Marty, Max, and Kotalik

From the former Sabre watch:

- Marty Biron
This one actually surprises and saddens me at the same time. Marty has no bigger fan than me, well maybe outside of Philly. If he wasn't going to be asking for 3-4 million per year, I'd say sign him, sign him, sign him! But, Marty is a starting goalie with playoff experience so he is going to command a starter's pay. At least that is what it looked like a few weeks ago.

It is July 12, and not only does Marty not have a job, there do not seem to be many teams with the immediate need for a starting goaltender. The three teams that sprung to mind were Colorado (who signed Craig Anderson), Toronto (who is committed to Toskala w/ Gustavsson in the bullpen), and Dallas (who just locked up Alex Auld). Many say LA was a target spot, but they seem to be set on letting Jonathan Quick learn by doing.

So this leaves Marty with a few options: 1) Go to a team who may be willing to allow him to split time with the designated starter (eh hem, Buffalo), 2) Go be a back-up somewhere, or 3) Stay in shape and go into the season unemployed and wait for a top team's starter to go down (or alienate the entire team, a la Ray Emery). Either way, it doesn't look like Marty is going to be getting his 5-6 million per year starter money that he thought Philly was going to give him and it is a shame because Marty is one of the few ex-Sabres I really want to see land on his feet and succeed somehwere else. Keep positive Marty!

- Max Afinogenov
Last time I heard, the only interest in him was an "e3" rating on Eklund's site. My guess is that he is KHL-bound.

- Al Kotalik
Signed with the Rangers for 3 years at 3 million per. The funny thing is that TSN mistakenly reported the contract at 3 years 3 million total, which would have been an absolute steal and Glenn Sather would have been a genius.

I wish Al still word the blue and gold. Great slap shot, great in shootouts (which the Sabres now know are very important), and good point man on the PP. He did have issues turning the puck over and has had some injury issues. Either way, I wish Al the best and if he was still a UFA in August or Sept, I would have been hoping for him to be signed at the money the NYR gave him.

Whole Lotta Nothin' Going On

I know that all the insiders from the Buffalo News and other hockey outlets made it clear long before July 1 that the Sabres were not going to be active this off-season, especially when it came to free-agent signings. I know this and I was not surprised when I first heard it. However, I did expect this team to be very active in other ways, especially in the trade market.

It was not very long ago when Larry Quinn proclaimed, “It’s probably going to be the most thorough top-to-bottom evaluation ever done here."

Now, I'll be the first to admit that I usually never believe a single word generated by Quinn's hollow head and spewed out of his mouth. But, for some reason I guess I did think that he would have been willing to really shake things up a bit, if for nothing else, just to appease a fan base that is slowly (and I emphasize slowly) beginning to get agitated with the lack of action by this front office.

But as it stands, I guess Quinn felt that just by saying that he was going to change things he could hide behind that guise while he remains completely apathetic to what is really happening to this team.

Not helping matters is Lindy Ruff. The News ran a piece two days ago in which Lindy Ruff is happy with the roster he has and feels that the team is right where it needs to be. The only thing that can be inferred from this is that Ruff is completely secure in holding on to his job insofar as he is guaranteed the job as long as Regier has his. Ruff apparently feels, and rightly so, that if he is going to be fired, it will be by a Darcy Regier replacement, and not by Quinn/Golisano or Regier himself.

I don't fault Ruff for his comments beause what else is a coach supposed to say? A coach's job is to get what he can out of the players he has and a good coach does not call out those players or his GM before training camp even starts. So, when I say Lindy didn't help the matter, all I mean is that the PR machine that somehow manages to buy fan patience was only exacerbated by Ruff's vote of confidence in the roster.

So, here we are in July and this is what has happened thus far in the off-season:
- The top Power Play running defenseman is a Montreal Canadien
- Two new defensemen have been acquired; one who has been described as having "more heart and work ethic than talent", and the other who will wait in Portland for someone else to get hurt.
- Ummm, that's about it

So, in sum, our anemic offense has remained the same and for the second season in a row, our defense has been downgraded. So to say that nothing has happened this off-season is a positive statement considering this team has actually taken another step back...again.

BUSINESS AS USUAL IN DETROIT

Winning does not seem to be a luxury in Detroit, just business as usual. It was astonishing not only to witness Helm's OT winner to send the Wings back finals, but also to see Wings fans' reactions. I don't know if it was merely a coincidence but every fan that appeared on Versus after the goal was scored seemed to have an a look of indifference on their faces. They clapped and they smiled, but there seemed to be NO look of jubilee or rejoice that would have certainly been present at the Marina had the team who just won been the Sabres. It bothered me for several minutes, but then it hit me like a ton of bricks. The Detroit Red Wings are winners, so much so that the fans not only want to win, but reasonably expect to win year in and year out. In Detroit, Stanley Cup playoff victories are routine; almost a right and not a privilege.

Don't agree? Still think that all fans share that same feeling every year? Well, here is some food for thought?

In the four years since the lockout, Detroit has finished over 100 points (ranging from 112 to 124 points) every season, winning the President's Trophy twice. They have made it to the conference finals 3 times making it to the cup finals twice and winning one cup so far. Oh, and by the way, they have finished the regular season with 100+ points every year since 2002-2003 as well.

