Still unable to beat Philadelphia

Like with Ottawa and Atlanta, the Sabres seem completely unable to even compete with the Flyers this season. The Sabres 6-4 loss was not close at any point, and is resulting in the Sabres drifting farther and farther from the playoffs.

Moore got his first goal as a Sabre, and Chris Butler also played well, with two goals and plus two rating. Former Sabre Danny Briere scored two goals to put the game out of reach, just when the Sabres were finally coming back into it.

Official Three Stars

Mike Richards

Danny Briere

Claude Giroux

My Three Stars

Danny Briere (two goals, plus two, four shots)

Kimmo Timonen (three assists, plus two)

Mike Richards (one goal, two assists)

How Sabres management imporved the team by allowing players to walk

The Buffalo Sabres have gotten a lot of criticism for allowing alot of their star players to leave town, notably Chris Drury, Daniel Briere, Brian Campbell, Jay McKee, and JP Dumont. While I would love to have Drury and Dumont back, it is important to remember why the team let Dumont walk in the first place. If the Sabres had signed JP they would have been over the cap. If the Sabres had signed all of these players they would have been well over the cap.

As a starting point I looked at the roster of the famed 2005-2006 team that did so well in the first season after the lockout. If Buffalo had resigned all of those players the cap hit for this season would be $73.846 million which is an astounding $17.146 million over the cap. The team that year consisted of Maxim Afinogenov, Chris Drury, Ales Kotalik, Daniel Briere, Tim Connolly, Thomas Vanek, Derek Roy, Brian Campbell, Jochen Hecht, J.P. Dumont, Teppo Numminen, Jason Pominville, Paul Gaustad, Mike Grier, Henrik Tallinder, Dmitri Kalinin, Toni Lydman, Jay McKee, Rory Fitzpatrick, Ryan Miller, and Martin Biron. This 21 man roster consists of all the players who had over 45 games played and the two starting goalies. Left off are Taylor Pyatt and Adam Mair, who played in 41 and 40 games, as well Andrew Peters who had 28 games, and goalie Mika Noronen who had four starts before being traded mid-season. However these extra players are still making close to the NHL minimum and would only have a small effect to the numbers.

Player	2008 cap hit
Thomas Vanek	$7.143
Brian Campbell	$7.1
Chris Drury	$7.05
Daniel Briere	$6.5
Derek Roy	$4
J.P. Dumont	$4
Jay McKee	$4
Jochen Hecht	$3.525
Martin Biron	$3.5
Maxim Afinogenov	$3.333
Tim Connolly	$2.9
Toni Lydman	$2.875
Ryan Miller	$2.667
Teppo Numminen*	$2.6*
Henrik Tallinder	$2.562
Ales Kotalik	$2.333
Paul Gaustad	$2.3
Dmitri Kalinin	$2.1
Mike Grier	$1.775
Jason Pominville	$1.033
Rory Fitzpatrick*	$0.55*

*2007 cap hits are used for Numminen (who is unsigned) and Fitzpatrick (whos cap hit for Florida can not be found)

Furthermore, besides being well over the cap and needing to trade away over $17 million worth of salaries for this season. This would also not make room for players such as Daniel Paille who only a bit player at this point, and Drew Stafford, and Patrick Kaleta who both had yet to play their first NHL game. Now looking back, with the notable exception of Chris Drury it would not have done the team any good to sign any of these players. Furthermore Miller is due an $4 million raise next season, and Pominville is likely to get the same. Yet only the salary for Numminen shows any possibility of going down (and even then it can not drop by more than $2 million).

So please stop complaining whenever Buffalo's management allows a player to walk. From this line up you could replace Dumont, McKee, Biron, Numminen, Afinogenov, and Connolly, all with players making the NHL minimum and you would still be over the cap. I think our current team is a huge improvement over that.

Playoff update

Now that Turco can win without a shutout, he seems to be abusing this opportunity by allowing a single goal with less then ten seconds remaining in the game. Still the Stars won 3-1 and have an opportunity to eliminate the Ducks next game.

