Roy, Paetsch safe; not Paille

The Buffalo Sabres probably don't have to fear another strike toward their restricted free agents, at least not this year.

The Sabres' top remaining restricted free agent is center Derek Roy, who had 21 goals and 42 assists last season. But he filed for salary arbitration Thursday, which takes him off the market. Lining up for arbitration is basically considered signing a contract with a team, since the two parties have agreed to let an arbiter decide what that contract will be worth.

Defenseman Nathan Paetsch is also on the arbitration list, leaving forward Daniel Paille as the only Sabres restricted free agent available to other teams. Paille, like Thomas Vanek, was ineligible to file because he has been a pro for only three seasons. But no team would offer a significant contract to Paille because he has yet to establish himself in the NHL.

Edmonton, which took the run at Vanek, discovered the restricted free agent market dwindled a bit when the arbitration list came out. Potent forwards such as L.A.'s Mike Cammalleri (34 goals, 46 assists), Montreal's Michael Ryder (30, 28), the Islanders' Trent Hunter (20, 15) and St. Louis' Lee Stempniak, the West Seneca native who had 27 goals and 25 assists, took themselves off the market by filing for arbitration.

---John Vogl

Comments

[Dumb and Dumber= Quinn/Regier]

It honestly amazes me at the sheer idiocy of Larry Quinn and what Oilers GM Kevin Lowe dubbed as "juvenile" comments at the Vanek news conference. How did this guy ever ascend to the top of the Sabres foodchain? This moron clearly is out to lunch and clueless beyond the belief when it comes to running an NHL franchise. Kevin Lowe took a shot at an up and coming player on the Sabres roster w/a ludicrous contract offer that unfortunately backed Buffalo into a corner. But if it wasnt for the continual lack of preparedness or better yet sense of urgency by the Sabres, Vanek would never have been in this spot. They have no one else to blame but themselves.
It is "juvenile" when one considers that Quinn and Regier had forever to lock Vanek up with a long-term deal and at a fair value but decided theyd blow him off just as they did with Drury and Briere whom are obviously glad to be out of Buffalo after their mistreatment. Then Quinn has the audacity to cry foul when all Lowe was doing was using the rules that have been set in place from the new CBA. Hey at least he has a set to try to improve his team unlike clueless Darcy Regier who just sleeps at his desk. Oh but then we did resign Teppo Numminen and Jocelyn Thibault which surely will "improve" our team for next year. Whose next, Rory Fitzpatrick or Bob Corkum? WTF? Is it me or am I the only one who can see just how out of touch and retarded the Sabres upper management is?
How can Tom Golisano continue to allow Larry Quinn to ruin this franchise, P-Off the fans, alienate them at every turn, take money for tickets but then roll an inferior product on the ice all the while crying that the Oilers shouldnt have offered such a high contract.
Face it Larry boy, if you'd had been proactive, (a term not ever heard at HSBC Arena) Thomas Vanek wouldnt be walking away with a $50 million contract, nor Daniel Briere with a $52 million one or Chris Drury at $35 million!
How does this guy stay at the top? Please someone help answer this? Can he transfer to Bass Pro once it opens up instead?
God help us all, if Larry Quinn is at the helm, mark my words SabresNation this team is headed nowhere and I mean nowhere. We will be lucky to finish in 10th next season!
Idiot!!!!!!!!!

[buffalo716]

jerry sulivan is such a clown. why does eeryone in wny have to go through his blame game articles 2-3 times a week? the sabres and bills could win titles in the same year, and i'm sure he'd only focus on why it hadn't happened sooner. he is a joke and needs to get out of town.

[Jeff]

It may not seem so now, but perhaps these are moves that will be realized as being smart in the long run. Regardless of the irritating fashion in which they happened, let's not forget how Briere vanished in the playoffs.

The front office may have felt that they had gone as far as possible with Briere and Drury. Remember, during this season, many times the Sabres were regarded as a model franchise in the new NHL. That doesn't change overnight. My feeling is that we should give this some time and see how it goes. The organization and team are resourceful and as the Yankees show, spending a lot of money doesn't necessarily equate to championships.

