Lindback, then if we were trying to lose every game, we probably should have been playing Lindback."
Bucky Gleason of the Buffalo News and a staunch defender of integrity who's often been in anti-tank/Spanish Inquisition-mode, was miffed at the city's excitement during the day over "a trade deadline that added so little."
The Sabres organization as well as that of Arizona would soon draw his ire yesterday as events unfolded. "So when Buffalo and Arizona play each other twice," he tweeted, "will the idea be to cycle in the defensive zone and shoot on their own goalie?"
Gleason would later clarify where he stood while in a tweet-duel with the venerable Luke Russert.
"I'm not against the top pick," tweeted Gleason. "I'm for the idea that teams in pro sports should compete every day, every season. How about reality? People continue to suggest that I don't appreciate what McEichel can do. My problem is with the process, Buffalo in particular, sports in general."
And in summary Gleason would tweet after the press conference, "Murray handled himself well in presser. How long will it take to clean up? Looks like years no matter where Sabres pick. It's ugly."
It might be even uglier if the Sabres are outside the top-two in the draft this season.
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