| Jonathan Volpe. 21st January, 2008 - 2:31 pm
 During the off-season, Darcy Regier allowed both Chris Drury and Daniel Briere to sign elsewhere when the general consensus was that he had to choose between at least one of them. While losing both Drury and Briere has been detrimental this season, Regier might be forced to deal Brian Campbell.
Buffalo?s all-star defenseman has stated he will not negotiate a contract until the end of the season which yet again puts Regier in a difficult position. Regier may decide losing Campbell for nothing is too risky and may deal Campbell to a contender for other assets.
While all of the talk seems to be focused on Campbell, this is not the biggest problem in the grand scheme of things.
Coming off breakout seasons in 2006-2007, Derek Roy, Thomas Vanek, and Jason Pominville have had sub-par seasons thus far. Last year the trio fell under opposing teams' radars as Drury and Briere garnered most of the attention from them.
But Roy, Vanek, and Pominville are not playing against other teams third or fourth defenseman anymore and find themselves being matched up against other teams' top defensive pair on a nightly basis.
Another big disappointment has been the play of Tim Connolly. Before the season started, Connolly was looked upon as the Sabres' number one center. However, injury problems have plagued Connolly all season long as he has missed 12 games and only five goals in 34 games. For a guy that is supposed to be your bonafide number one center, those numbers are horrendous at best.
And let's not forget about Maxim Afinogenov. Coming off a 61-point season, Afinogenov has been arguably the Sabres' biggest disappointment as he has managed seven goals and 18 points in 38 games this season. For a guy that was thought to succeed under a bigger role, Afinogenov has been a flop.
On the backend, the Sabres have been missing the play of Teppo Numminen, who continues to recover from heart surgery. Without Numminen in the lineup, guys like Nathan Paetsch and Nolan Pratt have played bigger roles while Toni Lydman, Henrik Tallinder, and Dmitri Kalinin have struggled.
If the Sabres don?t improve their play, they may find themselves with the first overall pick in this years' NHL entry draft which may not sound like a bad idea with a guy by the name of Steven Stamkos as the projected first overall pick. |
