MLew65

"As it should be................"

hamburg, NY • United States •

Buffalo Sabres

Believe it or not it is exciting to be a Sabre's fan. I have been all my hockey life and so much I named my daughter after the team back in 1999!

It's exciting because for the first time since the drafting of Thomas Vanek we will get to pick hiiiiiigh in the draft with a chance of getting the number 1 pick in the draft. Right now it's hard to say who to pick or if to trade the pick, I envy the spot Tim Murry's in. Either way it'll be a good NHL'ER for years to come.

So let me get to who the Sabres should keep and the rest could go for all I care.

Keepers:

Ted Nolan

I've been a hard core Nolan fan since his first stint in Buffalo and thought he got a raw deal from Darcy with a 1 year lame duck offer. Now That we have Lafontaine in charge of hockey ops he made a wise choice in calling Ted Nolan. Ted is a coach who can get the most out of his players, he understands the psyche of a hockey player. He knows how to correct the mental instabilities so to make a players thinking change for the positive.
While he doesn't have the likes of Dominic Hasek, Michael Pecca and the rest of the old Sabre group he does have a young fresh group of hockey student that'll soak up his knowledge. The names of Armia, Zadorov, Ristolainan, Girgensons , Foligno, Myers, Moulson and Hodgson are a great young core to mold and build around and a crop of young studs every NHL GM would love to have.

One thing I would like to see next season is Ted picking his own coaching staff I think that will make a difference to these players.

OK so I gave away the list of players I think are the core group. Here are my grouping line by line. Question marks I believe should be addressed by trade or off season aquisition, fill in who you should think from your wish list free agents or draft picks.

line 1
lw: Matt Moulson
center: Cody Hodgson
RW: Joel Armia

line 2:
lw:Marcus Foligno
Center: Zemgus Girgensons
rw: ?

Line 3:
lw:Tyler Ennis
Center: Steve Ott
rw

Line 4:
lw?
center (Phil Varone?)
rw

Defensive pairings:

Tyler Myers & Ristolainan
Zadorov & Mc Bain
Pysic & McNabb
? & ?

I've left off Ehrhoff because he can get some good picks/prospects in trade.

The rest should be off the roster in the state of rebuild. They can be traded for whatever we can get, bought out (Leino) or waived.

So there's my take on what the 2014-15 Sabres roster should look like barring any trades or ufa pickups.

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