‘Back in early March, as the trade deadline closed in, the Sabres were urged by every observer in western New York to grab a serviceable NHL defenceman for insurance, or maybe even to usurp some of the workload of one of their less highly-regarded rearguards. Buffalo management was allegedly of the same mind. But by the dinner hour on March 9, when all the transactions had been filed and publicized, the Sabres had the same blueline corps that they’d had at breakfast.’