News and notes

Terry Pegula bought the Buffalo Sabres from Tom Golisano for roughly $180m back in February, 2011.

Every year Forbes magazine comes out with it's NHL franchise valuations.

Last year the Buffalo Sabres franchise was #22 on Forbes list with an estimated value of  $175m or basically what the new owner had paid for them. Interesting to note that the Toronto Maple Leaves became the first NHL franchise to be valued at $1B that year. (for more info and a link to the 2012 Forbes piece, click here.)

Well, the boys and girls at Forbes are at it again and this year the Sabres came in...22nd once again.

But...

This time the estimated value of the Buffalo Sabres has grown to $250m, or a 43% year-over-year increase in valuation. (for a breakdown click here.)

Said the magazine about the Sabres, "The Sabres failure to make the playoffs for the second consecutive season did not stop owner Terrence Pegula—who bought the team in early 2011—from jacking up ticket prices. Following the 2011-12 season, the Sabres increased non-premium seat prices by 26% and instituted a 4% price hike before the 2013-14 season. To be fair, the Sabres are still in the bottom half of the NHL in average ticket price. Pegula is also financing a multimillion dollar renovation to all 80 suites at First Niagara Center."

Good for Pegula. 

The old adage is "you need to spend money to make money," and there's no question he's spent some money.

Let's hope that he takes heart to another old adage, "it's not what you spend, but how you spend it." (See Leino contract.)


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Mikail Grigorenko approaches Nolan and LaFontaine

Director of Hockey Ops Pat LaFontaine and his interim head coach Ted Nolan have been in charge for five games and the team's record is 1-4. After winning the first one against Toronto, they're back to their losing ways having scored a grand total of five goals during their four-game losing streak.

As shown above, the financial side of the organization is doing well as they've just added 43% to the team's valuation but getting the on-ice product up to snuff is a monumental task for LaFontaine having just been handed a shit sandwich.

Nolan is in charge of evaluating the players and soon the chaff will be separated from the wheat.

This process just went full gear as the team sent three youngin's to their respective leagues:  Nikita Zadorov went to his junior team while Rasmus Ristoalinen and Johan Larsson were sent to Rochester.

A fourth, Mikhail Grigorenko, was slated for a "conditioning assignment" to Rochester but the NHL rejected it.

Grigorenko is too good for junior and has had trouble adjusting to the NHL game. Unfortunately because of an agreement between the NHL and Canadian Juniors, at 19 years of age, Grigorenko is not allowed to be on an AHL team.

So he was stuck.

Grigorenko had fallen out of favor with the previous regime and had seen spotty ice-time hovering around the 10 mins/game mark. He had a two goal game in Anaheim, then played 9:33 in the Sabres SO win in Los Angeles.

When the new regime took over, he was parked on the bench, then designated for the "conditioning assignment" then found himself on the bench once again when the NHL nixed that.

Finally he'd had enough and approached LaFontaine and Nolan saying, "You never saw me play."

And he was right.

He was rewarded with a regular shift with two young players, Zemgus Girgensons and Luke Adam.

Although they haven't hit the scoresheet, Nolan likes what he's seen of Grigorenko during those two games, "So I like what I saw," said the interim coach, "and we’ll continue to evaluate.”

"Since we put him with Girgensons and Adam, they seem to be age group where they feel comfortable with one another. So I like what I saw, and we’ll continue to evaluate.”

“He’s competing. He’s trying,” Nolan said. “As long as you compete and you try, you got to like it.”

From this layman's eyes, "Grigo" seems to be improving and his confidence is growing. Although his skating needs a lot of work, one cannot deny his skill-level.


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Sabres prospects are doing quite well thus far

WGR is sporadic in it's coverage of the youngins, but Howard Simon came up with a pretty good article about a pretty good draft class--2013--that's off to a rukus start this season.

Rightfully so, Simon credits Kris Baker and sabresprospects.com when the GR jock goes "Inside the numbers" for a look into the 2013 draft class.

He points to JT Compher, a freshman at Michigan, as having a real good start to his college career:  2g, 6a in 10 games including a shorty.

Compher's compete-level is way up there and he has the skills to go along with it. He was taken 35th overall with the pick that Carolina gave up in the Andrej Sekera trade.

But there are two picks who are of to flying starts.

One of them, seventh rounder Eric Locke has eight goals and 22 points in 15 games. Locke was mentioned by Baker as someone to watch.

The other is Nicholas Baptise, picked 69th overall.

Baptiste is on a tear with 17 goals and 13 assists in 23 games.

