Not from Buffalo but listen to WGR550 whenever I get it, is it just me or are these guys clueless? some guy was talking about a list with 50 fowards better than Vanek and named a couple defenceman.
Looks like Roy is done in Buffalo, unless Darcy just forgot about him when talking about the center position on WGR55.
I thought the same thing. He made is quite obvious he was leaving out Roy, and I'm surprised none of the WGR guys questioned him on it.
I'm intrigued by his bit about wanting to get a big center, whether on the defensive or offensive side. That leads me to believe if they could get a Stoll of Hanzal type player, they'd run with Ennis and Hodgson in the top 2 C spots. But I liked him mentioning the offensive part. I think Regier (and about a billion other GMs) kick the tires pretty hard on Getzlaf. He's coming off a down year, Anaheim missed the playoffs, and the Ducks would haul home some serious value.
Still, it's a long shot. Centers of that size and skill level are rarely moved (though Thornton went, so anything is possible).
Not from Buffalo but listen to WGR550 whenever I get it, is it just me or are these guys clueless? some guy was talking about a list with 50 fowards better than Vanek and named a couple defenceman.
it's not just you. wgr and the buffalo news are both full of blow hards who think they know everything yet in reality seem to know very little about hockey. i got jeremy white to admit on twitter he doesn't watch any hockey outside of the sabres, and absolutely no junior hockey, yet he will argue with you until he is red in the face that grigorenko is absolutely the player we need and should do everything in their power to land him. even though he's never seen him play. it gets very old, very fast.
Notes I made about Regier on WGR this evening are below. Some are my own thoughts, some are statements made by Regier:
-Roy is done as a Sabre. Certain of it after today. In roughly an hour of talking to Vogl and WGR, Regier didn't say his name once. Not one mention of a bounceback season. Nothing. Then, as discussed above, Regier talked about acquiring a center, preferably one with size, to play with Ennis and Hodgson, and seemingly purposely excluding Roy.
-Sulzer will likely be back. Said they talked in their meeting today about what great chemistry he had with Ehrhoff, and compared them to the Ennis-Stafford forward combo in terms of chemistry. If I were a betting man, I'd bet he's lined up opposite Ehrhoff on Opening Night.
-Regier said he's definitely interested in trading up in this draft. He also said he'd look into using the picks to improve the NHL roster. Nothing really unexpected in that answer.
-Regier thinks fewer players in this draft are NHL-ready compared to last year's draft. Considering only five players played more than 10 NHL games this year--RNH, Landeskog, Larsson, Couturier, and Shaw--it sounds like they think 2-3 guys could contribute next season.
-Said he wants to address the scoring issue, and left it at that.
-Regier said he regrets not doing anything during losing streak, but there was nothing tangible that he sees that he could've done to help the team get out of it. Called a trade for trade's sake "tension release," but suggested there wasn't anything worth it on the trade market. He opined that maybe they should've brought up Foligno sooner, but, again, there was nothing doing on the trade market.
-He said you could determine who the important players were by the team's record when those guys were in the lineup versus when they weren't. To me, that was a pretty obvious reference to Ehrhoff, Myers, and Ennis.
-Regier effectively confirmed the notion that there was jealousy in the room over some of the UFA contracts handed out last summer. He said the idea of rewarding certain players made some of the guys who'd been there for longer a bit jealous. Confirmed that some of the deals did not play well in the room.
-Re: Briere. Regier said the Sabres were not prepared to pay Briere what he could earn on the open market. When asked if he thought if Briere would've been retained if Pegula was the owner at that time, he pointed to last summer, cited Pegula's expenditure of resources, and desire to win, and more or less said "What do you think?" He clearly believes Briere would be in blue and gold if Pegula had owned the team in 2007. Eff you BTG and Larry Quinn. (But don't tell Bucky and Sully. That's Regier's fault, too, you know.)
That's what I gathered. He sounded more supportive of Miller in his evening chat than I thought he did in his morning chat with Vogl.
Guys under contract who I don't think should be buying green bananas:
-Derek Roy: See above.