[Bill]

Dumb and Dumber = Quinn/Regier, you have to open your eyes! Yah the Sabres management is real dumb, they had a presidents trophy team last year, went to the conference final the year before. Yah that is done through a group of idiots! If your theory is true, then there isnt a smart GM in the league. EVERY team loses key guys! It happens, When the heck in the last 10 - 15 years has there been a team that has not lost key guys to free agency, IN ANY FREAKIN SPORT! Do you not have anything better (And this goes for all the negative people out there) to do than to take your role as arm chair general manager and do the easiest thing possibe, attack someone without offering a solution! I was upset at firt too but with time, I have gotten over it! This is a different league and its going to happen! Just wait and see what happens with Drury and Briere next year. If they are 1 - 2 in the League in everything, yah thats a mistake for not signing them, if they are at the bottom in terms of star players (Where I believe they will be), then bash Regeir and Quinn! Let time do the talking and not your uneducated and narrow minded thoughts!

[dan]

Tom g. give us a christmas in July TO REMEMBER, , sell the team to a real owner. You hire dumb and dumber and expect real hockey fans to stick by you. Get real, tell JS Quinn to quit making an a$$ of himself. He is making the fans look bad. IT IS A BUSINESS, RIGHT TOM.

[Dog]

Well at last....
We signed a player to a meaningful contract.(thank you Edmonton & Kevin Lowe).
The thought of losing Vanek right now would be maddening.
He had a break out year and if you really listened to him talk(not hear him,but really listened) he is welcoming the pressure of this deal.Yes, I know talk is cheap,but after he got the message in his rookie year, maybe it's his turn to deliver one.Now that's at least 5 Sabres that what the pressure on their shoulders,Miller,Vanek,
Kotalik,Campbell & Mike Ryan.
Darcy, you'd better hope your "young" guys step up or I'm sure you'll be run out!!!
I will always back the uniform and have since day 1.
We as fans now have to back the players in them.We have to get behind them and NOT jump on them if they start slow next year. I believe in these guys, do you???
GO SABRES!!!!!!!!!!!

[Confused]

I think we could have signed Drury for half what Vanek is now going to make if we would have signed him early in last season. Our management is weak and better hope the NHL rules change again so they do not have to build a team it can fall into place with total luck.

[Dave C]

Piggybacking on Jerry Sullivan's outstanding column from July 6, the "Mighty Quinn" is way over his head serving as team chairman and should be FIRED post haste!

Quinn is as Sullivan pointed out a "bully" and is almost unanimously loathed throughout: his own organization, the entire NHL, and now, the Niagara Frontier!

He is nothing more than a typical South Buffalo blowhard (Jimmy Griffin ring a bell?) who tries to divide and conquer and usually just divides.

PLEASE MR. Golisano,,,,send Quinn packing back to the First Ward, where maybe he could head up security for an Irish pub that needs a thug who doesn't listen - or care - to anybody but himself!!!!!

[Lucas]

So are all of you angry fans just going to give up on the Sabres or are you going to be the ones who are cheering the loudest come next playoff season? There are a couple of players lost from a team that came up soft in the playoffs last year. The core of the team is still intact. The team also has some cap room to possibly make a legitamate move at next year's trade deadline (something they were not able to do this year) to make a push in the playoffs. People need to look at the whole picture and not focus on a couple of players that were too soft when it mattered most.

[Dave C]

Hey Lucas:

Here is the "whole picture":

Even fools get lucky once in a while..The Sabres MISSED the playoffs THREE OF THE LAST FIVE SEASONS (finishing last in their division all three..) and basically got lucky with the emergence of a previously "so-so" Danny Briere AND some very astute scouting..

Speaking of which...The Mighty Quinn apparently didn't like PAYING Don Luce, Terry Martin and their cohorts for finding: Ryan Miller, Jason Pominville (that's for you Heather in Clarence!), Drew Stafford etc. so he went to VIDEO SCOUTING!! Brilliant - NOT!

So now NO DECENT NHL VETERAN wants to even remotely consider Buffalo as an option, he's alienated the entire locker room, Vanek has loads too much pressure on him, the rest of the GM's in the NHL can't stand Dumb and Dumber, you lost your heart and soul of the franchise in a very bitter debacle,,and you think the Sabres will be fine? Oh I get it, LUCAS is really Larry Quinn's cousin!!!!

[dan]

Quinn is not from the south, he is from the north. The first ward would not be a place for a jock sniffer. We aould see right thru him. We have two nhl employees right now from the first ward. Tom g. wont fire him because he is a a hockey god to him. Send him back to north or west (with the last mayor who killed our city) with his nose in air (sniffing for new jocks like a dumb blond following a rock star) and his thumb up his a$$. Don't the Bill's have anyone from Notre Dame for JS Quinn to sniff.

[Scoop77]

Given the News' current obsession with the Sabres conducting "good-faith" negotiations a year before a player's contract is up, when is Bucky or Jerry going to write a column about the absolute necessity for the Sabres to sign 2008 RFA Paul Gaustad to a long-term contract? Come on, time's a-wasting. Let's start applying the News' vaunted 20-20 hindsight to help the Sabres avoid future contract mishaps.

[76df]

aha

[W]

Every team in the league is doing video scouting. Its normal. They all economize where they can. The video scouting system the Sabres use is cutting edge, I have seen it up close, and let me tell you, I don't think a single scout at a game could possibly give the amount of information that system can. Please don't act like going to video scouting is the end of the world. Its not.

Saying the Sabres have missed the playoff 3 of the last 5 years is splitting hairs, nothing more. You could have pointed out that they made the conference finals 2 years in a row, but instead chose to include years where the team was reeling and trying to recover from previous bad ownership. That is a little ridiculous.

How do you know that no veterans want to be in Buffalo? Are you some insider that can tell us all this? I doubt it. Its called conjecture. Besides, who among these veterans, aside from Drury and Briere, would have made a difference in Buffalo this year? I could not make an argument that any of them are better than the young players already here. Can you?

That being said, I would not say Paille is safe. He is a very solid 2 way player who could be grabbed by another team for a relatively cheap contract. I do believe that the Sabres and their policy of not locking people up is foolish. They say that contract talks are a distraction during the season, but I question which is more of a distraction: having a contract or not. Oh well, such is the lot of a fan.

[GMan]

1st line: Hecht, Roy, Pominville

2nd line: Vanek, Connolly, Max

3rd line:Paille, Gaustad, Kotalik

4th line: Peters, Mair, Hunter (or some other newbie)

I'm still going to watch this team play.....

[david]

you have to have drew stafford in there somewhere...

[Dave C]

Again, why not take another gander at The Hockey News - April 2007 edition in which Buffalo finished DEAD LAST among all NHL cities among NHL PLAYERS when polled where they would like to play.

And given the number of top flight NHL players/coaches who live here year 'round (Bowman, Sittler, Dionne, Neal, Martin, Stanfield etc. etc.) I doubt it's due to our regions alleged shortcomings.

No - this is because the MIGHTY QUINN and his equally inept sidekick Rusty Regier have ticked off the entire NHL community!!!

And as for your stirring defense of "video scouting",,there is NO OTHER NHL team that simply dismissed their scouting department to SOLELY use video reviews.

Face the facts: Quinn and Regier are total idiots.

[GMan]

You're right, I forgot Stafford, my bad. He's going ot turn soem heads this year. okay....bye bye, Kotalik...........How's that?

[Frank]

We get it already. The writers for this paper don't like Sabres management. Perhaps they could actually title an article with those words, or move on to other stories? I can't wait until they pull the card that "the media and management distracted the rest of the team from performing by solely focusing on two players that are no longer with the team." Let me know when that article is set to be published. We get it Jerry, Bucky, and the rest. You're way smarter than any of us could ever hope to be. That's why you write for a local paper and criticize decisions that you'll never have to make yourselves. Do us all a favor and report the stories to us. I'm praying that the team is successful this season just to shut you guys up. They say that those who can't do, teach. Well, those who can't manage, write.

[Mark]

I am not going to defend Larry Quinn his record last time was bad enough and when Tom G. bought the team and appointed Larry, I cringed. The real disappointment was the loss of Drury, that is hard to replace. You can build in other places to replace Briere, but Drury was a mistake. And if it was I am sure Tom G. said fix it to Larry. The team still has a lot of talent, with gifted Tim Connelly reaching his prime years, hopefully injury free.

[Bill Bednarek]

I'm from Buffalo, NY but have been living in Maryland for 23 years. I bought a satellite dish just to get the Sabres games here and buy all the Sabres gear, T-shirts, hats, etc, etc.
I can see losing Briere or Drury...but NOT both !!! How can you keep Teppo Numinen, Kotalik, Spacek, and Kalinen, yet lose your captain and ast. captain??? Buffalo sure makes it tough to be a fan with moves like this. I hope the people in Buffalo revolt!

[erv12]

i don't agree with the Sabres policy of not negotiating contract during a season, and the prime examples speak for themselves. something needs to be don, plain and simple.