Sabres Sign Roy, Avoid Arbitration

6 YEARS $24MM

The Buffalo Sabres avoided their first arbitration hearing of this off-season by locking up C Derek Roy with a 6 year 24 million dollar deal. The move will make Roy a Buffalo Sabre until he is 30 years old. Roy's hearing was set to take place this morning.

The move, which most expected would occur, locks up the dynamic scoring line of Afinogenov, Vanek and Roy for at least two seasons as Afinogenov has two years remaining on his current contract. Vanek signed for 7 years 50 million dollars earlier this month.

The good news is that at least the obvious moves that need to be made seem obvious to the Buffalo brass who, up until now, seemed asleep at the switch. This move will prove to be economically intelligent in a few years when the average salary of a 20 goal scorer will most likely be in the $5MM range.

Roy, although small, is an exceptional offensive player who also has been effective killing penalties and playing sound in the defensive zone, ranking second on the team in +/- (+37), second only to Vanek's league leading +47.

In all, a good move, a good investment but Regier can't claim too much credit because since the debacle of 7/1, he really had no choice but to get this done.

We can probably assume that Paetsch will sign long term, since Campbell is a UFA next year, and Numminen will eventually retire soon. Locking up Paetsch and extending Campbell would both be beneficial moves that could add some sort of silver lining to this otherwise disastrous summer down on Knox Plaza.

Sign Him!

SECOND CHANCE FOR BOTH

The first Peca episode ended, well, not so good. We all remember the contract impasse, the holdout, then the trade to New York. In all, it was not a good time for the Sabres. We remember that year.

We remember the brutal second round Game 6 tragedy where the Sabres were minutes from the Conference Finals only to have Lemieux and gang rip that dream away. Why? Why, Rhett Warraner, didn't you just tackle him?

We remember the following summer, where we lost Dominik. Well, we traded him, but he wanted out anyways. The trade, of course, brought in the heartless and useless Slava Kozlov who was a Sabre for about five minutes.

We remember the Rigas scandal that almost saw the Sabres become the Portland Sabres. I won't go into any more detail.

And finally, we remember the culmination of a year long contract dispute and holdout which eventually lead to the trading of Peca to the Islanders for Tim Connolly and Taylor Pyatt.

In hindsight, the trade was not all bad in terms of personnel, considering that Connolly, despite injuries has turned into one hell of a player and Pyatt also had his moments. However, the Peca saga seemed to be symbolic of troubled times that none of us saw coming.

The ensuing 3 seasons after the Peca saga yielded some of the darkest times in Sabres history. We suffered through the bankruptcy, the near relocation, and some very horrendous hockey. We went three straight years missing the playoffs and rode a tidal wave of a negative reputation and very mediocre on-ice performance into the lockout. It was the worst of times.

Of course, things are different now. We were saved by a new owner, we are back to being a playoff team, make that a contender, and the hockey tradition in Buffalo is alive again. Despite the management whiffs of the past few weeks, things are still looking pretty positive and as it turns out, Peca wants a piece of the WNY hockey experience again.

According to the News, Peca would love a second stint with the team where his career peaked years ago. Saying that he feels he could contribute to the team in terms of on ice performance and leadership, he claims that Buffalo is on the top of his wish list of teams to sign with.

Here it is. A second chance for everyone. Regier can put the Free Agency Disaster of 2007 behind him and Peca can return to a place he is more than familiar with. Peca is a familiar face and a legendary name in the halls of HSBC Arena and there is no better way to begin fans' healing than to bring a guy with Peca's reputation in.

Let us not forget, he wore the "C" the last time we went to the Finals.

Darcy, stopping f--king around and sign him. Just sign him.

Kaleta Ready For The Show?

PATTY DESERVES A CHANCE

Despite the fact that it is early on and there still could be some free agency action later on this summer, although unlikely, management would be wise to see what Patrick Kaleta can do this year.

The only criticism taken by the Sabres last year had to do with the team's lack of toughness up front and gritty style play that was sorely missing. Since Drury and Zubrus, both leaders of that kind of play, are elsewhere, Kaleta deserves at least some 4th line ice time to see what he can do against teams that are known for their physical play.

Kaleta is still very young and still can develop his offensive game in Rochester, but I think it is worth the ice time to let him at least make a case for belonging with the big club.

Let us not forget his refusal to back down against Ottawa during the infamous brawl game last year. After taking a cheap slash from Danny Heatley before the face off leading to the brawl, he did not shy away from any of the scrums that occurred in the following minutes.

Also, with all the offensive talent that still remains despite losing the captains, he stands to learn a lot by playing with the older guys and can jump start his offensive production.

In the end, the Sabres need to concentrate on areas where they came up short last year, namely physical play. With the losses of Grier, Pyatt, Zubrus, and Drury, they need others like Gaustad to step up and they need to find new sources, if free agency is not in the plan.

Kaleta has the guts and the toughness and given some time to workout in the bigs, he can turn into a physical force who can help fill in the gaps on a team that is mainly smaller and fast. It's time to at least give the local boy a chance.

HOW?

GENERAL EMBARRASSMENT

Let's imagine for one moment that you are sitting in front of your boss at your very normal job at your very normal office. This meeting is taking place just weeks after you receive a raise and an extension for your services.

Your boss has in his or her hand a list of what has taken place since your recent re-signing and goes over the list to discuss successes and failures. The list goes something like this:

• You are given a commitment by upper management for more budget to build your division. You fail to use this budget and lose two of your most talented employees to other companies in the same industry.
• You then publicly give excuses about the marketplace being too unfair to the organizations of the same size as yours.
• You then publicly admit that your organization is not going to be as productive as it was, but you assure that all is not lost and that your misguided philosophies are, in fact, the correct way to run things despite the recent personnel disaster.

Well, I'm about 99% sure that if it was me with that sheet sitting in front of the CEO of my company, she would most likely rid herself of one personnel problem by kicking my ass to the curb.

The problem here is that it is not me, it's Darcy Regier and he is not fired, but actually re-signed for two more years.

The only word to describe this is embarrassing.

He is correct though. The team will not be as talented on paper and the sky is not falling. The Sabres are still a team with a lot of good players and should be able to hold their own next year. That is not the point. The point is that his flawed negotiation policies are what got us in this mess in the first place. This was a preventable disaster had he planned for it and given the players the common courtesy of a timely phone call or two.

The Sabres could be even better had Darcy stuffed his half-assed philosophies in the drawer and got these deals done before the past season even started. Oh and we probably could have signed Vanek for half the money as well.

But once again, here we are. Larry Quinn and Darcy Regier thinking that they are smarter than everyone else and that they won't be bullied. Well, their logic is about as sharp as their public speaking skills and they did get bullied, like underwear-over-the-head bullied.

Hey guys, guess what? They are not laughing with you.

But like Darcy said, "We'll find a way". Ha, ten years as a GM and all we can get out of him is "We'll find a way". I sure hope so.