Link: Buffalo News - Goalie-to-go looks like Noronen.
As we've been speculating for a couple of weeks now on the Sabres forum at HF it looks like Mika Noronen is the goalie who will be leaving Buffalo in the near future. This is a situation that has generated more angst than a Goth convention in Tampa... but at least it's been for a good reason. All three goalies are similarly talented and have had differing levels of treatment at the hands of the Sabres coaches and management.
Of course, any one of them could have settled this with a solid, confidence-building showing over the past 2+ seasons. Marty Biron has had to endure playing with some of the worst Sabres teams in recent memory, teams who needed a goalie to bail them out and make the big save at the fulcrum point of the game. Marty was never able to do so consistently. Wednesday night against Ottawa, this problem reared its ugly head again when he let one in from Anton Volchenkov with 16 seconds left in the first period.
Noronen has never really pushed the consistently inconsistent Biron enough to earn the job, though he's had the opportunities to do so, regardless of what some of his strongest supporters may think. There was always a feeling that Mika never had the backing of the team in front of him. That, for whatever the reason, the players in front of the net didn't give him that extra little bit of effort that would have won him the game. I'm convinced Ruff feels this is the case as well, but it also seems that he's willing to accept some of the blame for the Noronen's lack of success:
"I really don't think (Noronen) got a fair assessment from my part," Ruff said, "but I didn't want to spread the assessment so thin that I wouldn't be able to assess where Ryan was at or where Marty was at after the year off.
"You're going on your gut. I didn't want to be thinking "Boy, I wish I would have had him play one more game.' It probably ends up not being fair for one guy."
In the end, I think Lindy Ruff feels he knows Noronen's game well enough to make a decision about him. It doesn't matter whether it's fair or not, it is what it is. It's a tough situation for a guy with his talent and self-expectations. It's obvious that he wants this resolved so that he can move on. I'm in favor of moving Mika just so he can put all this behind him. There's too much history now, too much water under this particular bridge.
Conventional wisdom is that Ryan Miller has always had the highest upside of the three goalies which has further complicated things. Of course, the last time the Sabres played he was not-quite-ready-for-primetime. Ruff's comments suggest he had some doubts about Ryan's ability to handle the NHL game. Frankly, so do I, but, I'll happily eat double helpings of crow over this particular opinion.
Let's hope that the organization does the right thing by each of these guys who have all been very professional about this. If Noronen is the sacrificial lamb, make it quick and get something in return for him. The same goes for any of our excess forwards. We are already down a 3rd and a 6th round pick in next year's draft and we need all the picks we can get to have leeway for draft-day maneuvering. The smart thing would be to keep Miller and Noronen and dump Biron. Get whatever you can for Marty and go with Miller as the starter and Noronen as the clearly defined backup. I don't see Biron accepting a backup role with a lot of grace.
The last thing I want to be is a fan of a team rebuilding without any up-coming draft picks.
Ta,
The whole situation reminds me a lot of a few years back when the Sabres let go of Dwayne Roloson. It wasn't that his talents were at all in question, he simply ended up being the odd man out just as Mika currently is...and I say that as a fan who owns a Noronen Amerks jersey. I think a fresh start somewhere else would be good for Mika and, sadly, I agree that he is the one who should be traded away.
Posted by: Gregory Markle | Saturday, 01 October 2005 at 11:38 AM
Gregory,
Thanks for stopping by. Hopefully this situation will be resolved in the next 48 hours to mostly everyone's satisfaction.
Ta,
Posted by: Tom L | Monday, 03 October 2005 at 05:24 AM