fire bucky gleason, please

This one is a little old, it took a little time to get around to it. But you knew (at least the two Sabres fans who read this blog knew, anyways) that we were going to get some serious nonsense once Mike Grier triumphantly returned to Buffalo after winning three Stanley Cups playing three years in San Jose. Of course, Bucky will never waste an opportunity to praise the 2007 Sabres (the team that was eliminated from the playoffs in 5 games by the Senators). So I'll just have to correct a few errors along the way.

We might as well pick up where we left off three years ago,

By "left off" he of course means "stopped paying any real attention to Buffalo hockey."

when Mike Grier could see the Sabres were headed for trouble and bolted out of town.

Grier left after 2006. The trouble he foresaw was a President's Trophy?

They had free agents whose stock was soaring. They had an asinine policy of not giving out contract extensions during the season. Their window of opportunity was closing.

That policy was admittedly stupid. It's since been abandoned. Did we lose anybody of value in the process? Not really. Philly's paying Daniel Briere eight million this year to spend 50 or so games on the IR. The Rangers are paying Chris Drury seven million plus annually to intangibly let his point totals decrease every year. The Blackhawks are paying puck-moving join the rush Brian Campbell even more to earn a plus/minus rating of only five. So, was the policy stupid? Sure. Did it hurt us in the long run? Not so much, as we let three albatrosses fly.

Grier said as much when he left for San Jose, but it wasn't as if he blamed the Sabres for their business practices and stormed out the door in disgust, vowing never to return.

So he didn't think that strategy was unsound? I don't get it. He obviously didn't vow to never return, and if he did he's clearly a liar.

He figured they were like many confused teams in the post-lockout NHL when they took the soft, conservative approach that led to their downfall.

Aggressive gets you millstone contracts you can't shed. Conservative gets you a young core with reasonable cap hits. Which would you prefer?

But angry? No, he wasn't angry.

"It was just a feeling I had," Grier said this week from Boston. "I saw things that were coming unfortunately. It wasn't so much the Sabres. There was a lot of that around the league.

So other teams struggled with what to do with cap? And also weren't willing to overpay for stupid sentimentality and overwhelmingly debatable "intangibles" that don't put pucks in the net? There was "a lot" of this? I mean, based on the last two years it looks like the Sabres were trying to avoid severely overpaying veteran players facing a decline and instead keep together their young guys and hope they continued to develop into the Stanley Cup threat they could become.

It was trying to figure out the best way to keep those core players together as they entered those free agent years."

I just said that.

If you remember, Grier's decision to leave the Sabres for a three-year hitch with the Sharks raised red flags all over town, if not across the league.

I don't really remember that. I do remember that the Sabres had to make some decisions in 2006 while they tried to push toward a Stanley Cup with the momentum from a surprise berth in, and seven game, Conference Finals.

The problem wasn't that he left, but the message he left behind. He had a key role on a great team. He helped run the dressing room with his close friend, Chris Drury, and he respected coach Lindy Ruff.

Woooo! Christ Drury! Wooo! Grier also respected Lindy Ruff. Just as a point of comparison, Ryan Miller spits in Lindy Ruff's coffee. Thomas Vanek puts glue in Ruff's shampoo bottle. Tim Connolly and Jason Pominville pee in Ruff's gas tank. You don't even want to know what Derek Roy does to him. As you can see, Grier's departure had a huge impact.

Management told him to shop himself in the open market and get back to them.

Pretty bold. They're negotiating against themselves. I'd say that's pretty aggressive. "Go out and find out how much you're worth, and we'll see if we agree." Ballsy.

It was a weak negotiating tactic,

Or, not.

In fact, they matched his three-year offer from San Jose. He had everything he wanted and still split,

Meaning Mike Grier clearly had no intention of being in Buffalo regardless of the circumstances. So some free agents would possibly be leaving at the end of the following season. Wouldn't that be a reason to stay? More opportunities for ice time and attention after they're gone, possibly upping your value at the end of the contract.

which confirmed the future of the organization wasn't nearly as strong as outsiders wanted to believe.

