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Gogulla going back to Europe


tom webster

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They've pretty clearly moved away from these kind of players in recent years. I'd love to see league-wide stats to see just how widespread it is.

 

 

Its amazing how sometimes we get lost in our world and don't realize its a league problem, not a Sabre problem. I just found out that the Leafs lost two prospects to fax machine faux pas's a few years ago. I thought Zigomanis was the only one.

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This is exactly what I fear will happen with Enroth if he has to play another entire season in Portland and why I want to see him as the Sabres backup next season. If he shits the bed as a backup, then let him go back overseas, but at least he would have had a shot.

 

I hope the Sabres stay away from all Euros in the first 3 or 4 rounds of all future drafts. After that point in the draft, if they want to take a flyer on a player from overseas, knock yourself out.

 

This is another 2nd round pick pissed away to go along with the ones used up on failed rental players.

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Its amazing how sometimes we get lost in our world and don't realize its a league problem, not a Sabre problem. I just found out that the Leafs lost two prospects to fax machine faux pas's a few years ago. I thought Zigomanis was the only one.

 

It really makes you wonder why they're still using fax machines.

 

This is exactly what I fear will happen with Enroth if he has to play another entire season in Portland and why I want to see him as the Sabres backup next season. If he shits the bed as a backup, then let him go back overseas, but at least he would have had a shot.

 

I hope the Sabres stay away from all Euros in the first 3 or 4 rounds of all future drafts. After that point in the draft, if they want to take a flyer on a player from overseas, knock yourself out.

 

Has anything ever been said about whether or not Enroth is comfortable over here? The whole Gogulla was pretty well document, with him being reluctant to come over here right from the start.

 

I'd say you're going to be pretty safe with your hope there. They've already moved away from it. Still, I wouldn't automatically rule all of them out. There are a lot of european players that have been playing in North America for years already that should probably have a much easier adjustment period. Vanek's the perfect example. Of course, Zagrapan was one of those guys too, but he would still be over here if he had actually developed as a hockey player.

 

 

Looking back, even with that being the Crosby draft, that 2005 class as a whole looks pretty unspectacular. There's the real keepers like Ryan, Johnson, Kopitar, Rask, and Stastny, but wow does it fall off quickly. All Buffalo has to show from it is Gerbe, Butler, Gragnani, and Generous (and that list is about to shrink).

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Its amazing how sometimes we get lost in our world and don't realize its a league problem, not a Sabre problem. I just found out that the Leafs lost two prospects to fax machine faux pas's a few years ago. I thought Zigomanis was the only one.

Does that GM still have his job?

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Has anything ever been said about whether or not Enroth is comfortable over here?

Just a hunch on my part. Young Euro gets buried in the minors(3 or more years), trying to adapt to a different culture...decides to just go back home. I don't know what the percentages are of Euro players who fall into this category. I'm just hoping Enroth doesn't meet the criteria.

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Just a hunch on my part. Young Euro gets buried in the minors(3 or more years), trying to adapt to a different culture...decides to just go back home. I don't know what the percentages are of Euro players who fall into this category. I'm just hoping Enroth doesn't meet the criteria.

 

I have absolutely zero stats to back this up, but it seems like the Swedes stick around a bit more than other europeans, specifically the eastern europeans. I definitely don't want to bunch all the euros into one group. Anyway, I'd be curious to see if the presence of other Swedes in the system might have an impact on a player who might be making that consideration.

 

You know, the more I look around, I feel like we're kind of in uncharted territory with him. He's one of the first group of european goalies that have fallen into the category of needing to be signed in two years or else the team would have lost his rights. There were 3 taken in 2005, Rask, Andrej Pavelec (Czech) of Atlanta, and a late 5th round guy I've never heard of. Then 6-7 were taken in 2006 along with Enroth, including Varlamov (Russian) and Neuvrith (Czech) in Washington. Rask and Pavelec both moved up to starter status at the end of their third seasons. I'm not entirely sure what to make of Varlamov, but he and Neuvrith will probably be fighting it out for the top two spots there, unless the try to bring in a new veteran presence.

 

So there really isn't a good comparison for a guy in similar shoes. None of these other goalies had a true franchise guy in front of them. Sure, Rask had Thomas in front of him, but he was 35 at the start of the season and clearly didn't have much time left.

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