I really can't wait to read the book, "A Tale of Two Tylers: The beginning of the Sabres dynasty!"

It was the best of defensemen, it was the best of forwards.
It was the age of the penalty kill, it was the age of the powerplay.
It was the epoch of shotblocking, it was the epoch of sniping.
It was the season of bonecrushing checks, it was the season of mind blowing dekes.
It was the winter of the opposition's despair, it was the spring of our joy.
We put nothing before them, we took everything from them.
We were going directly to the post season, they were going the other way.

Had to do it.

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That was Pulitzer worthy ...excuse me while I dry my eyes

Dickens would be proud (and I heard he was a Sabres fan)

Everyone seems to be doing the keep/sell routine, but it has to make sense which guys you keep/deal.

Ennis-?-Vanek; ?=Marleau as a F/A, or a grittier guy as a trade(for Connolly?)?
?-Roy-Pominville; ?=No idea actually. Needs grit. Sign big Bert for 1 yr???
Kennedy-Goose-Hecht; Hecht learns RW
Kaleta-McCormick-Grier; Re-sign Grier

Gerbe extra top 6 forward. Ellis bottom 6 extra. Adam gets a few shots during the year.

Myers-Tallinder; Hank impressed me. Playing alongside Tyler made him good.
-/- ; Plenty of good F/A defensemen out there. Any suggestions(Corvo-Morris)?
Rivet/Sekera; Rivet learns to be a pivot guy. Andre continues to grow.

Weber 7th d-man. He needs to learn to focus. Fundamentals are done.
Butler 8th d-man. If he earns a spot, he can have it. Uphill battle.

I know this may not be possible, but I wished our management dreamed like us. Rather than sign a F/A, they will play a guy they developed, so they don't feel like they wasting money developing him. That's how we got stuck with so many of these guys.

Gone:

Connolly
Mair
Stafford
Torres(haha j/k what a waste)
Montador(maybe somewhat unpopular)
Lydman(probably very unpopular)
Lalime

There will be a few goalies asking for trades because of playing time last year if we can't find one in F/A. Anything is better than Lalime(well maybe not, but it's a low risk gamble). Hopefully Miller can get over the man love for him.

Edit: Free agency strategy: The talent pool is deep at defense, so not all of them will get top dollar(and they know this). Offer 2(or 3) guys a decent amount(not top dollar, but more than fair), and let them know you have other offers out, so making an agreement is imminent. The patient(Darcy) strategy allows them forever to obtain offers, which always puts us out of the bidding. If Hank will come back for $3.5-4 million, then do that.

I fully agree with this. This team needs a couple of first line players in the worst possible way but here's the problem. Regier hasn't made any great trades in the last couple of years that bring us those players and always tells us about how we build thru the draft. This team finishes too high to get a impact player and then he trades our two 2nd round picks for rentals that haven't done a damn thing to help this team. He needs to bundle some players and some picks to move up into the top 5 or 10.
Here is my issue the Sabres hardly have any good forwards that are in the system besides Adam and Kassian. This team needs to start stockpiling some forwards. I hope this team doesn't take a step back because I have a feeling if we lose Tallinder and Lydman it will be a toss up if the defense is better with Weber or Butler in their spots. It should be a real interesting off season to see what that knuckle head Regier does.



First off Stafford's trade value I would suspect is at an all time low and probably won't fetch you much and Connolly I don't think will get much either. This team just can't afford to give up players and get hardly anything back for them. At least not when Regier is running the team. That's why I think Regier is too conservative and can't and won't be willing to take chances in order to better this team in the long run. The last couple of years he's given up 2nd round picks for rentals that didn't pan out at all and was ripped off on both deals for Torres and Moore.

I don't know if I would want any of those players list above. I like Stempniak and Lombardi but both will probably be more money than Buffalo wants to pay and I don't think either will be a good value. I think both will get more money than they really should be making and won't be worth it whoever gets them. As far as Marleau and Frolov goes both are aging players who won't be a major factor to help this team get better. Frolov is a second line player and Marleau played with Heatley and Thorton.

Basically we have twp pending spots on defense.

Monty is signed through next year, Rivet also. Lydman and Tallinder will be the only two leaving the back end. We sign the better one now and bring up Weber.

Our real question is who do we keep out of the 8 pending Forwards and who do we let go?

Kennedy, Mair, Mancari, Kaleta, Grier, Ellis, Torres, and McCormick.

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