Yea. We draft good talent and had a really sucessful team. But being close to winning the cup, how is it smart management to let both leaders go?
Its not. Like they said, our team has turned in to the Pirates of baseball. We have solid rookies and good drafts but we lack the ability to hold on to players and that will be the reason we never win the cup.
If we lost Briere and kept Drury I wouldn’t be pissed at all. But with a guy like Drury you don’t just go out and pick up “another one”.
Perfect example, the playoff game where he took the puck to the face that almost knocked his jaw off. He goes to the locker room, wires up that Hannibal Lecter looking mask, and comes back to play.
Maybe someone steps up and fills that leadership role. Personally, I think you’ll see a very different team next year, regardless of who we pick up. Drury just isn’t that easy to replace. Here’s to hoping I’m wrong.
And while I’m making predictions, Briere will struggle to hit 50 points next season.
i am with pass…this sucks. but i am not ready to lynch the front office. they have done PLENTY good in the past. not signing drury isnt as simple as them being foolish or forgetful.
i am not saying we are gonna suck next year because i love our young players. but experience is a huge part of a good team…and i will miss the experience drury brought. briere i wont miss as much. and thats about all that can be said. lets see what happens from here…i trust we will have exciting hockey coming this season regardless and i will be at the games as a result
They really didnt do alot of good though. they got lucky, with the rule changes falling in their favor.
I really think Connolly can fill Brieres role to a tee. Drury however, is definitely not replaceable by 1 guy. I could a combination of Stafford and Pominville or something kinda filling Drury’s shoes, but there isn’t 1 player who is going to do it entirely. With the possiblity of Forsberg being picked up, that’s about the closest the team willl have to a Drury, but he’s too risky.
I don’t have a problem with them gone so much as the nature that it seems they were lost. Drury could’ve been kept, and I think that is where lies the problem.
Briere was gone. You could tell after the last game the way he stood there and took it all in. Between that, and him listing his home for sale, it was quite evident he wasn’t planning on playing in Buffalo again.
I honestly think Drury wanted to stay, but after constant poor management, and bad communication, and the lack of a solid offer made quickly made him doubt playing for Buffalo.
losing Biron, Drury and Briere is a lot of leadership that’s going to be gone from the locker room. it’ll definintely be interesting to see who steps up to fill that missing aspect this upcoming season.
my point is he plays on a team that gives up a ton of goals, and playing 23+ minutes a game, your gonna get the +/- numbers that he has. while i agree that he’s not GREAT at 1 on 1 situations, he’s faaar from terrible as well, and would not be a defensive liability. after the sorry powerplay performance from the sabres last year with (argueably) cost the team a trip to the finals, how would you not want someone like him on the point?
PETERSSSSSSSSSSSS
:word: just cus somebody had a pretty bad year +/- wise, doesn’t mean they shouldnt be looked at for a roster spot. i would love to see him play for our team, especially with his height (6’4") and weight (224lbs), and not to mention skill.
Pass Mgrass, you seriously think he’s not the right fit for us cus of his penalty minutes and plus-minus?? ok…lets compare some daniel briere numbers with sourays. back when briere was with phoenix, he registered a -21 the season we traded for him. maybe buffalo shouldn’t have picked him up huh?? surely turned out pretty damn good for us if im not mistaken.
right on…+ I think the idea of him playing in NYC where his idol (donny baseball #23) played is another thing for him to be excited about. I’m sure hes gonna enjoy going to the yanks games.
i wish they would just sign someone right now… so i can be excited…
oh yea… and sign vanek!
the fact that we havent signed anyone to replace them yet is pissing me off more then loosing two good players… and the longer we wait the less of a pick we have left
zubrus is off to the devils for a 6 year contract , who is gonna run our team vanek, max, and roy?? you need more offense than that we need to fuckin sign people NOWW! lol theres like no one left to sign.
FROM ESPN:
No one ever said it was easy being a Buffalo sports fan.
But losing Daniel Briere to the Flyers and Chris Drury to the Rangers on the first day of free agency – in effect, gutting a Stanley Cup contender in a single day – is, for my money, a worse kick in the groin than “Wide Right.”
At least Scott Norwood had a chance to win Super Bowl XXV. At least he was on the field, with a tough but makeable kick in front of him.
At least poor Scott Norwood tried.
Sabres GM Darcy Regier? It’s hard to say he even tried. He had months to re-sign his prize co-captains and did nothing about it until the last minute. Offering proposals below market value to two of the most highly sought free agents on the market less than a week before the deadline does not constitute trying or a good faith effort. It constitutes a lame and halfhearted one at best.
And in Drury’s case, it constitutes sheer folly.
