fire bucky gleason, guest edition

To demonstrate that I'm not the only one who thinks the Buffalo News sports columnists are hypocritical windbags, today I'm featuring a guest blogger. He happens to be my brother, so we'll call him "michael.w" in order to make his name look like mine. I've made some editorial notes where I think there needs to be additional illumination. Enjoy. Or don't, whatever.

Today's Bucky Gleason of the Day is the man himself.

Kovalev is a different sort, one who needed a few mental health days last season after crumbling under the pressure that comes with playing in Montreal. He’s no Heatley at this stage in their careers, but at age 36 he remains among the better forwards in the league and worth $10 million over two years.

So I presume had he signed with the Sabres, all of his mental health days would be forgiven. After all, it isn't as though a certain newspaper filled a lot of inches with columns questioning the Sabres' heart, mental toughness, and grit over the past two years. But since he signs with a team not named the Sabres, a player (Kovalev) who is obviously a head case, is wonderful, warts and all.

That alone makes it a good move.

Not to get all Language Arts geek here, but that sentence followed the first paragraph, which list two positives about Kovalev. So which one "alone" makes it a good move?

Leafs GM Brian Burke stiffened his blue line last week when he locked up Mike Komisarek with a five-year contract worth $22.5 million and added bruiser Francois Beauchemin on Monday with a three-year deal worth $11.4 million. He landed Jonas Gustavsson, the best goalie in Europe, for $810,000. All three were good buys.

I like Beauchemin. I guess I was away when Komisarek became the reincarnation of Bobby Orr and Scott Stevens combined (this is directed at pretty much everyone). And Gustavsson, OK. Of all the people touting as the best goalie ever, how many of them have actually seen him, I don't know, play a single minute of hockey?

There’s good buys, and there’s good-byes. Montreal has been familiar with both during a dizzy week. The Habs lost good players in Komisarek and Kovalev, will likely lose Saku Koivu and could be without Alex Tanguay and Robert Lang. But they picked up Scott Gomez in the swap that sent Christopher Higgins to the Rangers and signed free agents Mike Cammalleri, Brian Gionta and Jaroslav Spacek. Not great, but not bad.

[Ed's Note: "good buys and good-byes" qualifies as what I'm going to call "plaschke-nanigans." To understand what I'm talking about you'll have to review Fire Joe Morgan, but lame attempts at awful wordplay will get you called out on this blog. Knock it off, or go start writing dialogue for Horatio Caine on CSI: Miami.]

Wait, I thought good teams never lose players. In return, they received a player who was outside MSG with a "PLEASE TRADE FOR ME" sign around his neck (Gomez), a player who put up big numbers with Jarome Iginla (Cammalleri), which I believe I could also do, a player whose production has declined remarkably over the past three seasons (Gionta) and player who sucked until he left the Sabres, at which point, like every other player who isn't on the Sabres anymore, becomes a certain Hall of Famer (Spacek).

We could argue all day about the Habs, but at least they’re willing to overhaul their roster and make the attempt to get back into contention. They knew their chemistry was poor, so they fired their coach and made drastic personnel changes. And, remember, they actually made the playoffs last season.

They made drastic personnel changes, yes. What if these changes turn out to be wrong? [Ed's Note: See Lightning, Tampa Bay, 2008-09] I mean after all, it is like three months from the drop of the puck. But yes, they did something. Of course, if my car is low on gas, I could try to solve the problem by slashing my tires, that also would be "Doing something"

The Bruins have been quiet in free agency but they’re keeping a good team together. They re-signed goalie Tim Thomas in April, locked up David Krejci last week and kept Mark Recchi. They’re still looking to sign or trade Phil Kessel. Either way, they’ll be fine.

So they locked up their goalie and young player. Didn't a team do that last season? A team whose front office is often the target of scathing criticism from the author of the column? And how do you know that either way, they'll be fine? What if Tim Thomas proves to be a flash in the pan goalie who played above his head one season (See Brian Boucher, Roman Chechmanek, Andrew Raycroft, Evegyni Nabakov). Then they won't be fine.

You can see where this is going. Take a few twirls around the Northeast Division, and all but one team is either making significant attempts to improve or doing what they can to keep what’s in place. The Senators and Canadiens have playoff talent. Boston should be back near the top of the division. The Leafs will only get better.

The Canadiens snuck into the playoffs, the Senators finished out of the playoffs and are probably going to have deal, you know, their top scorer. Alfreddson is getting old fast. Of course the Leafs will get better. They sucked the past 4 seasons. They cannot get worse.

The Sabres are doing, well, nothing. Their idea of upgrading the organization so far has been signing Steve Montador. What, Doug Janik wasn’t available? If anything, they’re actually worse. Spacek wasn’t worth the money he’s collecting from Montreal, but dropping him and adding Montador is a net loss.

[Ed's Note: Doug Janik was available. He was part of the Gomez deal. At least read the entire transaction, moron. He also scored a goal in Game 7 against Carolina in '06. So I have nothing against Doug Janik.]

Steve Montador, a perennial top 6 defenceman everywhere he goes, compared to a guy who isn't even on an NHL roster. And I thought, again, that the criticism of the Sabres, as evidenced by previous columns, was the Sabres are not "tough enough" in the back end. Montador is tough. Spacek is not an enforcer.

Say what you will about the Bills, but at least they signed Terrell Owens and used his star power to turn the attention, for now, away from Dick Jauron. At least you know what they’re selling.

So if there is notorious locker dumpster fire on the downside of his career available, the Sabres should sign him. Again with the whole "doing something"

The Sabres, meanwhile, are selling . . . well . . . what, exactly? They finished 10th in the conference last season. They haven’t signed Drew Stafford or any other restricted free agents. They haven’t made any trades. To improve they’ll need much more than the Craig Rivettype moves they made last year.

They tendered an offer to Stafford. I also notice that no other team has signed their RFA's. [Ed's Note: Chicago has, but only because Dale Tallon effed up big time.] Perhaps the sides are, I don't know, negotiating terms. And what is this "Rivettype" move he speaks. The Sabres never "do something" I guess I also missed the news release that the NHL offseason has come to a completion.

Bet the house on some flunky in the organization explaining away another listless summer by saying how they tried signing players but couldn’t convince them to come here, the old blame-Buffalo excuse, without understanding the reason why.

Wow, an actual fact. He stumbled into it. But the facts are (look up census numbers and population shift numbers) when given choices, people frequently choose environs other than the Greater Buffalo area to live and work.