FWIW Drury has a strict No-Movement-Clause so he's not going anywhere unless he pulls a Cherepanov

Malkin out vs Detroit tonight btw, pretty dissapointing as I was looking forward to the rematch. I'd be surprised if we could pull out a road win now against a desperate Detroit team, the line combos from practice are pretty ugly. I mean, Poni - Talbot - Fedotenko? Barf.

Right you are, I just checked that and thought it said NTC. Must have been looking at Redden's limited NTC...

But still, it's worth thinking about. I can envision scenarios where he would sign off on a trade. I think he has value next season, the last year of his deal, when his salary is $2m lower than his cap hit. So if a money-losing team wants to save a couple million dollars, they could move some contracts for his expiring deal. Plus he probably has value to marketing departments as "WIMCaptainAmericaLLWS" or whatever.

Or does every player in the league pull a Kaberle, and love to stick around places that he isn't wanted, instead of being able to select (within available choices) their new home. All I'm saying is, it could happen...

It could but idk how Sather moved Scott Gomez, much less is going to pawn off Drury

Mind you he's about to complete his third year of the contract... he's not UFA anytime soon

I am curiously as hell to know what would happen to the Sabres if this in fact ever happened. Buffalo gets a lot of fans that travel down from Canada as prices are cheaper and Buffalo tends to put out a good product along with having 3 teams from Canada in our division. I wonder if prices in Hamilton would be as outrageous as in Toronto and therefore Buffalo would still get a good amount of traffic looking to get reasonable prices.

They would have to do some kind of realignment if this happened also. I say put Buffalo with Montreal, Hamilton, Ottawa and Toronto as the the NE division. Think would help sustain Buffalo as they would still get all those inter-division road games here and I would think fans from those teams would travel to come cheer against Buffalo regardless of opponent.

Summer of 2011 is your chance to "pull a Gomez". Doubt anyone would touch him before then.

Meanwhile the Habs have 4 more years of "The 3 Smurfs" at $17.7m/season.

Drury's life long dream was to play for Rangers FWIW. He signed there for the same amount as Sabres offered when he left, and at the time Buffalo was coming off of 2 straight ECF losses. Though as we know Briere had left after Regier insulted him with his contract offer and Drury took offense to that.

Even though they lost Briere, Drury, Campbell over the last 2 years I look at what they have done and I am not really pissed about it so much though who knows what they would have done if they kept the unit together. No way they re-signed Vanek though, but at least we would have gotten 3 1st round picks out of that deal. Would have been interesting to say the least

Gionta and Cammalleri have been great. Gomez has a LOL salary but he's a good center so whatevs.

We'll give you Drury for Gomez, straight up

general sentiment. i'm pretty good at this, i nail i'd say 10-15% right on the nose and i'm usually in the ballpark (+/- $500k) for the other 70% or so. then 20% i miss by a lot, usually because the player signed a long-term deal.

i don't think they can get rid of him. plus his decline is kind of inexplicable - i expect a rebound next season.

they did, but that's because whitney is younger and visnovsky is not - visnovsky's possibly declining value has to concern them. if the rangers throw in a prospect instead of a draft pick, i think edmonton has to be interested, because really souray is a giant waste to them.

also they traded grebeskhov in a pretty clear cost-reducing move imo.

it's tough to find similar contracts on big money-losing teams that would come back. i thought maybe jovo, but i think phoenix probably stands as pat as possible this off-season. nashville doesn't really need defense unless grebeshkov leaves.

yeah i'm just not sure who will want girardi. i think i overestimated his contract by 500k or so (that was one estimation i forgot to change between june 2009 and now). someone who gets shut out of free agency and thinks girardi is an adequate top 4 sort of guy.

I remember that dramabomb like it was yesterday. I had no idea what the right play was then and I still don't, honestly.

Regier should have taken max time (7 days?) to match the offer sheet just to stunt the opposition's off-season planning. That's regardless of what the right play was, imo.