-Mike Weber: Big praise for Ehrhoff and you can hear how highly they think of McNabb when Darcy talks about him. Not sure where he fits going forward.
I think the specific things that BTG forced on the team are starting to come to light...that comment about briere is telling on how badly he had darcy handcuffed in his tenure. I think that if Pegula had bought this team 5-6 years ago, we would be looking at a WAY different team right now...I'm thinking no hodgeson deal, or centers would probably be Briere - Roy - Ennis hecht would have been a winger the whole time, making him probably a bit less concussion prone. The hodgeson deal woukdnt have happened, we would have been better in the playoffs, leino and regehr probably wouldn't be here, and vanek would probably be in Edmonton. Buffalo would have some major high end talent with edmontons picks from the RFA offersheet, and there would probably be 10 threads in FA/trade asking for Derek Roy.
-Regier effectively confirmed the notion that there was jealousy in the room over some of the UFA contracts handed out last summer. He said the idea of rewarding certain players made some of the guys who'd been there for longer a bit jealous. Confirmed that some of the deals did not play well in the room.
I'm the only one who's allowed to read that much into quotes!
I almost feel like I missed something -- but I don't think I did, because I know Darcy would never "confirm" such things.
The part I heard, after a question from Schopp, Darcy was talking in general about some of the pitfalls of getting into the expensive free agent market. All he said was that you have to be careful that jealousy doesn't creep into your room.
I'm the only one who's allowed to read that much into quotes!
I almost feel like I missed something -- but I don't think I did, because I know Darcy would never "confirm" such things.
The part I heard, after a question from Schopp, Darcy was talking in general about some of the pitfalls of getting into the expensive free agent market. All he said was that you have to be careful that jealousy doesn't creep into your room.
Talking about paying top dollar for UFAs after Ville Leino was broght up:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Darcy Regier
"To the extent that you reward someone, and ... that, that ends up in your dressing room. and so there needs to be an understanding with the rest of the players that this is ok, this works, in order to avoid things like jealousy, to avoid things like 'why are they rewarding this guy and not this guy?' or 'why is it not me?' and those things are real and you need to weigh them and consider them with respect to all the other players"
Talking about paying top dollar for UFAs after Ville Leino was broght up:
That's pretty much verbatim.
Sure, it's real. It's a real phenomenon in sports. In no way did Darcy confirm it was happening in his lockerroom. In fact, he started his answer by saying he wasn't talking about Ville Leino specifically.
Friedman had something earlier about UFA contracts being an issue in the Sabres' dressing room too. It seems possible some of the lifers may have been put off by having new guys coming in, making a lot of scratch, and perhaps not being as ferverant in their pursuit of winning hockey games as some of the lower paid guys where.
And yes, it was a disclaimer about Leino right off the bat... which made me chuckle.
__________________
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. - Aristotle
Friedman had something earlier about UFA contracts being an issue in the Sabres' dressing room too. It seems possible some of the lifers may have been put off by having new guys coming in, making a lot of scratch, and perhaps not being as ferverant in their pursuit of winning hockey games as some of the lower paid guys where.
And yes, it was a disclaimer about Leino right off the bat... which made me chuckle.
Although, Schopp threw that qualifier in there in the question, too.
Notes I made about Regier on WGR this evening are below. Some are my own thoughts, some are statements made by Regier:
-Roy is done as a Sabre. Certain of it after today. In roughly an hour of talking to Vogl and WGR, Regier didn't say his name once. Not one mention of a bounceback season. Nothing. Then, as discussed above, Regier talked about acquiring a center, preferably one with size, to play with Ennis and Hodgson, and seemingly purposely excluding Roy.
-Sulzer will likely be back. Said they talked in their meeting today about what great chemistry he had with Ehrhoff, and compared them to the Ennis-Stafford forward combo in terms of chemistry. If I were a betting man, I'd bet he's lined up opposite Ehrhoff on Opening Night.
-Regier said he's definitely interested in trading up in this draft. He also said he'd look into using the picks to improve the NHL roster. Nothing really unexpected in that answer.
