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.