*OFFICIAL* Buffalo Sabres 2007 Off-Season Thread

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news from the rumor wagon (aka my insider :snky: ) today:

Numminen: will return for another season, possibly at same contract price. was recently inspired by chelios signing for another year at the age of 45

Spacek: despite shitty play, is loved by the organization and is in the cards to remain a Sabre for at least another season

Tallinder: is undergoing some serious off-ice training this summer to build his upper body and make him a beast at the point…and to hopefully not have him break his arm again

Kalinin: also planned to keep :tdown:

Zubrus: possibly end of career. his cartilege in his knee is completely spent and he is grinding bone to bone. the odds of buffalo bringing him back with this news is now minimal, although the team loves his “adonis-like” perfect body for hockey and is extremely upset he may not be able to return…

Briere/Drury: management is currently only PLANNING on keeping one of the pair. and seeing as though one of the two currently has his house for sale (which ive mentioned before), you should be able to figure out which one they have plans on keeping…

T. Vanek: “8 ball says…outlook not so good” :tdown: the organization loves him, the coaches love him, his teammates love him, but golisano is going to be a tightwad of sorts this year. according to source, vaneks proposed contract is not going to agree with golisanos planned budget, which will be considerably less than the salary cap. today is the 14th of june, and there has been ZERO communication between the sabres and vaneks agent

other info: with a large hole in the salary to be had by the loss of “one of the top two,” zubrus, and vanek, buffalo management has said to keep an open eye for at least ONE big name free agent acquisition. one person of note that management has been having extensive talks with is jason blake, whom buffalo sees as someone to fill the void they need from zubrus more than likely not playing next season.

more updates as they come…also for those that didn’t catch it, ruff and regier both are OFFICIALLY resigned as of this afternoon, ruff for 3 years with an option for 4th season and regier for 2 more seasons. that deal was completed on monday but not announced until yesterday and confirmed today :tup:

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and how good/reliable of a source do you have. Zubrus injury def sucks, but i wasnt expecting them to resign him anyway. But there is no way i could see them letting vanek go…

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also, losing vanek, which i dont see happening will not create a large hole in the salary, he was only making about 950,000 a year.

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Vanek is an RFA, which means Buffalo would have the option of keeping Vanek if they choose to at least meet the offer of another team.

Vanek is an up and coming superstar in the league. He’s becoming a household name when it comes to hockey. He will be commanding a nice price-tag this upcoming season.

I also think it would be a horrible decision to let such a young, talented and proven performance player go at this point.

I understand where Golisano is coming from on spending, but if the team drops favorite players, and has a mediocre performing team, they will lose the ticket sales and revenue they gained.

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i would say the source is about as reliable as it can get :snky:

doesnt matter if vanek is an RFA or not, read anything ive ranted about for the last two months on the subject. if he makes it to july 1st without a contract, he’s gone. some one WILL throw some ludicrous 4-5 million dollar contract for one year at him to see if he can do it again just to lure him out of buffalo. golisano does not have that much $$ appropriated in his budget for vanek…

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if we let vanek go for nothing, it just furthers the notion that buffalo sports teams often fail to pull the trigger on trades or signing when they need to happen. letting a player like vanek go without an attempt at resigning is rediculous

as far as where golisano is coming from…well, im not about to get started on it. lets just say im real close to losing my faith in him. granted he’s being “smart” from a financial view in his own personal budget. but his reasoning is that he claims he doesnt make any money unless the sabres make it to the 2nd round…which we’ve done convincingly the past two seasons in a row. i don’t see why after a season of claiming “we’ll do whatever it takes to win” attitude and a forthcoming increase in salary cap, he is now changing his strategy to win. i understand we have a slew of players up and coming who are outstanding, but it will bring about a public outcry against the organization if we lose several players.

IMO, briere saying he would take a paycut to stay in ruff buff was his way of saving face here. he knows he’s gone, but he doesnt want to go out with everyone thinking he only is playing for money. he says “i’ll stay for less” just so he looks like a jay mckee or such.

seriously, i could rant for a solid 2-3 pages over what the organization does wrong or has done wrong over the past 5-10 years and their dealing with players, but not now. lol…peca, dumont, mckee are just a few that got the shaft of the “buffalo system.” we’ll see how they come out of this offseason and how many black eyes they have :roll2:

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I wouldn’t be surprised to see one of our division foes do that, just to fuck us over. Boston maybe??? They like giving big contracts.