Let's sit back and think about this for a moment. How nice would that be? Well, it would be so nice that 100+ point seasons really would not mean much anymore. Further, "good playoff runs" also would not suffice. When you are that good for so long, the only thing that really matters is winning a cup. Why else would you get excited?

The Red Wings are the blue chip stock of the NHL that always performs. From the days of Stevie Y playing under Scotty Bowman, to the present day of Nick Lidstrom playing under Mike Babcock, the team wins.

So, after a quick survey of the Wings's recent history, it was not surprising at all to see those satisfied but not overly excited faces at the Joe last night. The Wings are winners so the fans expect them to win. Winning is Detroit's business and business is as good as its ever been.

NYI 4 BUF 2

FREE FALLIN'

Face it, this Buffalo team is in a free fall. Nothing is going right. Defense is still making mistakes, and our "high powered" offense is about as high powered as a rusty air gun. Time to panic is now. Time to make a move is now or else this will get worse with little chance that it will get better.

Tonight's game was another showing similar to beginning of every Bad News Bears movie. Passes not crisp, sloppy transition play, and the inability to finish lead to this laugher. That's right I said it.

Now is the time for the front office to prove to the dwindling fan base that someone actually cares about the makeup of this team, because obviously this lineup is not working.

Next loss: Wednesday against I don't even know who. Can't wait.

PHI 3 BUF 0

THAT'S FOUR...

Marty Biron gets the last laugh as he blanks the Sabres 3-nill. Despite what Lindy Ruff called a good effort, the Sabres fail to even muster up one goal.

There were plenty of opportunities as Buffalo peppered 40 shots on Biron, but could not seem to find the broad side of the barn as all great scoring opportunities were met either by missed layups of the dinging sound of the post.

Drew Stafford continued his streak of offensive futility as he missed two layups, including one with an almost wide open net. The power play was shutout on two five on three opportunities of over one minute each.

Miller played OK, as he stopped 22 of 24 shots, giving up one goal on a breakaway. But, it appeared that he may have been napping on the second goal.

In all, you cannot in good faith blame Miller when the offense gets goose-egged. Posts, missed layups and wasted five on threes are the culprit here as the defensive effort was solid and Miller was good enough to at least get into OT.

Isles are in town tomorrow night and hopefully the bleeding gets stopped but I'm not holding my breath.

Flying In Briere-less

CAN'T BE BOOED TONIGHT

The Broad Street Bullies will be without one of there French Canadian wonders as former Sabres captain Danny Briere will not play tonight due to a nagging groin injury. Although still a big game for both struggling clubs, the Sabres faithful nonetheless must be a little disappointed as they will not be able to shower Briere with boos every time he touches the puck tonight (a la Satan, Chara, and Drury).

But Briere aside, tonight is an important game for Buffalo as they try to stop the bleeding caused by the current losing streak which stands now at 8 games. Tonight is the first of a four game home stand in which the Sabres probably want at least 6 points in order to consider it a successful step back towards where they should be in the standings. Poor goaltending behind even worse defensive play has brought them back to reality after a 6-0-1 start.

Ryan Miller has looked ordinary while stalwarts like Henrik Tallinder and Craig Rivet have looked downright horrific.

The bright side is that Thomas Vanek continues to find the back of the net while Derek Roy looks like he may be ready to emerge from his early season slump.

Also worth mentioning is that Lindy Ruff seems to be a little bit impatient in scratching both Tallinder and Max Afinogenov from tonight's lineup, which is in stark contrast with last year's "stay the course" philosophy which found the Sabres on the outside looking in after the season ended.

Gametime: 7:30 --- hopefully Harry Neale will not aggravate me tonight as he has been doing lately with his obvious and half witted comments that must make Jimmy Lorentz cringe (and hopefully want to come back).

NYI 3, Sabres 2

HOLDING ON BY A THREAD

The sky is not falling, but it is holding on by a very thin thread.

The Sabres improved to 0-2 last night on Long Island and took another leap in a season that could hopefully prove to be Darcy Regier's last.

Mike Comrie, a free agent acquisition and newly crowned Sabre-killer, scored two more brining his two night point total up to 6 (4-2-6). The Sabres have played a Comrie occupied team for the last 7 non pre-season games and have lost 6 of them.

U.S. born Rick DiPietro outplayed his American counter-part after being blasted with 17 shots in the final frame, saving 16 of them. Ryan Miller had a lackluster performance during that same period saving 4 of 6 shots.

Two games in and the dulled Sabres find themselves one of three teams with no points (Florida and Atlanta) creating a mirror image of last year's amazing start. They were man-handled defensively Friday night by a line assembled by a second year GM that only two years ago was still playing in net for the Isles. They were out clutched last night by one member of said line.

The lack of leadership played all the way through the game last night as the team is still searching for a leader on the ice to set a tone and example for the rest of the youngsters to follow.

Ales Kotalik should be back for Thursday's game against Atlanta, but most fans are probably not holding their breath for any spark to come out of his return.

So here we are, two games, two losses and only 80 more of these things to go which is a lot of time for the threads to snap and the sky to fall on Buffalo yet again. This is all despite the encouragement by the front office, and what reason do they have to lie?