40th anniversary/all-time sabres team--defense and goal

players like perreault, martin, robert, lafontaine and even ramsay, gare and andreychuk were pretty much given's on their respective lines because of the distinct contributions they made to sabres history...that group boasts six captains and two in the hockey hall of fame...

the defense, on the other hand, is a bit tougher to tackle:

jim schoenfeld/mike ramsey
during the mid-seventies "slapshot" nhl, schoenfeld had to deal with the likes of the big, bad bruins featuring carol vadnais, wayne cashman and terry o'reilly as well as the broadstreet bullies featuring fly-boys dave schultz, bob kelly and don saleski...he had that monumental task while blocking shots, clearing the front of the net and defending his 1971 folksie music release, schony...

mike ramsey may be the most underrated sabre of all-time...an integral part of the u.s.a.'s 1980 "miracle" team, he relished his role as a top-notch defensive-defenseman in both the olympics and the pros...and boy could he block shots, completely giving up his body shift-in, shift-out...he was a four-time all-star and was selected for the '87 rendez-vous team vs. the soviet union

phil housley/bill hajt
simply put, pure-offense and pure defense...people do remember housley's offensive prowess, as well as his defensive short-comings, but i think alot of people don't remember bill hajt...he was an unheralded defensive-defenseman who's +/- (321) was more than the points he scored (244)...absolutely rock-solid in his own end vs. some of the greatest teams in the history of the nhl including the habs and isles dynasties

jay mckee/jerry korab
the back-bone of the '99 eastern conference champs and the '06 eastern conference finalist teams, mckee was a solid, crease-clearing, shot-blocking machine...his early years forgotten, mckee is more well known for the staph infection before the game-seven ecf loss to the 'canes and his subsequent departure for a 4yr./$16m contract with the st. louis blues that off-season...
it was a tough choice between korab and brian campbell for the 6th slot on d, but in the end it's hard to top a knick-name like "king kong," who was a behemoth on the back-end...korab fought as well, had a hard, heavy shot from the point and produced a significant amount of offense for the brute he was

honorable mention:  brian campbell


the sabres have had many excellent-to-great goaltenders on their teams from aged vets like roger "the dodger" crozier and grant fuhr to young studs like tom barrasso to journeymen like marty biron...
all of them, and nearly every nhl goaltender in the history of the league, take a back seat to:

dominik hasek
in what might be heralded as the most lop-sided trade in hockey history, the chicago blackhawks traded "the dominator" to the buffalo sabres for stephane beauregard and a pick (eric daze)...an immediate hall-of-famer when he officially retires, hasek will go down as one of the greatest (arguably the greatest) goaltenders in the history of the nhl...
don edwards
the number of potential back-ups is great...adding to the aforementioned, you have the likes of gerry desjardins, al smith and bob sauve, but don edwards, to me, had the longevity as well as the vezina (shared with sauve)...for some reason he always seemed to come up big versus top teams

honorable mention: ryan miller

40th anniversary/all-time sabres team--forwards

the buffalo sabres 40th anniversary season will soon be upon us...no better way to start a new blogspot than to look back through the years and come up with the all-time buffalo sabres team beginning with the forwards:




first line: rick martin, gil perreault, alexander mogilny
what more can be said about the "original sabre" perreault and the pure goal-scorer, martin, two-thirds of "the french connection" which inflicted nightly damage through dizzying speed...it would've been pretty easy to add the third member, rene robert, here and a case can be made...alexander mogilny, though, had more speed, more quickness and a more lethal shot...his 76 goals in the 92/3 season was just sick and he continued to put the puck into the net well into his career
 
second line:  dave andreychuk, pat lafontaine, rene robert
lafontaine still holds sabres records for points (148) and assists (95) in one season, but his career is somewhat tragic, being cut a little short because of concussions...probably one of the greatest players to never win a cup having appeared in only one stanley cup final (his rookie season)...andreychuk took the "phil esposito approach" to goal-scoring consistency by parking his big frame in front of the net...a consistent game produced consistently strong numbers...that coupled with his longevity finally got him to the holy grail as captain of the cup-champion lightning... as for robert?...he was a point-per-game player for the sabres, the work-horse for the french connection and has his #14 hanging from the rafters at hsbc...not bad for an undrafted free agent
 
third line:  craig ramsay, don luce, danny gare
luce and ramsay, quite possibly, were the best shut-down tandem in the league...although the likes of jim lorenz and ric seiling joined them on the checking line, it was luce and ramsay who were out there in every crucial defensive situation...were i sticking strictly to a "checking line," ric seiling might be here...but you cannot discount the contributions of danny gare...people remember him for his scoring prowess (two 50-goal seasons,) but he was also a standout two-way player (career +190, scored 50 goals on a "checking-line" with luce and ramsay) as well as a firecracker who never thought twice about jumping out of the penalty-box to defend his teammates...a truly special player
 
fourth line:  vaclav varada, micheal peca, rob ray
kris baker of sabresprospects.com had enforcer rob ray as one of the faces of buffalo's "mount puckmore" in the piece he wrote for hockeyindependent...and i think it's a very solid choice...fan favorite peca could check (selke award winner) and could score and also was a real pest to play against...vaclav varada was one of my favorite sabres of that era...he was a pest that could put the puck in the net (five goals in the '99 stanley cup playoffs)...for me, this is a truly personal choice as many others could be slotted as the #12 forward...in one of the classiest moves by this regime, he was shipped to a contender (ottawa, no-less) so that he could compete for the cup...that's how much he was respected
 
honorable mentions:  ric seiling, tony mckegney