Reiger and owner Thomas Golisano have heard a lot of praise in the past three years for building a winner out of the ashes in Buffalo, a small market that nearly lost the Sabres when the feds uncovered the Rigas family’s financial shenanigans and the team had to declare bankruptcy. They’ve been hailed as visionaries for building a team that could compete and win in the new NHL, for building a roster that, despite being largely devoid of salary cap-crushing superstars, rolled four solid lines with scoring ability and speed to burn. So they’re neither hapless nor clueless.
Thing was, they did have a legitimate superstar in Drury, a player who has been redefining “clutch” since he was playing Little League baseball in Trumbull, Conn. And they inexplicably let him go for nothing.
Perhaps they’ve heard a little too much about what hockey geniuses they are.
Losing Briere hurts too, but as much as the team will miss his scoring, I was mentally prepared to let him go for the big money – as long as the Sabres kept Drury, whose leadership qualities and hockey IQ are off the charts. And while I wondered why either would leave, considering the way they were absolutely adored in Buffalo, there’s only so much time to make money in a sport with a hard salary cap – so I get the “it’s a business” thing from their perspective.
How much does Drury mean to Buffalo? When the Ottawa Senators’ Ogie Oglethorpe wannabe Chris Neil took a run at Drury’s head during the regular season, Drury’s teammates went berserk and touched off a full-scale brawl. And when coach Lindy Ruff was fined $10,000 for admitting that he did what every coach in the league would do – tell the guys to “go out and run 'em” after his co-captain and best player had been left dazed and bleeding on the ice – the fans offered to pay Ruff’s fine.
Simply put, Drury was a god in Buffalo. Consider the Buffalo News’ Bucky Gleason’s assessment of the situation in this column, which, although written before Black Sunday, remains timely.
Better yet, watch this play a few thousand times like I have and marvel at Drury’s hockey skills and IQ. In the waning seconds of regulation of Game 5 against the Rangers, not only does Drury win the crucial faceoff – without which the game ends and the Sabres probably lose the series – he regains control of the puck and hits Tim Connolly with a beautiful pass to set up a one-timer. Then, most crucially, instead of stopping to admire his handiwork, he keeps skating to where the rebound will likely emerge and puts the rebound back on net. Here it is again at ice level.
No wonder the Rangers were willing to pay the man.
The question is: Why weren’t the Sabres?
And yet again, Buffalo sports fans like me pay with a stake through the heart. “Wide Right” and Brett Hull’s skate in the crease weren’t enough. Three more losing Super Bowls and Frank Wycheck’s illegal forward pass (some call it the “Music City Miracle”) weren’t enough. Brad Park’s slap shot in overtime of Game 7 of the 1983 Adams Division finals wasn’t enough. Blowing a 14-3 halftime lead over the Chargers in the 1980 AFC playoffs wasn’t enough. Leading the Hurricanes 20 minutes from the 2006 Stanley Cup finals and falling short wasn’t enough. Coincidence or vast anti-Buffalo sports conspiracy? You decide.
And yet, Buffalo fans come back for more, like misery was a fresh batch of hot wings and a frosty pitcher of Genny Cream Ale.
For folks in Buffalo, maybe the Sabres and Bills, in spite of their letdowns, are something to cheer for in a city where not much else has gone right lately. For me, it’s a little more personal.
I grew up in Massachusetts, but half my family is from Buffalo, and my grandfather passed away just as the Sabres started making their 2006 playoff run. After they decimated the Flyers and stunned the Senators in five games – capped by Jason Pominville’s brilliant short-handed game winner and team play-by-play legend Rick Jeanneret’s equally brilliant “Now do you believe?” soliloquy – I was once more hooked. I wanted a championship for my grandfather, who never got to enjoy a title the way I got to witness the Red Sox finally winning it all. And the way the Sabres played in 2006-07, reeling off win after win to start the season and finally getting healthy with the playoffs around the corner, it looked like it was finally possible.
The playoffs should have been a tremendous ride, win or lose. But instead they were a miserable experience for me, because in the back of my mind I knew Drury and Briere were unsigned and the team I was watching was unlikely to get another chance to do it again. It was a zero-sum game, Cup or bust. I couldn’t enjoy the victories and the losses were agonizing – especially the way they went out, to the Senators.
And now that team has been dismantled. The Sabres as a franchise might surprise everyone and succeed in spite of these losses, but the team that went to two consecutive conference finals now has no way to redeem itself, no way of finally clearing the last obstacle and reaching the Cup final. And that is a shame.
I watched the clip of the Game 5 tying goal again, to remember it wasn’t all misery.
“Chris Drury! Who else? Who else?” a delirious Jeanneret asks as the fans go nuts following the game-tying goal.
“Who else?” Now that’s a good question.
Greg Sukiennik is a news editor at ESPN.com
We are fucked. Connolly might step it up a little but after he plays about 20 games and gets another concussion I’m sure that would be a career ender.
chris dury turned down the offer saying he always wanted to play in ny, and when ny got gomez it made his descision that much easier
great…
IBvanekisasenator