Buffalo Sabres Depth Chart

I am still leaving all the youngsters off the Sabres roster because I think they are better served starting the season in the minors.

Totally agreed. I definitely think another year in the minors will be good for these guys, even of the trend nowadays in the NHL is to rush your young guys. I’m not so sure about the Myers thing though. He only gets ten games in the big leagues – I think those might be served best later in the year. I’d think it’d be better for him to start back in juniors. Actually, the best place for him to start the season would be the minors, but the NHL is too stupid to change that quirk in the CBA.

I have said that losing Drury and Briere was never the problem but having nobody to replace Vanek and Roy on the third line was the issue.

Good comment. Myself, I always thought they could live w/o Drury and Briere. I think you’re 100% right here – it was replacing the guys who replaced those guys that has proved difficult.

I still think you overrate MacArthur too much, and undervalue Hecht too much. After the year Hecht had though, I don’t think it’s entirely unfair for some to be hard on him. Heck, if he doesn’t turn around his play from last year by the 10-15 game mark, I’ll be tempted to run him out of town.

Paile is still an enigma to me at times. I loved the kid coming out of juniors – he was Captain Canada after all. But he’s been way too inconsistent at times, and I know he irked the crap out of Rivet last year, both on and off of the ice. Maybe he grows up this year?

I think you kind of had to put Stafford on one of the top two lines, but I’m not ruling out a trade there. Chances are, he’s a Sabre next season. But you never know, and if something does happen, it’ll be back to the drawing board for this depth chart.

I like that you put up the salary cap numbers in the depth chart. With that there, it reminds me of just how good the Sabres D is set for the future. Assuming Lydman and Hank are no longer Sabres next season, and will be replaced by cheaper guys (presumably Weber and Myers), the Sabres will have a super low cap number for their D. Right now, with 5 & 10, they are spending about 13/14 million on defense, which in my opinion is still a disproportionate number to the whole of the teams cap.

Just a hunch, but I don’t think they’ll sign Mancari. That’s a dude who blew it if you ask me. He’s nowhere near the physical kind of player his body says he should be, much like Kotalik was. The difference between the two though was that Kotalik had a very refined skill set, and could skate. Mancari would have been better off early in his career if he focused on being a nasty guy, and then letting his skills show up.

Who gets the call if Butler has a sophomore slump? My guess is it’s between Paetsch or Weber. I get the feeling Weber is going to have a nice training camp, and is going to make one helluva push to make this team.