Rome Wasn't Built in a Day

It's amazing to think about the waiting game that we as Sabres fans were playing during the Suter and Parise sweepstakes that went on beginning July 1st. The whole league was really. The choices of Ryan Suter and Zach Parise were going to set the market and allow for the trading to begin. Sports pundit logic followed that once Suter and Parise's deals were done, Rick Nash would get traded. Then once the most available trade bait was off the table, the slightly less available Bobby Ryan would be able to be traded for by the Buffalo Sabres (or anyone else in the league, but let's be serious, we're more interested in the Sabres here).

After a long wait, the first domino fell; Suter and Parise were both signed by the Minnesota Wild. But then a funny thing happened; absolutely nothing. The Nash deal didn't happen, nor anything else on a large scale. Even Shane Doan has yet to decide on what team to sign with, torn between his desire to stay in Phoenix and his need for stability. With the market stagnant, the Sabres did what it seems like everyone locally was waiting for them to do and moved Derek Roy to the Dallas Stars in exchange for the gritty Steve Ott. 

Then came word of a massive contract offer from the Eastern Conference for Shane Doan with some conjecture that it is possible that the Sabres had made that offer. It sounded ridiculous, utterly and completely so, until the other shoe dropped; A report from Elliott Friedman of the CBC stated that the Sabres had offered the Wild's wonder twins up to $100,000,000 to play at the First Niagara Center. A move that would brashly make use of the deep pockets of owner Terry Pegula and let Darcy Regier figure the rest out. 

This changes everything. It may not seem like it does, seeing as the aforementioned whales didn't land with the Sabres. It means that no one on this team is safe. Don't get me wrong; in my head I have a list of players (namely Myers and Ehrhoff) that are essentially untouchable. But let's imagine for a moment that Ryan Suter and Zach Parise are Buffalo Sabres. Then we have an overwhelming abundance of quality defenders. Then, all those deals for top superstars, the ones that start with "We want Tyler Myers," the ones that we all figure Darcy would immediately hang up on, may become possible.

Can you imagine, for a moment, the Sabres starting the season with a line of Thomas Vanek, Ryan Getzlaf and Zach Parise? 

This all means that the Sabres can do just about anything. It reaffirms thoughts of making big deals and making this team something that we can not just hope, but expect to be in the conversation to challenge for Division, Conference and Stanley Cup Championships. And for that, I can be patient. I don't want to make a deal for the sake of making one. I want there to be a big deal. I expect a big deal. But I know that Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither are Stanley Cup Champions.

Why I can't blame the Philadelphia Flyers

The sports world (well, the hockey world at least) is abuzz at the Philadelphia Flyers' audacity in signing Nashville Predators captain Shea Weber to a ridiculous offer sheet that threatens to cripple the team however it turns out. It's either a financial crippling, making the centerpiece of one of the smallest of the league's small market teams pay through the nose for the man who has been their leader since he suited up for them or a publicity nightmare where (no offense to Pekka Rinne) the two best players on the team have left in the same summer. It also renews league-wide resentment towards the Flyers, who are either being resented for being the biggest of big fishes when it comes to making a splash in the summer or just a somehow less-honorable version of corporate-level Broad Street Bullying.

But I'm not buying it, and I'll tell you why.

What bothers me about the whole issue is the immediate flashback that most Buffalo sports fans will have to that terrible summer, when Kevin Lowe forced the Sabres to swallow the Thomas Vanek contract. The problem with that is that while Kevin Lowe was universally reviled for his actions in targeting both Vanek and then-Ducks rising star Dustin Penner (and G-d did I love Brian Burke for ripping him a new one after it), there's a question of vulnerability of the players targeted that is completely ignored. And because of that, and the situation, I don't think this is a fair comparison; in this case, Lowe took a swing at some low hanging fruit that was available at the time. He drastically over paid (not that the Vanek contract seems completely insane five years later) and in the end got one of the players he wanted. Good, young, developmental guys that had the possibility to be something great in this league.

And that is where my eyes are forced to look back a few weeks earlier in July.

In Buffalo, looking at that terrible Summer, there is still the argument over who we hated the most. Was it Chris Drury for taking the same money to go to play in Ranger blue for the same money we offered him? Was it Philadelphia for making a ridiculous offer to Danny Briere when the majority of us had already given up on him to chase Drury? Was it Lowe for making the Sabres eat the poison pill that was the Vanek contract when they were so low?

No. We hated the Sabres the most. We hated that Darcy Regier couldn't put the deal together for these guys. We hated that 'if we had just told Briere we'd take what was on the table for his long term deal, which was less than we offered him or Drury, he'd still be here.' We hated that Drury was upset that Briere was treated shoddily. We hated that we were watching a team that had the heart two summers previous if not the health to bring the Cup to Downtown Buffalo and had the skill if not the grit to do it the following year disintegrate.

So, as much as I hate the Flyers, I couldn't blame them for Briere and I can't help but blame Nashville for the mess they've gotten themselves into.

Look, I get it, they're a small market team that's fought, that's clawed tooth and nail to carve a rabid fan base out of Volunteer and Titan territory. We should want a guy who has so much grit and heart and pure "it" to stay in that town and help make that team what it could be if he just held on.

But here's the thing; Weber was a restricted free agent. People have been talking about the possibility of Weber being moved for over a year, be it the previous deadlines or now. You could have moved him for a player and some picks and remade your team. Or maybe, just maybe, you could have enticed him to stay. Not just enticed, but locked him in utterly and completely. You could have done something amazing, what the Sabres failed to do (because if you have Weber locked in long term before, maybe you get Ryan Suter and then you're looking at a Zach Parise or some other player up front.

You build yourself a dynasty, like they are growing in Pittsburgh. You make the guy who is the best player on your team and possibly the best player in the history of a team that had Mario Lemieux on it in Sidney Crosby a hero. You sign the OTHER guy who is a true superstar in Evgeni Malkin to a long term deal that doesn't cripple the team and hold on to a guy like Marc-Andre Fleury who can keep the roof from blowing off at the other end of the ice. And when you have a player like Jordan Staal  who you make an incredibly lucrative offer to and doesn't really want to go, you send him out and get a boatload in return.

At the end of the day, when the best player in the history of your organization's contract is coming up, you have three choices; lock him up, trade him away or run the risk of playing the blame game the way that Sabres fans did in '07 and Preds fans are going to have to do now.