Sabres can put to rest a major screw up with Skinner extension. Plus...

Published by hockeybuzz.com, 12-20-2018

It was the summer of 2007 and Buffalo was coming off of a President's Trophy-winning season that ended a little too soon for their liking. The Sabres lost their second consecutive Eastern Conference championship game and were headed into the off season with some big questions looming.

The NHL was finishing up their second season with the new salary cap structure and the first year was a big success with three smaller market teams in their respective conference championships. When the league came out of the '04-'05 lockout the salary-cap ceiling was $39 million and for the Sabres it was a very manageable figure. The following season it went to $44.9 million (a 15% jump)which would still afford a team like Buffalo the opportunity to compete with the larger market teams while still "breaking even," which was the organizational mantra under owner B. Thomas Golisano.

However, one could sense that individual star salaries were due for a sharp increase as evidenced by the arbitration award to Sabres center Daniel Briere of $5 million. Briere had an exceptional season with 25 goals and 33 assists in 48 games during an injury shortened season. Regardless of that, the award was still a stunner and would set team up for an imminent fail the following season.

Briere's one-year extension meant that he and co-captain Chris Drury would be unrestricted free agents at the end of the '06-'07 season. In addition, budding superstar Thomas Vanek would be a restricted free agent as well. Throughout the season there was that sinking feeling in Sabreland as the mantra would not allow for both Briere and Drury, along with Vanek, to be re-signed. As we would come to find out, team president Larry Quinn had decided upon re-signing Drury and letting Briere walk. Unfortunately for them, Drury signed a lucrative long-term deal with his boyhood idol NY Rangers while Briere, after being shunned by Buffalo, signed a lucrative, long-term deal with the Philadelphia Flyers. And to make matters worse, Vanek signed a seven-year offer-sheet with an average annual value of over $7 million.

It was a decision that would haunt them for over a decade.

Despite the Moves, the Core Remains Up-Front

Brad Boyes, Robyn Regehr, Christian Ehrhoff and Ville Lieno.

Four players who joined the Buffalo Sabres within the last five months and represent a definitive, and expensive, break from the past.

The team is markedly different from the 2007/08, post-Chris Drury/Daniel Briere edition which saw the Sabres miss the playoffs in 2008 and 2009 while getting knocked out in the first round of the 2010 and 2011 playoffs.

Or is it?

With Ryan Miller in goal, the biggest change for the Sabres was on the back-end.

Gone from that '07/8 team are top-five d-men Hank Tallinder, Toni Lydman, Brian Campbell, Jaro Spacek and Dmitri Kalinin. Also gone are Teppo Numminen and Nathan Paetsch.

They have been replaced, during this four-year process by Tyler Myers, Robyn Regehr, Jordan Leopold and Christian Ehrhoff as well as (for now, anyway) Shaone Morrisonn.

Three Sabres d-men from that '07/8 team will go from rookie/bottom-pairing/reserve roles to more prominent roles on the back-end:  (recently re-signed) Andej Sekera and Mike Weber as well as RFA Marc-Andre Gragnani.

That, my friends, constitutes a complete overhaul.

Much has been made concerning new owner Terry Pegula and his fiscal unchaining of GM Darcy Regier.

But, as of right now, the Sabres draft-picks up-front that have lead this team to mediocrity over the last four seasons--aka, the core--remain on the team.

Thomas Vanek, Derek Roy, Jason Pominville and Drew Stafford will all occupy top-six roles on the team, just like they did (or in Stafford's case, tried to do) four years ago.

Sabres draftees Paul Gaustad and Patrick Kaleta also remain on the team as well Jochen Hecht.

Gone are Maxim Afinogenov, Tim Connolly , Adam Mair, Daniel Paille and Clark MacArthur as well as Andrew Peters and Michael Ryan.

Sabres GM Darcy Regier, despite all the financial wherewithal, still seems to be enamored with his core players up-front. Because of this devotion to the core, we may need to invoke the Albert Einstein definition of insanity here--doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?

The only player from outside the organization to be brought in up-front was Lieno. He's expected to replace Connolly.

Tyler Ennis should have a spot in the top-six which means, as opposed to a 100% top-four turnover on defense, there will be a 33% top-six turnover up-front.

With the Sabres over the NHL salary-cap with two prominent RFA's--Jhonas Enroth and Gragnani--still to sign, it's possible that the team will end up being over the cap by $5M this summer. Which is OK until they need to be cap-compliant by opening day.

Something's got to give.

Ales Kotalik (also a part of that '07/8 team) and Morrisonn have a combined salary-cap hit of just over $5M.

Even if the team jettisons their cap-hit in one way or another, the team will be at the cap-ceiling with no wiggle room.

Regier will need to do something, although what that will be remains to be seen.

Forward Brad Boyes was Regier's big trade deadline acquisition this past season, and in the playoffs vs. Philadelphia, Boyes produced just like core players Roy and Connolly the year before--nothing (unless you count the meaningless goal he scored with Game-7 out of reach.)

Boyes ended up being a "core-like player," soft-but-skilled, good when it's easy a failure when it's tough.

