etiennep99

The kid needs some time in the AHL. It's too bad that they can't send him there. But look at Huberdeau. He got sent back down to the Q, and it doesn't seem to have harmed him. Grigo just hasn't shown enough to make it worth giving him a valuable roster spot. There's more to being a hockey player than just pure skill. There's maturity. There's learning how to cook and do your own laundry (stuff that a certain NHL'er when playing in Europe proved to be too difficult to handle.) Besides, he's supposedly only 18 years old (judging by his looks, I can understand how that 20 y.o. rumour got started at the draft), living in 2 foreign countries, half a planet away from his family and birth home. It didn't hurt Gilbert Perreault one bit to have to wait until he was almost 20 to leave the LMJHQ. Having an 18 y.o. rookie just causes too many line-up problems with Lindy having to juggle the lines even more for PP and PK times. I'd rather have Kevin Porter as the 3rd line centre. Or better yet, get a great 3rd line centre, and have Porter be the 4th line centre. Just my two cents.

Harold Ballard. He single-handedly destroyed the Toronto Maple Leafs. "Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety." Pegula being interested is good. Pegula being too hands-on is bad, IMHO.

Trade deadline, trade schmedline. I think that we need to trade Leopold NOW. Fact: we have too man defensemen, NOW. We need to trade one or two of them NOW, before the waivers on Thursday. If we wait until the trade deadline, the odds are that Buffalo will still be in the hunt, and then they'll be loathe to part with any of their core players. As I said before, then he'll probably walk away for free Why? Because he deserves a raise, at least compared to other typical d-man contracts. And because, next year, the salary cap goes down; there will be less wiggle room for us to keep him. Keeping him is a 2013 gamble that will hurt us in the long run. I don't see the Sabres as being serious challengers yet. Just look at TSN's recent top 50 current hockey players; we don't have a single one of them. Recent Stanley Cup longshots like LA, Carolina; they have players on the list. When was the last time that a team won the Stanley Cup without any superstar players? The Sabres can win it all? Anyone? Anyone? [bueller? Bueller?] Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980? Anyone? Something-d-o-o economics. "Voodoo" economics.

Yeah, and when I clicked on delete, nada happened. Software problems?

delete

I was listening to an Don Cherry interview today. He was talking about his Rochester days. In Cherry's opinion, back then, as Toronto's farm club, they were so stacked that they were better than some NHL teams. He said that they they used to have standing-room-only games all the time. They were the creme-de-la-creme. That's what Sabres University should be about. OK. I'll shut up for now and go back into hiding. :-)

OK. I could be quite wrong. I just see Darcy doing the good old boy, gentlemanly thing, and letting Leopold and Adam walk away at the end of the season, getting NOTHING in return. That's what I fear. I see the Amerks falling into a spiral if they don't get help. It's not good for player development to be on a really bad team. That affects the Sabres in the long run. Take Cody Ceci, for example. He just got traded to Catenacci's team; the Ottawa Senators were pushing for such a move and hope that it would give them a chance to see Ceci in some play-off games this year. People keep on saying, "The Amerks can just go out and sign some people." OK. Why don't they? Because Darcy and Ruff over-value their own prospects. Because history shows that when there are man-power shortages, they sign some nobodies to amateur try-outs who rarely do much (Rankin being an exception.) I guess the Amerks bias is coming from having no NHL this year yet.

Why? Because we could lose Leopold for less. Because Adam is not in Buffalo's future. Because Frattin is a RW prospect, and we could use another RW prospect, especially with Tropp out indefinitely. Frattin likely has a higher upside than Flynn. Because D'Amigo is a LW prospect who is at least a solid player in the AHL. He's 21, so there's still chance for more development. Who does Rochester have playing on the LW? Centres like Girgensons and Roy. Foligno's promotion leaves a huge hole on the left wing. After Foligno, none of our prospects are natural left wingers. Because I think that Colburne is more dud than stud. Because there are doubts about Kadri. I was initially thinking a 6th rounder, but as I said, I'm not sure that Toronto would move otherwise, especially with their recent statements regarding patience in waiting for Burke's building blocks to pan out.

It seems to me that Buffalo needs to trade away a D-man, and Rochester needs a veteran D-man. Buffalo and Rochester BOTH need more depth. How 'bout: Leopold + Adam + 2nd to Toronto for Kostka + Frattin + D'Amigo. Reasoning: Leopold at $3M is cheap for such a solid d-man, but we just have too many d-men. Adam is kinda like MacArthur, I think that you could sell Toronto as the place which would bring out the best in an ex-Sabre (Think Andreychuck). (shh, don't mention the name Connelly). 2nd rounder: You gotta sweeten the pot for TO. They think that these guys are prospects. But, you CANNOT throw in a 1st rounder in the new CBA era because if you win the Draft Lottery, it's #1 overall! Kostka at age 26 is having a career year, but is he really NHL quality? Leopold is the better player by a landslide. And everyone knows that TO could use another quality veteran d-man. Frattin hasn't exactly set the world on fire, and the Leafs have a several other great RW prospects (Tyler Biggs & Carter Ashton). D'Amigo is an Amerks killer but maybe not as likely to make it to the NHL (6.5 ranking on HockeysFuture). Toronto's AHL club is loaded and can easily part with D'Amigo. Heck, didn't they sit many of their "stars" even for the play-offs last year because they were so loaded? The Amerks NEED some more solid players who could be depth 3rd/4th liner fill-ins in Buffalo. I'd even throw-in a guy like Sundher, who like Frattin has 7.0 HF ranking), to get this deal done. That's my arm-chair GM play for the day.

This is a great video. BUT, I find it really annoying that they can't find better clips of Perreault. In some of these clips, he's even missing the net with his shots. Sure, they show his skating and stick-handling ability. But, it's almost as if the film makers were too lazy to dig through films, or worse yet, they had a bias against the man. Myself, I only saw him play for the last couple of years of his career, but even then he was still turning defencemen inside out. There HAVE to be some more untapped highlight films out there.

Auf Deutsch....It's too bad for me (most of us) that Ennis and Ehrhoff are going to play in German speaking regions. My German is really bad. Why can't they play for the Suisse Romande teams where one speaks French? Oh well. I'll still try to follow the SCL Tigers because Ennis is my favorite Sabre Tiger right now. I'll be following The Amerks, Tyler Ennis in CH, Grigorenko in the Q, and Logan Nelson in the WHL (Just to cheer for the underdog.)

Bobby Butler to Amerks? Anyone think that this would be a good depth signing? He had good numbers in the AHL before.

By my count, that puts the Sabres at 50 contracts assuming that Ennis & Kaleta resign and Grigorenko is signed. But, they also tendered offers to Shiestel, Biega, Persson, Szczechura, although the latter two signed to play in Europe. Can the Sabres now turn around and take any of those offers off the table? Can you go over the 50 limit temporarily such as during the off-season? You gotta figure that there is a trade or two in the works (to unload d-men...etc.)

So is that a yea or a nay on Varone? I think that you're saying that they will sign him, but he will will disappoint.

If the Sabres are at 49 contracts and just traded for a centre, then I guess that means that they have little interest in signing Phil Varone, eh? A rookie, Varone is now leading Rochester in scoring. He's 13th in scoring for rookies in the AHL, with Foligno only 3 points behind him. I suppose Kassian was Buffalo's best hope for yet another AHL rookie of the year. It looks like that streak is likely to end at three (Gerbe, Ennis, Adam).