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:lol: Sean knows all

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lol, apparently a one-up on you in this instance :stuck_out_tongue:

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i think boston is too fucked over with charas 8 mil contract

i say philly makes a stab for him when they only get briere instead of both him and drury…

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im getting nervous i really hope they dont let vanek get away if they do i blame darcy. I stand by my regier is a douche theory.

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what of the rumors I have heard about Hecht or Kotalik being shipped out…

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last i asked, hecht was staying and they are trying to package kotalik with possibly kalinin or spacek…

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ok on the vanak subject yes theres a possibility that we lose him but if another team resigns him they could pay up to four first round draft picks to buffalo so we will see everyone is panicking about vanak hes BECOMING a great player but isnt great yet not on the level of heatley and kolvalchuck and they both made it through there rfa year without another team signing them.

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He’s only going into his 3rd season… Dude is well on his way to being an upper echelon player.

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I think by next season he will be the type of player that the sabres will need to continue to play well. The loss of breiere drury and vanek will be deastating and management will have to explain themselves to the fans for letting 3 fan favorites go after 2 outstanding seasons.

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i don’t hate on mckee for leaving. st louis offered him a ludacris amount of money (which is rough for them cause he missed a lot of the season)

we have spacek for what, another year? fuck man. get rid of him, and we have money for vanek. that’s so stupid that we’re keeping him

whereas keeping kalinin is just straight retarded

i would love to see stafford up here. we could get rid of kalinin for paetch, who’s got some versatility to him and I can see him improving with some time in the nhl

i could do without hecht but he does get a lot of shots off (the problem is none of them go in). I don’t mind him sticking around.
spacek

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Zubrus to be a free agent

Odd man out: Zubrus doesn’t expect to return to Sabres

Associated Press

Updated: June 27, 2007, 5:36 PM ET

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Dainius Zubrus anticipates becoming a free agent this weekend, a move that would end the veteran forward’s brief stint with the Buffalo Sabres.

“That’s certainly the direction it looks like it’s headed,” his agent, Jerrold Colton said Wednesday.

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Buffalo Sabres

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2007 Season Stats GM G A PTS +/- PIM
19 4 4 8 -3 12

With the NHL’s free agency period starting at noon Sunday, Colton declined to say whether he’s had any talks with the Sabres.

“Certainly, these things can get done if both sides are motivated,” Colton said. “But at this point, we’re anticipating that Dainius will hit the market.”

The Sabres have bigger concerns beyond Zubrus, with the team standing to lose co-captains, Chris Drury and Daniel Briere, to free agency.

Zubrus made $1.85 million in the final year of his contract last season. Buffalo acquired him in a deal with Washington at the trade deadline in February. A 10-year veteran, he had four goals and eight points in 19 games with the Sabres, and finished with 24 goals and 60 points – both career-highs – in 79 games.

Zubrus added eight assists in 15 playoff games, but missed Buffalo’s final postseason game – a 3-2 overtime loss to Ottawa in Game 5 the Eastern Conference finals – because of a knee injury.

“He loved being with Buffalo and is still open to that possibility,” Colton said. “But we’re very confident that there will be a lot of interest in him out there.”

Sabres general manager Darcy Regier was not available for comment.

The Sabres remain tightlipped on the status of talks with Drury and Briere. The pair would immediately become two of the most sought-after players in free agency. Both are coming off career-high seasons, and are expected to command better than $6 million-a-year contracts.

Briere had yet to receive an offer from the Sabres as of Wednesday morning, while Drury’s agent, Mark Witkin, declined comment.

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Yeah…I love the Zubes but his knee is done and he is used up a bit. I think they are keeping his injury under wraps until he finds $ elsewhere. I will miss him for who he was but not who he will be.

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for those not paying attention:

fwiw, sabres offered him what he WANTED last year…5 years, 25 million…apparently his “hometown discount” was expecting more than that :zong:

and thankfully

http://wgr550.com/sabres/fullstory.php?id=2473

i hate briere sometimes…the guy plays himself off to be such a great guy to the media and he’s full of it…“i’ll take a discount to stay…of like 100K”

:walter: