thesportsbuff

There is no formula to winning, by the way.

Pierre LeBrun ‏@Real_ESPNLeBrun2m Morrow hasn't signed the paperwork yet but he's indeed decided to waive NTC and head to PIttsburgh

But furthermore Vancouver hasn't won a cup, nor have they even won a playoff series post-fleecing of said #1 center. So idk.

Rob Rossi ‏@RobRossi_Trib1m #TribHKY >> Told B. Morrow is choosing between #Bruins and #pens. So, clearly this is developing situation.

Who we talkin' bout here?

Almost zero possibility of that happening. Even if we finish with, say, #6 or #7 -- the top 3 aren't going to trade their right to a franchise player for anything the Sabres have.

I'll take the playoff push. Team doesn't need a rebuild.

My thought process is that Stafford is paid and expected to produce like a Top 6 forward. Obviously that's not his role on the team right now, but I think any GMs trading for Stafford would be doing so in hopes that a change of scenery could get Drew back to at least ~20-25 goal production. He's really too soft and too big of a liability defensively for many teams to want him on any kind of "energy" line or the like. Based on that, an "upgrade to Stafford" has to be a Top 6 forward in my opinion. Trading Stafford for Clowe 1-for-1 would be great, but ultimately just adds another depth forward to our bottom six, where really I don't have much of a problem with. I don't expect the Flynn-Porter-Foligno line to be in tact next season, but between Leino, Foligno, Ott, Kaleta, Gerbe, & whoever else I'm forgetting, I think we have a pretty solid allotment of bottom six players. Clowe would be an expensive third liner. Just to be clear, I'm not saying we're gonna get anything better for Stafford. I know we aren't going to trade him for a 30 goal scorer straight up or anything. I just think the team's biggest need really is a second line winger, and Stafford is a piece that could be used to get that guy -- after all, just two years ago, he was that guy. Myers + Stafford (retain something like 25-30% of his salary) for Bobby Ryan! :P

Which is why I have zero interest in Clowe. We need a scoring line winger to play on the second line (or first, relegating Pommer to line 2). Next?

Those guys on Sportsnet are an embarrassment. They have it out for Kaleta so bad it's laughable as a Sabres fan. "Kaleta is such an idiot running around out there!" as the fight happens on Kaleta's first or second shift of the game. "Look at Kaleta, he won't even look at them!" as Kaleta is exchaging words with McLaren, Orr (presumably declining an invitation to fight) "Orr says, 'you're not gonna run around and take dives and sucker us into taking penalties tonight!' " as Orr is assessed a 4-min penalty and tossed from the game. What a joke, lol. Oh, Kaleta is such a dirty player and/or a ###### because Toronto wanted a line brawl and he didn't want to? The game was in our barn. Toronto wanted to fight to rile up the thousands of Leafs fans in attendance. Patty is not obligated to fight, certainly not with Colton Orr. What Orr did was far worse than anything Kaleta has done in recent history, including the Richards hit (Richards hit was very dangerous play, but he had no intent to injure.. he gave a tiny shove and Richards lost balance. Not really malicious intent imo). That was straight up assault by Orr.

That's bogus lol

Anyone know a site where we can watch the QMJHL playoffs tonight?

Or buy out Luongo this summer once they realize they can't trade him/. EJ Hradek did his "Top 5 Players To Be Bought Out" or something on NHL Network yesterday. Some interesting names came up: Luongo, Bryzgalov, Hossa (strictly for salary reasons), Brad Richards (lol), Briere. No Ville. haha

Oh, and on to Miller: Did you guys see his new comments? He said basically what we all did -- he thought the question posed to him was completely different than what Pat had actually said, and he's apologized to Kaleta about the way he responded. He also dropped a joke saying "I'm sure people in Buffalo are used to it by now knowing that I'm going to say a few stupid things over the course of a season" or something along those lines. EDIT: Oh I'm way late on this. Just saw it on NHL Network this morning and didn't realize this was from yesterday. Lol

I haven't really noticed these defensive lapses by Pommer (except for on the PP, hard to miss), but that's probably because I've been watching the last several games with drinks & company rather than being able to focus and take it all in like I usually do. But, is it possible it's the coaching philosophy? I know a lot of people consider defensive play to be the center's responsibility, and for the most part I think Hodgson has been been pretty solid in his own end. But perhaps Ron told Pommer to be more aggressive and trust that his centerman will be back defensively? Just throwing it out there. I personally feel like both 19 and 29 have been pretty good two-way players.

i thought kaleta's comments were blown way out of proportion. he just said basically the same old cliché things that other players who were healthy scratched said, he just said it with more fire. when miller was asked about the comments they made it sound like kaleta was whining about it and that he somehow thought it was his team mates fault that he didn't play. i went back and listened to what kaleta said AFTER hearing the miller comments, and it didn't even sound like they were talking about the same thing. seemed like a totally unfair question for Miller

