:word: cause we’ve all seen how it works when you let your best players leave and try to replace them with rochester guys. no drop off whatsoever. maybe they will only drop 8 more places in the conference.
oh wait, there isn’t a 17th place to fall to.
the fact that management failed to get a deal done with campbell is unacceptible. he is one of the top 3 defensemen that will hit unrestricted free agency this summer, and he deserves to make the 6mill+ per year that he WILL make.
we should have signed him over the summer when we had a chance. but the arrogance and short sightedness of the sabres management team prevented them from doing so. how many times can you fucking grab the same hot stove, before you realize, “hey, if i keep doing this, i will continue to get burned!”
They’ve been trying to sign Campbell for a long time now so I think they’ve learned from their past mistake of not negotiating during the season.
I think the problem now is skilled players don’t want to stay on a team where management isn’t willing to even spend up to the cap when it’s clear their penny pinching ways are greatly affecting the team’s performance. I know if was a young skilled player I’d want to sign a deal with a team that has showed they are willing to do what is needed to be a top contender year after year. Your owner getting on TV and saying your strategy is to spend well under the cap and hope to develop cheap talent in the AHL doesn’t inspire confidence in repeatable playoff potential.
Yeah, last year Buffalo did well with some AHL callups, but they also spent to within pennies of the cap, even considering going into that gray area with Timmy C’s salary in the playoffs.
buffalo sports give me ulcers and the shits :crap:
Darcy Regier Blows and is horrible of judging market value and overall league talent:
The Bad:
Peca Situation: Calgary offered Jerome Iginla straight up. Yes Iginla wasn’t as dominant a player 4 years ago as he is now but he was still better than Connolly and Pyatt at the time. Atlanta also offered the 1st overall pick to Regier for Peca and Biron but who would trade to established veterans for a perennial 50 goal scorer and Top 5 Forward in Ilya Kovalchuk???
Dominik Hasek: You can’t just trade a MVP Goalie for nothing because his ego was bigger than the city of Buffalo.
Market Value: Jay Mckee, Chris Drury, Daniel Briere all players that would have stayed in Buffalo but are now long gone!!! Brian Cambell soon to be gone as well!!!
The Good:
One thing Regier can do is swing an occasional good trade:
Briere for Gratton
Gilmour and Dumont for Grosek
Rhett Warrener for Mike Wilson
Barnes for Barnaby
Lydman for 3rd Round Pick
Hecht for 2 2nd Round Picks
None of these trades however brought in a serious talent or star player. Regier simply picked up other teams salary dumps (Gilmour, Lydman, Barnes) or players that were in other teams doghouses (Briere,Dumont,Hecht)
i heard mckee wants to come back to the ruff buff…too bad hes old news with all of his injuries these days…
yea I remember hearing rumors that he wanted back shortly after moving to St Louis, though with a 4yr contract that is tough!
and here we all thought that Golisano was going to be the saviour of the team.
:roll2:
savior < profit.
what he really needs to do, is perform a break-even analysis, release it publicly, and make a pact with the city. Tell them, “If you want us to spend up to the cap, we need to raise ticket prices by this much, and you need to purchase this many by this date. Otherwise, the deal’s off.”
The Ice Bowl and playoff games last year showed that people are willing to pay a great premium in this city for a winning product, local economy be damned.
that actually would not be a bad ideal IMO, people would pay for a good team
its just not that simple. there are SO many other components to revenue in the NHL than just attendance. Canadian TV contracts, US TV contracts, satellite radio revenue, sponsorship revenue, etc, then the redistribution of all of this revenue through revenue sharing. not to mention revenue from the sabres’ portion of vendor revenue on gamedays. not to mention merchandising. and thats just the revenue side of things! i dont even want to scratch the expense side…
to be honest, the average person would probably not even be able to comprehend a “break even analysis”. not to mention, that there would be so many variables involved, that it would be a virtually pointless exercise.
people tend to oversimplify things.
can they make it 10 tonight? down 2-1 after 2 :lol:
When you can’t score on this many PP’s, included a 1:53 of 5 on 3 my money on on yes.
:lol:
you know they need to go like 22-13 and 4 to have a shot at making the playoffs…and that started tonight…
They are uber F’d
Even still, all other things held constant (although a winning team would likely lead to higher local media contracts and merchandising) say they end up spending approximately $10 million below the cap right now. If nothing else changed from outside revenue, they have 41 home games in an arena that holds 18,690 people. Approximately a $10 increase in each ticket would cover it, less depending on number of playoff games and any additional tickets sold. Granted, revenues are shared to an extent, but if they were short and wanted to spend to the cap, they could cover it through the box office and i think the fans owuld support them.