On the Buffalo Sabres …
Mike Harrington: “NO ONE is taking Bogosian for THREE YEARS at a cap hit of $5.1 million. NO ONE except Vegas going for cap floor.”
Joe Yerdon: Not sure what GM Tim Murray thinks of Eric Gelinas (put waivers yesterday), but if Zach Bogosian is going to miss a lot of time, do they put a claim in on him? This is knowing that defensemen Josh Gorges and Jake McCabe will be returning to the lineup in the near future.
Derek Kramer of WGR 550: Sabres GM Tim Murray was on WGR 550 today talking about the Sabres leading up to the trade deadline.
“We’re still somewhere in that rebuild, we’re certainly not at the bottom of it, but we’re not close to the top,” Murray said when asked about where Buffalo is in their rebuild process. “Learning to win is part of the process. Learning to win is hard and once you learn to win, it’s much harder to lose that.”
Heading in to last night’s action the Sabres were tied for last in the East, but only seven points out of the last wild card spot, nine points of third in the Atlantic. Murray doesn’t see them making a trade to try and get into the playoffs.
“We’re not going to sell the farm for a one-off playoff shot. We could still be buyers and still get a young player that fits going forward.”
Chris Nichols of FanRag Sports: Sabres GM Tim Murray on WGR 550 said he’s making calls as a buyer and a seller to see what could be available, but it’s quiet right now. A lot of teams are sitting on the fence. The Sabres have organizational depth on the wing and could use to acquire some help on the blueline.
“I know there’s a lot of teams scouting our team,” said Murray. “I talked to a couple of GMs yesterday that thought that they’d be watching our team a lot this month. So we’ll see. We’ll see if we have something to sell that makes sense and makes us better in the future. Or if something happened here and we won six of our next seven games, then we might be able to buy and stay within the plan, and that’s the future and the near-future and to keep our team young and move forward.”
Chris Nichols of FanRag Sports: Pierre LeBrun on TSN 690 thinks the Buffalo Sabres could benefit from teams that could miss out on defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk.
“There’s two hours left to the deadline, and you’ve got pending UFA Dmitry Kulikov on the books. Hey, that’s a good position to be in I think if you’re Tim Murray at that point.”
Kulikov carries a $4.333 million salary cap hit.