Because Mike Grier left? Don't get me wrong, I liked Mike Grier. His penalty killing is phenomenal. I can't tell you how many times I'd be watching the Sabres trying to kill a penalty, and somehow or another Mike Grier is on a clean breakaway going the other way. But he rarely converted those shorthanded chances, and generally failed to score points otherwise. Saying the future of the organization is doomed because Mike Grier left is like saying the Bills' future was as good as over when they let go of Dominic Rhodes.

"To me, it looked like that was how it was going to go," he said. "We all enjoyed playing there. It didn't seem like it was going to be able to work out even though a lot of us would have enjoyed staying together and winning the whole thing."

Add this to the list of platitudes and cliches that do not provide any insight into anything at all ever. "We all enjoyed playing there"? What's he supposed to say? "We all really hated playing with each other, and that Drury's a dick." And "a lot of us would have enjoyed staying together and winning the whole thing"? I guess Ryan Miller and Thomas Vanek orchestrated the ouster of Briere and Drury? Because they didn't want anybody to stay together, and have no actual interest in winning the Stanley Cup.

We need not rehash the gory details of the Drury-Daniel Briere charade, trumped by Brian Campbell a year later.

Bucky left out the sentence that was supposed to follow: "I will be doing that off and on (mostly on) throughout the season anyways. Especially if we happen to lose two games in a row."

Ed's Note: I realized upon another reading that Bucky here uses the word "trumped." As this is written, the Sabres losing Brian Campbell was worse than losing Drury and Briere combined. This, folks, is the analysis your subscription to the Buffalo News pays for.

Whether or not Grier intended to insult the organization or warn the fans or play for a winner doesn't matter.

As it should, as he didn't really do any of those things. The organization wasn't insulted, as it went on to win the President's Trophy without him and play in to the Conference Finals for a second year in a row before bowing out ungraciously to Ottawa. Which means Grier's departure was a warning of what? A magical season that ended unfortunately? And even though San Jose won the President's Trophy last year, they're also notorious playoff choke artists. As such, they don't qualify as a "winner."

He evaluated the situation from all angles and made a decision without getting caught up in the emotion.

Time out. Shenanigans. Hmm, I think we need a shenanigans bigger than that.

Shenanigans

OK. Let me get this straight... the players are allowed to "evaluate a situation from all angles" and "make a decision without getting caught up in the emotion" but the Sabres front office has to pour money into sentimental garbage cans and light it on fire to overpay for fan favorites whose skills are declining but have the "intangibles" that clearly don't make your team better (take a look at how the Rangers' seasons have finished with Drury: no better than they did in the years immediately preceding his arrival)? What a hypocritical double standard. You get paid for this?

And he was right.

Then so is management when they do it, monkey.

Now with the cross-country U-turn complete, the chore for him is helping the Sabres regain the respect they had during his first stint.

The Sabres barely missed the playoffs the past two years. Disrespect them at your own risk.

Grier will never be confused with world-class players.

Making his departure at least a little irrelevant.

He's not good for 20 goals or 50 points,

In other words, he's Jochen Hecht. How do you and your ilk feel about him? But, tell me, how can you describe Grier? I hope it involves tired hockey cliches that don't really articulate anything about a player but for the fact that the immediate sportswriter doesn't feel like getting critical.

but he's a true professional

Yes!

who will provide the physical and mental toughness

Awesome!

The Sabres have many of the same players from three years ago,

Put another way, they were able to keep their young core together. Sweet!

Buffalo's summer was greeted mostly with yawns, but signing Grier was a subtle move in the right direction.

Because it means I get to write about 2007!

He's an effective role player, a tireless worker with strong character. He's a good fit who should restore accountability inside their dressing room and help in ways that can't be measured.

More cliches! Hooray!

Now, he's sending a different message.

That message: "Leaving in 2006 was about money and ego, and now that nobody's willing to feed me either one, I'll at least go somewhere I'll get some appreciation."