The Flames-Sharks series continues to be exciting, with the Sharks grabbing a 3-2 lead overall. This came in a close 4-3 game where the team that scored first once again lost the game. The math says that scoring first should help the team, but you might want to avoid that advice in this series. In fact it was being suggested even before game five.

The Capitals are now down 3-1 to the Flyers, but probably have the best chance out of all of the teams that are two games back. Their last loss was a hard fought double overtime game where they may have leaned on Huet a little too much, but actually had a lead going into the third. Daniel Briere scored the goal to tie up the game, which he would not have done last year. Briere was dreadful in the playoffs last season, but seems to be actually trying now, and has scored five goals, and has a game winner as well.

The Bruins managed a win, but that shouldn't matter. Colorado is now up on the Wild. The Rangers have a chance to finish off the Devils tonight.

Brian Campbell selected as the lone Sabre at the all star game

Brian Campbell will be going to his second straight all star game, but unlike last year which saw three Buffalo players in the starting line up, Campbell in the only Sabre this year.

However, like last year the choices for the all star game come across as a little awkward, as the NHL's policy of inviting at least one player from each team leaves quite an odd mix of players in the game. Last year Thomas Vanek wasn't invited to the game despite getting the fifth highest in fan votes as a write in candidate, This year former Sabre Danny Briere who had the fourth most votes, and was the all star game MVP last year, was not named to this years team for no real reason. Also Florida goalie Tomas Vokoun made the team ahead of better goalies like Tim Thomas and Marty Biron.

Out west things are even stranger. The Chicago Blackhawks representative is defensemen Duncan Keith. How he gets picked of Kane, Toews, Khabibulin, Byfuglien, or Ruutu is beyond me. Then in Vancouver Luongo decided to sit out of the all-star game to have a baby (technically his wife) so the league had to pick between the Swedish Twins. They picked Henrick over Daniel, despite the fact that the two have near identical stats. Henrik has 524 NHL games to Daniel's 520, while Danial has 346 points to Henrik's 344. For two identical twins on the same team to have such close numbers is so improbable.

The rest of the league

Although the Sabres are really stumbling to start off the season, their rivals up in Ottawa are doing rather well. The Senators have gotten off to a 3-0 start, including two wins against Toronto. Chris Neil is already back to his cheap hits after injuring the Rangers Sean Avery with an elbow to the head. Granted there is a difference between Drury and Avery, but there is doubt that Neil's primary focus on the ice is not to play hockey, but to injure the opponents.

Out west the Ducks have already played five games and will be up to six the day before Buffalo takes to the ice for game number three. If they keep up this pace they will finish the regular season by the beginning of February.

Down in Philly Daniel Briere is having a good season so far, posting up 4 points (including 3 goals) after only two games. The team could well be 2-0 if they didn't kick a goal into their own net last Saturday.

2-1 Colorado is appreciating second year player Paul Stastny who is starting of the season even better than Briere is. After posting a hat-trick in the season opener he now has 4 goals and 4 assists after only three games.

Two games into his rookie season top draft pick Patrick Kane picked up his first point (an assist) for Chicago against the Red Wings, then went on to score the winner in the shootout. Even this early in the season it is hard to see anyone else winning rookie of the year...

The Season Starts

Buffalo is one of the last teams have it's season opener tonight, when they play the New York Islanders. Kotalik is still not expected to play in either game this weekend, but the Sabres should be favorites to win both matches.

Elsewhere the Ducks have already played three games this season, and have come out with a win, a loss, and an OT/SO loss. One tally in each category to start the season, and not looking as good as they did last year already.

The Senators are the league leaders in the early going, after twice beating the Toronto Maple Leafs. As long as the Sabres can sweep the leafs themselves, this really shouldn't put Buffalo back in the standings any.

Second year forward Paul Stastny who should have won the Calder last year, had a hat-trick in the Avalanche's season opener against Dallas, but saw his team shutout yesterday against Nashville.

Buffalo's former captains are getting off to a fast start this season. Briere has already scored twice for Philadelphia, and Drury has a game winner for the Rangers.