Welcome, New Guy!

Hey, look at this guy.  He’s a Sabre.

“Hey ladies.”
*finger guns*
“My name is Raffi Torres.  I am now Buffalo’s lead scorer.”
*wink*

Nathan Paetsch is now a Blue Jacket, and Clarke MacArthur is now a 3rd and 4th round draft pick, so we must say their eulogies.

R.I.P:

Nathan Paetsch, your face is pleasingly round, and you always seem so polite and cordial.  Your ability to play almost any position on the ice will be missed, as will your helmet that you had Chara autograph after he dented it with a slapshot.  We wish you well in Columbus.  Good luck with the co-eds and the ice girls.  Please send Rick Nash my best.  Thank you for your service to the Buffalo Sabres.  Amen.

Clarke MacArthur, you have frustrated me many times over the years, and your ridiculous hair makes you look perpetually stoned.  You do, however, have a good nickname.  “The General” will be missed.  We wish you well in Atlanta.  I’ll look for you in the Atlanta airport when I fly Delta.  Good luck with the traffic and the heat.  Please send Max Afinogenov my best.  Thank you for your service to the Buffalo Sabres. Amen.

____________________

In other news, we probably all owe Darcy Regier a wee bit of an apology.  He DID something!  Yay!

So, Darcy, sorry we all doubted you, and thank you SO MUCH for not re-signing Henrik Tallinder and telling us it’s the same as a big trade.  Seriously.  This is so much better than that would have been.

Good Luck in Boston, Pie.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I’m quite aware that Daniel Paille really hasn’t been working out, and I’m sure the Sabres will be just fine without him, but I am a little confused about how he fell so far from grace.  I’ll be honest, I was surprised that he started the season so far in the dog house that he wound up in the press box.  To me, Paille and MacArthur have been somewhat interchangeable for the last few seasons (not necessarily their style, but certainly their worth), and yet somehow over the course of five games, Clarke MacArthur has established himself as This Year’s Breakout Sabres Darling, and Paille has been traded for a third round draft pick.

I consider myself to be a fairly observant Sabres fan but somehow I got all turned around in this situation.  If you had told me a month ago that I had the choice to keep either Paille or MacArthur, I’d have picked Paille.

It goes to show what I know!

Let’s Blow This Baby Up

I’m kind of a drama queen when it comes to the Sabres (although oddly, I’m not a drama queen in any other area of my life), so I felt a little bit of vindication when I made my morning blog rounds today.  It seems I’m not the only person who thought that that was THE WORST HOCKEY GAME IN THE HISTORY OF TIME AND SPACE.  I mean, I’ve seen the Sabres suck plenty of times before, but that game last night was an abomination.  I’m not sure that either team successfully completed a pass all night.  I will forever remember that game as ten guys standing in the middle of the rink kicking the puck around randomly with their skates.  For all I know, they didn’t even USE hockey sticks last night.

But the details about last night are neither here nor there.  The main point is that the Sabres are not a good hockey team.  I’ll admit, I’ve lost ALL patience for waiting around for this particular group of guys to pull it together.  It’s not going to happen.  Drastic steps must be taken.

I’m not ordinarily the type of blogger to play the role of GM.  I don’t feel very confident with my hockey analysis, but this situation has inspired me to go out on a limb and write a serious post about what I would do if I were the GM of the Sabres.  In my opinion, this team needs a major shake-up.

Here are the moves I would make:

Tim Connolly should be retired and sent to a farm to live out his remaining years grazing peacefully.  It’s the most humane solution at this point.

Drew Stafford should be traded for Evgeni Malkin.

Derek Roy‘s talent should be surgically extracted and implanted into Paul Gaustad.  This is a dangerous scheme because there’s a risk that Goose could be infected with some of Roy-Z’s personality as well as his talent (that, of course, would be disastrous/tragic), but I’m sure we can all agree that a Goose/Roy-Z hybrid would be a useful player to have around.  I think it’s worth the risk.  After the talent transferring procedure, the now talentless Derek Roy can become Goose’s personal assistant.  Everyone wins….except Goose, who now has a talentless Derek Roy following him around all the time.

Ryan Miller needs his glass eye removed and replaced with a real eye.  He’s done pretty well with one glass eye, considering, but it’s clear that he needs two good eyes to compete in the NHL.  He might as well get his wonky eyebrow re-cocked while he’s at it.

Jason Pominville needs to be taken off the point on the power play.

Henrik Tallinder and Toni Lydman need to be sent out into the deep forest and each be given a match, a single bottle of water, and a penknife.  They have 48 hours to hunt and kill the other.  Whoever comes out alive gets to keep his job.

Thomas Vanek should be paid $7.1 million dollars per year for the next six years.

Clarke MacArthur should be traded to the Blackhawks for Patrick Sharp and Patrick Kane.

Max Afinogenov and Ales Kotalik should be melted down and then recast as Christmas tree ornaments which the Sabres wives and girlfriends can then sell in the concourse to benefit charity.

Andrew Peters should be waived and Adam Mair should start actively practicing punching people and being punched in return.

Patrick Kaleta should be sent to Portland, and Danny Paille should start actively practicing being really, really annoying.

Nathan Paetsch should be traded for Nicklas Lidstrom.

Craig Rivet should be returned to the San Jose Sharks.  This is a mercy trade made of behalf of Rivet who is probably looking at his old team with extreme longing right about now.  This poor dude was living a perfectly happy life in California a few months ago, and now, through no fault of his own, he’s the CAPTAIN of this train wreck.  Poor dude.  I want to set him free.

Mark Mancari, Nathan Gerbe, and Tim Kennedy should all be given trial jobs with the Sabres, but they should be FORBIDDEN from socializing with any of their elder teammates.  Everyday after practice they should be chauffeured to their grim apartments at the Extended Stay America off the 290, and supervised for the remainer of the day.  If any of them even glances wistfully at Chippewa St, they should be automatically fired/executed.

Teppo Numminen should be compelled to retire so that he may begin some sort of job which involves him standing behind the bench with James Patrick looking foxy in a well tailored suit.

Jaroslav Spacek should call a press conference and then bite the head off the pigeon so that we never have to hear about that dumb thing again.  (This isn’t so much of a personnel move as it is a personal request from me to Jaro.)

——-

So that’s what I would do if I were GM.

Yippee Paille!

Excellent. Dan Paille is all tied up for awhile.  That’s just how I like my promising young forwards- contractually obligated to love me remain a Sabre for the foreseeable future.  We’ve also got Clarke MacArther and Mark “Yellow 19” Mancari signed to their qualifying offers.

Come on, Crunchy.  Everybody’s doing it.