I'm still on the trade Myers bandwagon. Not because I don't think he can get his career back on track, but because he probably still has value to some young team out there who thinks they can fix the problems in his game. In my opinion trading Myers (perhaps in a package, perhaps not) for a Top 6 forward is plausible. Probably not Corey Perry but just about anyone who isn't Drew Stafford would work for me. This is the first year in forever that we've had a set-in-stone #1 line, and they are tearing it up. There is no way I would trade Vanek OR Pommer (or Hodgson in case that needs to be said). Even for Corey Perry -- you're trading an important piece of your top line for another top line forward. It might be an "upgrade" over Pominville statistically, but our top line isn't the problem. Our top line isn't what needs to be changed. Our defense is so abysmal that trading Myers would not make them any better or worse, and if we managed to get a 20-goal scorer (again, NOT Stafford) in return it would be a step forward for our offense. I tweeted this last night: The Sabres have lost 11 games by one goal, four of them in OT. That's 18 points the Sabres have lost in one-goal games. Imagine if we had the 30-goal-scoring Drew Stafford of two years ago on the 2nd line wing. Imagine if a line besides VHP was producing consistently? If we win half of those games, we probably have a 50/50 shot at making playoffs right now, even with our atrocious defense.

He can be recalled only on emergency basis, which Darcy explained to mean that if injuries have already forced the team to make two call-ups, Grigorenko could be the third. Or perhaps it was three call-ups, and Grigorenko could be the fourth. In any event, there's a very very slim possibility of that happening, and if it did I'd almost expect Darcy to sign someone instead of making a bigger mess of the Grigorenko situation.

Could use a big uplifting win for my birthday. Get 'er done Sabres!!

Sorry, meant the Q playoffs, not memorial cup. We get so little junior coverage here I forget how the whole thing works. But my understand was that Quebec's early exit last year came as a disappointment. Maybe the expectations are not as high this year, but to be fair, I'm guessing not many other junior teams are getting a shot in the arm from a kid returning with a couple months of NHL experience & conditioning. It will be interesting to see how he performs in a kid's league now that he has hopefully been learning some things and practicing day in, day out with an NHL team. My only worry would be whether or not he can find chemistry with his new/old linemates after having not been there for so long. And hey, if they get swept in the first round, oh well, Grigorenko will be back here sooner rather than later. But if Grigorenko leads them to what, judging by your post, would be a pretty significant upset, and perhaps takes them even further, it can only be good for his confidence. Like I said, I still don't entirely agree with the move, but I can see the positives in having him play high-intensity win-or-die playoff games in juniors instead of essentially meaningless games here with Buffalo, especially given the amount of ice time he receives. It's basically a conditioning stint, or at least that's the spin I'm putting on it to hold me over.

I don't think it was abandoned. Honestly after listening to Darcy's comments, I think this was his plan all along. Keep him with the big team to learn, get some NHL experience, pick up some intricacies and hopefully some good habits from other NHLers, then return to juniors and apply what he's learned in a live, real-stakes situation. He'll get REAL ice time with skilled players, take on a leadership role, etc etc. It's probably a good idea. We assume he is supposed to dominate the junior league, but if you recall, the only reason we lucked into drafting him at #12 was because he DIDN'T dominate when it mattered most last year (allegedly due to sickness).

Could be Rochester. Darcy did say, though, he was going to Quebec for the plays and "then he'll be back" which kind of implied to me he meant Buffalo, but Rochester is certainly an option (perhaps a better one).

Well after listening to Darcy, I'm not as upset as I was. I wasn't aware that the junior season is about to be over -- I guess I just always assumed it dragged into April like the NHL season. So Grigorenko will play 1 regular season game with Quebec and then try to redeem himself for a subpar performance in last year's memorial cup. So it's not like he's going down to play meaningless regular season games with the Remparts -- it will basically be for the playoffs, then he'll be back. Edit: I still disagree with the way he was handled but I guess if you look at it more like a conditioning assignment than a "hey this guy isn't playing good let's send him down" type of knee jerk reaction move, then it isn't so bad. It sounds like Darcy had this planned all along and had little to do with roster management.

I imagine because the Flynn/Porter/Foligno line is meshing so well, which is why they didn't send him down to make room for Leino a week ago. But Sulzer being placed on long-term IR should have opened a spot, right?

LOL wow. this organization just keeps embarrassing itself. Grigorenko hasn't been great and I even posted earlier in the thread that it looks like he should have stayed in junior, but once you've committed to him being here, he should stay. especially with leino coming back-- the one chance grigo was gonna get to play with someone other than john scott or kaleta, and boom. don't worry about those 17 defensemen on your roster ripe to be traded darcy, just clear a spot by derailing the kids first professional season.