Baker, who does a weekly prospect report for sabres.com, just did a piece on Baptiste and his drive to make Canada's World Junior team, and put together a video of all Baptiste's shifts during a tilt with Russia in the Subway Super Series.

Both Locke and Baptiste lead all the Sabres prospects in points/game (for a full list of stats, visit Baker's prospect stat page.)


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And finally...

The Sabres wore their third jersey's for the first time this season and they didn't look bad.

Brian Stubits of cbssportsline, uses "Turd" jersey to open his piece on the debut of the Sabres rather confusing jersey.

There's way too much going on with different colors on the front and back as well as an introduction of gray to the color scheme.

But one thing I did come away with was the Buffalo in the crest. With it being white, it glowed.

A little light in the midst of a pretty dark season thus far.

Welcome to the Atlantic Division, NHL schedule released. Plus RFA signings and Eric Locke

Last season as a member of the five-team Northeast Division the Buffalo Sabres finished 12th in the Eastern Conference, seven points back of the eighth-seeded NY Islanders.

For the 2013-14 season Buffalo will be a part of the newly constructed Atlantic Division featuring the Sabres four foes from the NE--Boston, Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa--two teams from the former Southeast Division, Tampa Bay and Florida as well as transplanted Western Conference powerhouse Detroit.

Last season all four division opponents made the playoffs.

If you add Detroit to the mix, their 56 points would have been enough to knock the Islanders out of the No. 8 spot.

Heading into the upcoming season, with realignment comes a new playoff format.

The top three teams in each conference are in the playoffs, while the two teams from each conference with the next best records will get in as wild cards.

Looking at last season through the lens of the new playoff format, these would be your playoff teams:
Montreal, Boston and Toronto from freshly minted Atlantic division; Pittsburgh, Washington and the NY Rangers from the new Metropolitan Division.

The two wild card teams would have been Detroit and Ottawa.

Five of the eight teams in Buffalo's division would have made the playoffs and the Sabres would have placed 14th in the conference when you factor in new Eastern Conference addition of Columbus and their 55 points.

For 2013-14, in honor of the new divisions, Buffalo heads to Detroit on October 2nd to kick off the season.

If Sabres fans thought facing division foes Montreal, Boston, Toronto and Ottawa wasn't enough, having to play Detroit four times with Buffalo in rebuild-mode is enough to for them start thinking about tanking for Sam Reinhart or Aaron Ekblad in the 2014 NHL Entry Draft.

Many will look even further down the road and dream of the 2015 Draft and phenom Connor McDavid.

It will be a tough year for one of the youngest teams in the NHL. It will be even tougher if (when?) the Sabres move their two best players, Ryan Miller and Thomas Vanek.

And to complicate things even further, there's a compressed schedule because of the NHL and it's players participating in the Olympics.

Here's a link to a schedule overview from Sabres.com.


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In other news, the Sabres signed two restricted free agents--F Brian Flynn and D Nick Crawford.

Flynn got the call last season when Vanek went down with an injury and never left. He earned himself a two-year deal.

Crawford, a 6th round pick in 2008 has played 199 games for the Sabres in the AHL, signed a one-year contract.


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The 2013 Draft has been in the books for a few weeks now and the general consensus is that the Sabres really nailed it.

It will be years before the final results are tallied but first-rounders Rasmus Ristolainen and Nikita Zadarov look to be a couple of good ones.

Further down the draft, the Sabres had quite a few picks in the bottom rounds including their final pick of the draft, 7th-rounder (#189-overall,) F Eric Locke.

There's always a heightened sense of optimism at the draft as hope reigns supreme, and Bill Hoppe of the Olean Times Herald, runs with it.

Hoppe interviews Locke's former coach Greg Gilbert for an article which embodies optimism and hope while invoking the name of a Hall-of-Fame sniper. The title of the piece:  Coach believes high-scoring Sabres prospect Eric Locke has Brett Hull-like shot.

Neither writer nor coach go as far to say that Locke will approach Hull's 844 goals, but Locke's shot does make for an interesting conversation piece. And seventh-rounders rarely make it to the NHL.

Coach Gilbert, from the Hoppe piece, on Locke and the player his shot reminds him of:

'Brett Hull, to be honest with you. I mean, Hully was special, there’s no question about it. But Eric’s got that potential. He’s got that quick release. He’s low to the ice. He goes through the shot. He scored goals for us this year from just inside the blue line over the goalie’s glove. The goalies didn’t move.'