-Regier thinks fewer players in this draft are NHL-ready compared to last year's draft. Considering only five players played more than 10 NHL games this year--RNH, Landeskog, Larsson, Couturier, and Shaw--it sounds like they think 2-3 guys could contribute next season.
-Said he wants to address the scoring issue, and left it at that.
-Regier said he regrets not doing anything during losing streak, but there was nothing tangible that he sees that he could've done to help the team get out of it. Called a trade for trade's sake "tension release," but suggested there wasn't anything worth it on the trade market. He opined that maybe they should've brought up Foligno sooner, but, again, there was nothing doing on the trade market.
-He said you could determine who the important players were by the team's record when those guys were in the lineup versus when they weren't. To me, that was a pretty obvious reference to Ehrhoff, Myers, and Ennis.
-Regier effectively confirmed the notion that there was jealousy in the room over some of the UFA contracts handed out last summer. He said the idea of rewarding certain players made some of the guys who'd been there for longer a bit jealous. Confirmed that some of the deals did not play well in the room.
-Re: Briere. Regier said the Sabres were not prepared to pay Briere what he could earn on the open market. When asked if he thought if Briere would've been retained if Pegula was the owner at that time, he pointed to last summer, cited Pegula's expenditure of resources, and desire to win, and more or less said "What do you think?" He clearly believes Briere would be in blue and gold if Pegula had owned the team in 2007. you BTG and Larry Quinn. (But don't tell Bucky and Sully. That's Regier's fault, too, you know.)
That's what I gathered. He sounded more supportive of Miller in his evening chat than I thought he did in his morning chat with Vogl.
Guys under contract who I don't think should be buying green bananas:
-Derek Roy: See above.
-Mike Weber: Big praise for Ehrhoff and you can hear how highly they think of McNabb when Darcy talks about him. Not sure where he fits going forward.
Just read this entire thread. Excellent breakdown, zip. Listening to the interview, I think your post here is spot on.
On the Briere comments, isn't it just as likely that both Drury AND Briere would have remained in Blue and Gold had Pegula owned the team then? So of course he would say Danny would still be here, and I agree with him.
However, that doesn't mean that Golisano, Quinn, Regier, and Ruff all agreed that keeping Drury was priority #1. Briere was a cap casualty when he didn't have to be, and I believe R&R were in on that regrettable decision.
Just read this entire thread. Excellent breakdown, zip. Listening to the interview, I think your post here is spot on.
On the Briere comments, isn't it just as likely that both Drury AND Briere would have remained in Blue and Gold had Pegula owned the team then? So of course he would say Danny would still be here, and I agree with him.
However, that doesn't mean that Golisano, Quinn, Regier, and Ruff all agreed that keeping Drury was priority #1. Briere was a cap casualty when he didn't have to be, and I believe R&R were in on that regrettable decision.
A few weeks ago, Larry Quinn went to dinner with Neil Smith and told him he was in the market for a center. He handed the former Rangers general manager a list of seven or eight available names.
"I like him," Smith said, pointing to the name Chris Drury. "He's a difference-maker. He's a player. The Rangers will probably get him."
Smith was wrong about one thing. The Rangers didn't get him. Thursday, the Sabres acquired Drury and center Steve Begin from the Calgary Flames in a three-way deal that cost them two defensemen -- rugged veteran Rhett Warrener and prospect Keith Ballard.
Ever since that happened, there was a belief that Drury was "Quinn's guy" and Briere was more of "Regier's guy" given how each guy came to become members of the Sabres.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if Regier wanted to keep Briere, but Quinn overrulled him.
Ever since that happened, there was a belief that Drury was "Quinn's guy" and Briere was more of "Regier's guy" given how each guy came to become members of the Sabres.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if Regier wanted to keep Briere, but Quinn overrulled him.
***IF TRUE***
My Hatred for Everything Larry Quinn has skyrocketed even more. Heck, knowing the fact he was involved with the construction of Crossroads/Marine Midland Areana/HSBC makes me want to tear the building down