Let's reiterate--2/3 of the top-six core up-front remains intact, despite a history of mediocrity and Darcy Regier's new-found freedom to do whatever is necessary to bring the Cup to Buffalo.

Should we expect Regier to disrupt his core this off-season?

Although based upon his track record it's not wise to hold your breath, odds are that there may be a shake-up.

We'll see.

out of character

how many times over the last 3+ seasons has the term "out of character" been used by head coach lindy ruff?...during his weekly radio appearance on wgr today, he mentioned it once again...his players have used that term throughout the past 3+ seasons as well...and so has gm darcy regier...

"out of character"...

before his players begin to play "out of character," one would think that the character of this team would need to be defined...and, according to captain craig rivet recently, the team is still "trying to find the style of play that we want to play,"...the operative word being, "still"...

this has been an ongoing problem for the sabres since january '07...the core of this team was built for the "new nhl"...the powers that be were intent upon opening up the game to make it more offensive friendly, placing a high price on speed and skill over brute force and thuggery...and it worked for a year and a half...

during that period the league was wide open and in the early part of the '06/7 season the sabres were the embodiment of the "new nhl," where "speed kills"...compared to the rest of the league the sabres were, as ny rangers forward jaromir jagr described it, "a ferrari"...but, a funny thing happened along the way...the nhl was changing once again...

"I don't think the game is being called as tight as it was," ruff said at the time. "Before, as soon as you put a stick on someone, it was a penalty, he said. "Now you're getting a free tug at times. You're getting a free paw at times...I think there's games where the whistle has been put away."

at the time, lindy ruff was being chided as a whiner, using an excuse...but the league was changing, as evidenced the cup going to anaheim with a mix of size, skill, grit and old-school attitude...the ducks that season took liberties until they found the boundaries as to what the refs would call penalty-wise, and what they were allowed was a far cry from the "hands-off/post-lockout/new nhl"...had the sabres managed to get past the ottawa senators for a birth in the finals that season, it's safe to say that they'd have been steam-rolled even worse than the sens...

the sabres are no longer a ferrari...july 1, 2007 was the end...even before that the nhl was no longer the "new-nhl," having begun to subside in january, 2007...and...

"the core" of the present buffalo sabres team, which was geared towards offense in the "new-nhl," has remained intact since..................2007

what style do they want play?...if you're a player coming into the nhl post-lockout, you were afforded the ability to use your speed and skill...if you're a team, like the buffalo sabres that was built for the "new-nhl," a "run-and-gun" approach is the preferred style...

what style can you play?...in the post "new-nhl" world, the ice is smaller, the gaps are tighter, the shooting lanes are narrower and the defense is allowed to slow you down through obstruction (although not nearly as much as the pre-lockout days)...scoring does come off the rush many times, but it seems as if goals with meaning are mostly scored by going to the net in the bloody-nose areas, especially during the playoffs...lindy ruff, during the 2010 end of season press conference said that "the ability to get, to really get inside, in the playoffs is tough. You see that in all of these series. That those types of goals are more prominent in the playoffs."...

why did the sabres top-two centers combine for zero goals vs. the boston bruins in the first round?...because it's not in their character to go inside...they are not accustomed to the beat-down in that area, not accustomed to that style of play, to the point that when they are in that area, like during a power-play, they miss opportunities...

it's not in their character...nor is it in their character to play "out of character," which would entail doing things for the team instead of themselves...the last three-season experiment has proven that, as witnessed by missing the playoffs for two seasons and the first-round exit last year...

"the core," the top-six on the sabres, are all of the same ilk, built for the "new-nhl"...still...yet, there's a different blend that's necessary up-top..."You need a blend of size," ruff said at the same press conference...and you need some grit as well...in the playoffs vs. the bruins, fourth-liner cody mccormick was brought up for that exact purpose and responded well...during this season, we've seen mccormick and third-line pest, patrick kaleta, skating with the top-six, just like former sabres-grinder adam mair did in the previous two seasons...

buffalo sabres fans know the character of gm darcy regier...they've seen it over the past 3+ seasons...he's a gm that's methodical, slow to change and will change only when he's forced to...he is patient to a fault, and has a firm belief that his "core" will grow into their roles as top-six performers and leaders...come hell or high water, this is a group that will get the franchise to the promised land...he believes that his skill players, if given the chance to use their skills unobstructed, can win as well as provide an exciting product for the fans, just like they did in '06/7...

problem is, it's not working...nor has it worked consistently over the last three-plus seasons...he doesn't have the horses and the "new-nhl" has come and gone...nostalgia is not what's needed in sabreland...

maybe it's time for darcy regier to manage "out of character" and add top-six players who's character will allow them to play in the nhl during any era...his "core" is an era-specific group built for the "new-nhl"...this group would have done little during the 70's when thuggery ruled...they would not have had the skill to run with the edmonton oilers of the 80's...would look even worse during the "trap-era" of the 90's than they do now...and they do not have the intestinal fortitude to do what's necessary in the present, post "new-nhl" era...

unfortunately regier holds firm to his belief in the status-quo and i really don't think it's in his character to manage "out of character"