They also think every FA wants to go there and they think Burke is the second coming of Jesus.

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"Counting all the assholes in the room, I'm definitely not alone!" ~ Michael Poulsen, Volbeat, Still Standing.

He's not? Damn, have to send back this W.W.B.D.? bracelet.

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NO RETURNS! MUHAHAHAHAHAA!!!

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"Counting all the assholes in the room, I'm definitely not alone!" ~ Michael Poulsen, Volbeat, Still Standing.

Stand there and pout with him when Tyler Seguin has a 40 goal season in 3 years

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"She's like plan C after an 18 pack"

Squanto 7/27/2010

I for one love love LOVE this move. I have been a huge fan of Rob. He is a hardnose player. Tons of experience and is a good guy. Just get a goal scorer now and I will be happy as hell with this offseason. Nice moves so far Darcy didnt mean to give up hope on this offseason

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The Board Drunk.

I always liked Rob (the other one) Neidermayer...It takes some slack off of Mike Grier to be the veteran leader and hopefully will light some fire under Connolly and Roy.

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"...they came down into the stands and asked if I knew how to do play by play. I said...No. But. I'll take a shot at it if you want".- Rick Jeanneret

At a minimum, it streamlines the team as we have 1 player taking the place of 2 players ... Mair and Ellis.

I still think we are going to make 1 more move this offseason. We either sign a D like McKee or Corvo, or trade for D-man.

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If your having goal problems, I feel bad for ya son....we got 99 problems but Vanek ain't one!

Corvo's off the board...I agree about reacquiring McKee.

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"...they came down into the stands and asked if I knew how to do play by play. I said...No. But. I'll take a shot at it if you want".- Rick Jeanneret

I like it.

Get Zherdev, and I'll be ecstatic.

I wanted a defenseman and a center signed this offseason, and Regier got both. No complaints here.

I don't ever expect any GM here to acquire an acknowledged superstar in the league; nobody wants to play here, much less the best players in the NHL. We're second only to Edmonton in that regard. The Sabres will always have to rely on their own draft picks to carry the team. As long as the players acquired are decent, I can't complain.

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Miles to go before I sleep

‎"Love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation."
-Khalil Gibran

I can't agree that we're not an attractive franchise to play for simply because of the city area. Buffalo is a nice place and you can find plenty of players who will continue to tell you that. Our franchise can't be unattractive to players as we continue to make the playoffs for the most part and are pretty competitive

Has anyone attributed the high NY taxes as a reason why some players don't come here? It actually makes the most sense. This was brought up by Howard Simon yesterday as a reason why many players don't come here. Sure, the first argument that may come up is that well the Rangers sign everybody. The Rangers also overpay everyone, also. Look at the Boogard signing. The guy is getting $1.65 million a year to match his career high point total of SIX in 2005-06, and since then, he hasn't scored a goal, nor gotten close to six points. The Islanders rarely get players to sign with them, just second-or-third-tier guys.

To think about it outside of New York's perspective, the Californian teams rarely sign anyone prolific, either. Name one player that the Sharks have signed outside of their organization this year, or last year even. The Ducks haven't really signed anybody either. The Kings signed Rob Scuderi, but grossly overpaid him last year to make sure he came.

Californian taxes are sky high, so it would make sense that players don't want to play there, either.

The way I see it it, there's players who don't want to sign with teams simply because they have no direction, or there's players who don't want to sign with a team due to cost of living, unless that team is willing to overpay the player for compensation (Jordan Leopold, anyone?). The Sabres, in my opinion, fall into the ones with the living expense issue, that being taxes. They draft well and consistently are competitive.

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Girgensons for captain. Team Keep Nick DesLauriers forever.

@TJLuckman550

The taxes issue has been brought up in the past, but I don't think it's that much of an issue. At those salary levels, there are plenty of tax loopholes out there that bring their tax burden down to minimal levels. Why do you think so many athletes have 'charitable foundations'?

Rob Niedermayer did....he had options.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

It's enough of an issue that the friggin owner moved away.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

Fair point, although he did that partially to make some political points too.

Bit of a difference between a billionaire and an athlete making a couple million though.

Not to go off the hockey-topic, but Ralph Wilson also does not live in Buffalo.

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Girgensons for captain. Team Keep Nick DesLauriers forever.

@TJLuckman550

I cant remember the exact dollar amounts, but I bet you that the guy that is president at the local HSBC bank, and Thomas Vanek are actually in the same tax bracket.

And I bet you Thomas Vanek spends enough every year that he doesn't pay a whole lot of extra in luxury tax either.

Thats how fucked up the tax code is, a guy that makes 250K and 7M, depending on what they buy, can pay about the same in income tax.

God Bless the USA

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"She's like plan C after an 18 pack"

Squanto 7/27/2010

Even if they weren't, Vanek makes enough money where taxes are negligible for him.

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Girgensons for captain. Team Keep Nick DesLauriers forever.

@TJLuckman550

Not really...at the federal level, the cut-off for the top tax bracket is $373,650 and up.
The top tax bracket in NY is only $20,001 and up.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

Ralph Wilson never lived in Buffalo, even before the taxes got stupid.