sabres1970

Alright let's move on...Bobby Ryan anybody? No in all seriousness it might be a tough year coming up. Not necessarily a wasted year, but we may have to rely on our younger scorers to produce more than we would like. That may be a very good thing! But if this season does happen and we can't get the kind of scoring that we need from our young second and third line guys (heck, even our veteran first line guys) it may be a long year. Or really short year, depending on the lockout, :cry:

I mean yes I am a fan of Buffalo but that also happens to be the team that offered him the sweet deal. If it were Philly, Chicago, Pittsburgh, NY, Boston, Detroit, Minnesota, Toronto, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Washington (I think you get the point by now) I'd be saying the same thing.

That's the least he can do before Sept. 15

What's the point of being so loyal to a city that could give a hoot about hockey? I get it. He's been in that particular organization for a while. But what does Phoenix offer you as a hockey player? Publicity? No. Passion for hockey? Yeah right. Money? Well yes, but that's about it. If I were a canadian like he is, I would: A. want to win a cup which he won't do there. and B. play in front of people who care about the game and YOU for at least a fraction of my career. I guess that's just me. But if I know I could be making more money to play hockey in Buffalo than in Phoenix it'd be a no brainer.

Hey everybody, I'm not not to usually start topics but I've just thought that with all this doom and gloom regarding the lockout that I'd like to be reminded why we even care so much. With that being said, why don't we all post our favorite Sabres-related traditions. They can be personal or widespread, doesn't matter. I'd just like to see some more talk about our team and focus on the brighter side of things. One of my favorite Sabres-related traditions would have to be the December 26th home game they seem to play almost every year (often times against the caps). I'm an out of towner so I'm used to watching Sabres games at home in my man cave often times by myself. But at Christmas time I always head up to see all my family that has stayed in Buffalo (which is a lot of them, we have a pretty big family as I'm sure a lot of you do) and we have a Christmas party the night of the 26th annually. Unfortunately that means I cannot attend the game in person, but I find it almost equally as good being able to watch with all my relatives who also share in my passion for the Sabres. I have others for sure, but I'd like to hear some of yours. I'm sure you can do better than me. So if you wouldn't mind easing the pain of a potential lockout and sharing your traditions it would be great appreciated! LETS GO BUFFALO

Looks awesome but it would pain me to buy the game if the NHL is locked out.

Sweet 5 on HNIC, love it when we're on there.

Darn I was hoping that maybe we'd wear the old Pepsi cap Bisons jerseys, or at least a variation of it.

Here's something awesome, the dominator is going to be in NHL13

I'd rather over pay and gamble on a guy in accordance to a 'win now' mentality rather than sitting on our hands and going into this season hoping we can beat up every team we play on our way to the playoffs. Being tough helps, definitely (that's what we needed last year). However it takes much more than that. Doan is attractive to us for several reasons. A. hes a center. B. He may not rack in the points like he used to, but he can still fill in one of the two top center spots and allow us to improve our top 9 forwards. C. It may be a lot of money for an older player, but he's actually been able to stay healthy almost his whole career. In the last five seasons, he's played 80, 82, 82, 72, 79 games respectively. D. The guy's a leader who's also desperate for a final shot at the cup. With him around for a couple years, we can set a positive atmosphere behind guys like him, Pommer, Ott and Regher.

I mean maybe this one is cliche at this point but being that I'm a younger Sabre fan I loved this one

I guess I tend to associate snipers with being better skaters than guys who score the way Vanek does. But I guess that is a good thing that they play different styles of game, they would fit well together on the same line if we could ever get the deal done.

Yeah that's true. I mean if it were like Vanek and a first or a second for Ryan straight up I'd do it. I think a draft pick is pretty expendable for us since we haven't dealt many picks in the last few years. But stylistically they are two very similar players. Ryan is much younger and a better skater but the difference isn't very significant.

I don't understand why we'd give up Vanek in exchange for Ryan if it meant we would also have to give up a prospect. Both are capable of scoring 30+ goals. I thought the idea was to make our offense significantly better not slightly better. Having Vanek and Ryan together would do that.

Now how does this effect Ryan's status? Yes, I know that Bob Murray is laughing at Howson right now as much as we are. However, maybe this shows him that now more than ever teams aren't as willing to deal big named prospects in exchange for proven veterans. I'm willing to bet that the Ducks will get more for Ryan than the Jackets got for Nash, but maybe this deal either speeds up the process or changes Murray's perception of the trade market from here on out.

IMO (unless there's someone else on the block we don't know about), Darcy has to land Ryan or Doan. I may be pointing out the obvious, but there's no way this team will be able to score like division contenders without some type of offensive injection into the lineup.I Love Vanek, I love Enzo, I respect Pommer, and I'm excited about Foligno but those guys alone won't cut it.

Howson has to be the worst general manager in all of sports. I thought Tom Donahoe was bad, but my gosh. He has accomplish literally NOTHING in five years there.

That's a steal. Okay Dubinsky is a well rounded guy but other than that Howson gets taken to the woodshed once again.

If we were to sign Doan, I'd assume CoHo would change his number.

Rumor has it that Lupul may get drawn into a deal for Luongo. Gotta be honest, he's one of the few Leafs I truly don't enjoy playing against.

This guy is wrong a lot. Wrong on the Parise and Sutter deals. Right when the news broke he sent out a tweet saying "Oh, Minnesota is in on both of them now!" just to make it sound like he actually knew what was going on.

Good, that probably means they're confident that they'll land Nash or Ryan.

It's all unclear at this point. But I feel as though if in the heat of the moment the Ducks said Enzo or nothing, I think Darcy does it.

Ennis is gone if Ryan is the man we're targeting. I love Enzo, but Anaheim needs a number two center. WGR just discussed it and i couldn't agree more. Would it be worth it? I would say yes but it would hurt.

C'mon that list cannot be definite. He probably compiled a list of teams he'd like to be moved as opposed to teams he only wants to go to. Fire up the Pegula jet, I think we can convince him that Buffalo is the place to be.