Briere, Campbell, Drury, and Vanek all have a cap hit >$7mil. that's insane.

and all of the contracts are terrible. this is what happens when you run super hot at even strength for a season.

The Buffalo Sabres had seven days to match the Edmonton Oilers' stunning seven-year, $50 million offer to 23-year-old restricted free agent Thomas Vanek, but the Sabres didn't even need seven minutes to match the offer. "The message is that we aren't going to become a farm team for the other NHL teams," said Buffalo general manager Darcy Regier.

lol @ "sending messages"

The Sabres, the NHL's No. 1 regular-season team in 2006-07, had already lost Chris Drury, Daniel Briere and Dainius Zubrus to free agency and couldn't afford to lose another potential superstar. As it is, most of the top free agents are already claimed, and even with Vanek still on the roster, the Sabres still need to bring in at least one more center.

Bold = why they matched

The Oilers, frustrated by their inability to attract unrestricted free agents this summer, offered Vanek $5 million in the first two seasons and $6.4 million over the last five, plus $8 million in signing bonus money over the first two seasons. That's a salary-cap hit of $7.14 million..."I think that Thomas was shocked," Steve Barlett said. "I kept telling him I was going to get him a deal, and I don't think he believed me. I don't know if I believed it myself."

Link

I was about to comment on this, but didn't want to because I'm sure we've been down this road before, and because it'll probably lead to a very long and drawn out argument, but...

Regier should have let Vanek walk. First, because he wasn't worth that kind of money. Of course this is much, much easier to say in hindsight, rather than right after his 43g/87pts/+47 season as a 23-year old. But compensation at that time was actually 4 1st round draft picks. I just thought that the chance to get 4 1st round picks from the Edmonton Oilers is too good a chance to pass up. It's like doubling the Kessel trade.

But Regier's hand was forced because he already lost off of his UFA's (probably worked out for the better, but still), so he had to worry about what kind of team he could field in 2007. The other crappy part for him, is that since the free agency period is after the Draft, the first pick he gets in compensation is the following year. So you get nothing for a full year for Vanek, then it's still just draft picks who need time to develop, most aren't ready to step in right away. Plus with most of the free agents already signed, there wasn't much of a chance for him to fill his roster with quality players.

Vanek would have helped the Oilers become a slightly better team, but how much? Would his production over Penner (who they signed after missing out on Vanek), or other replacement players, put them too much further ahead? Meanwhile the Sabres would be sitting with Edmonton's 1st rounder in 2008 (around #22, Eberle), 2009 (around #10, Paajarvi-Svensson), 2010 (likely top-3), and 2011 (likely top-10).

It might have been the right move to not match, but the person who had the most to gain by matching was actually Darcy Regier, as it would be unlikely that he'd still be employed with the club by the time the compensation bore fruit for the Sabres.

re: The Leafs/injuries

I think the Monster injuries hurt them far more than is reasonable. The team seemed hopeless skating out there in front of Toskala every night to start the year. The first game Monster goes in, and they played like a good team for the first time all year

That said, if the terrible season is what was required to acquire Phaneuf and lose Blake, then they could have gone 0-82 for all I care. With or without Kaberle, they're going to have an incredible D next year, good goaltending, and hopefully the young guys don't regress

re: Zurvan

I love it!!!

DGB

• The team's veterans are motivated by the knowledge that if they play poorly enough, Brian Burke won't hesitate to demote them to the team's AHL affiliate in Calgary.

jesus Lidstrom missed the ocean there

Fleury lookin very good early. Sick save on Filpulla

Plenty of seats available at the Joe, a.k.a. Hockeytown

Letang has horrible accuracy with his shots. About 1 of 10 is actually on net

They are saving their money for finals tickets!

There's that buzz in the air when playoff hockey is near isn't there?

Fantasy hockey is dying down into the last 3 weeks, spring and beautiful weather, last semester of school, pretty girls are everywhere think of me and I'll be there. La de da. Frolic in the sunshine.

In be4 ygos?

fyp

I keed, I keed