Kris Baker of sabresprospects.com first brought Locke to our attention when he said, "Locke has speed in open ice and a nice release that sees him pick corners. The Toronto native's 97 points (44+53) [last season] more than doubled the output of his previous two years combined (46+48)."

Baker points out that it was the fifth straight year that the Sabres selected an overager (Locke is 19) with a late round pick and that the players before Locke were big, physical players.

At 5'10" and with elite skills, Locke, according to Baker, fits "the Sabres need for scoring down the wings."

Maybe Locke will be the gift from the hockey gods for the Sabres now being in one of the toughest (maybe toughest) divisions in the NHL.

Six more picks for the Sabres in Rounds 3-7, and a quick overview

The Buffalo Sabres entered the 2013 with 10 draft picks. They left with 11 prospects.

In the first two rounds, they chose five players--two defensmen in the first round and three forwards in the second round. They followed that with a third-rounder, three fifth rounders a sixth and a seventh.

The rest of the picks:

• 69th --Nicholas Baptiste, RW, 6'1" 201 lbs.
• 129th-Cal Peterson, G, 6'1" 175 lbs.
• 130th-Gustav Possler RW, 6' 0" 183 lbs.
• 143th-Anthony Florentino, RD 6'1" 227 lbs.
• 159th-Sean Malone, C 5'11" 183 lbs.
• 189th-Eric Locke, C 5'10, 183 lbs.

Kris Baker of sabresprospects.com recaps the draft succintly and for more info on the picks, click here.

Bakes was also on WGR's Howard Simon Show recapping the draft. Most of the segment was dedicated to the upper picks but he did have the chance to touch upon some of lower picks.

Defenseman Anthony Florentino topped his list of most intriguing late round prospects.

Of Florentino, Baker said, "Very underated in this draft class. Can do a little bit of everything, doesn't have too many flaws to his game, a nice kid off the ice but a mean kid on it. "

"I gotta tell ya," Baker continued sequeing to his next most intriguing prospect, "this Cal Peterson kid he is old school."

Here's how Bakes described the goalie, "He's scrappy, he's a battler, he'll poke-check. He'll stop the puck, but sometimes he'll come out and want to stop the shooter. He's very aggressive."

Baker points out that Peterson will be going to Notre Dame. He's one of five players drafted this year that will be taking the college route:  second round picks JT Compher (Michigan) and Connor Hurley, (Notre Dame); Florentino (Providence); Malone (Harvard.)

Nearly half of the Sabres draft haul this year will be headed to college and will have much longer to develop, up to four years, before they'll turn pro. Having five from one draft class really projects out well for the organization.

Via Bill Hoppe, Olean Times Herald, 'With so many picks and our contract situation, you don’t want to waste those picks because their contracts all come up at the same time,' amateur scouting director Kevin Devine explained Sunday on the Prudential Center floor after the Sabres finished picking. 'We wouldn’t be able to sign three or four of them. So that was a plan. We looked at the college route and Europeans for the new CBA, which now gives us four years for those guys over there.'

The odds for any player taken outside the top-five making it to the NHL, much less making an impact, aren't all that great. As you move down the draft it becomes slim to none.

But you never know what can happen with a particluar player. They obviously have enough skill to play, and something about them says there's a possibility. Having four years to allow for the player to develop is a nice cushion.

Having five picks like that, while also having six picks going the junior route where the projection is one to three years, really sets the team up nicely down the road.


The Sabres had themselves quite a haul at the 2013 NHL Draft.

In what's said to be the deepest draft in years they picked five players within the first 52 picks.

One (Rasmus Ristolainen) might be able to jump right to the NHL this season. Another (Nikital Zadorov) is only a year or two away.

They went with size and they went with character. And they looked to pick players with two-way game.

With 11 total picks the Sabres had the luxury of picking two hometown boys in Justin Bailey and Malone with the former being a legitimate power forward prospect.

After focusing upon centers last year they grabbed defense in the first round. Wingers were slightly predominant within positional balance:  four wingers, three centers, three defensemen, one goalie.

A post-draft wrap with GM Darcy Regier and Assistant GM/Head Amateur Scout Kevin Devine can be seen here.

Every year, teams are very happy with their draft and this year is no different for the Sabres.

An overall grade here would be a B+. They did some great things, but the only area that they didn't seem to address was top-line scoring, which they wanted in the top-four but couldn't attain.

Other than that, it'll be three or four years before we get a full take on what Devine and his merry band of scouts accomplished at the 2013 draft.

For a list of (very positive) draft grades from various media outlets provided by sabres.com click here.