Link: Buffalo News - Regier in no hurry to move a goaltender.
Between this article and Bucky Gleason's plea to trade Biron, it looks like my desire to see the Sabres investigate just how much they could get for Ryan Miller on the open market is going to remain unfulfilled.
To me the calculus is very simple. Keep the goalie the team plays the best for. A point I made in the Game Recap of Saturday's game is a paraphrasing of my wife's observation about intangibles.:'
We gave Chris Drury a pass early in the season for his lack of production and horrendous +/- because of all of the intangibles he supposedly brought to the table. Well, let's see, what kind of intangible quality does Biron bring to a team that has won 13 times in a row when he begins the game between the pipes? Many of those wins were gritty, come-from-behind nail-biters.
While I hate to quote myself on this subject it's hard to argue with my wife here. This team has grown up with Biron in between the pipes. With the rash of injuries we've sustained and the amount of time guys like Miller, Dumont and Pyatt have spent on IR there is little worry about us going over our self-imposed, mid-point, Ensure-all-3-Phases-of-Revenue-Sharing-Salary Cap. Therefore, Marty's salary is not the same kind of issue it was at the beginning of the season.
I know Miller is the 'goalie of the future' but, honestly, the future may be right now. I'm not trying to get ahead of myself or anything. This team is in need of a couple of things (a studly #1 d-man at a minimum), but chemistry and camaraderie are not one of them. Miller is the most valuable of the three goalies. A true blue-chipper ready to lead a team to a playoff berth or more. Biron has paid his dues, stuck by this organization and his teammates during the worst of working conditions and for the most part has given them competent to near god-like performance. Repaying that with a trade after he's been instrumental in the emergence of this team as a potential NHL powerhouse is the height of arrogance. Not only arrogant, but stupid as well. This situation is reminding me of why I no longer watch the NFL, a league who's decisions are based more on what a player projects to be and not on what he is. So many 'superstars' who have the better 'tools' get chance (*cough* Jeff George *cough*) after chance while real, talented, hard-working winners fall through the cracks or are never allowed to get comfortable as 'The Man."
Do not get me wrong. I watched, first-hand, Ryan Miller steal 2 points from us on a Thursday night in Tampa early in the season. He was enormous in the shootout and had me screaming at the top of my lungs in appreciation. I'm a big fan of the kid and am confident that he is and will be a top goalie in this league for a few years to come. I just have to wonder if the timing means that he goes to make his fortune and win his Cups with someone else.
But, I'm also a big fan of results. Concrete examples of that which a person or group has accomplished. The Sabres current streak is no fluke. As one of the guys on HF pointed out last night (a notorious Biron-hater ironically enough), the Sabres are 15-2-1 in their past 18 games. In the end I've come right back around to where I was at the beginning of the season, trading Miller for the best return package maximizes the ability of this team to win right here, right now. Again, it's not that I don't have confidence that Miller can't produce those results... just that he hasn't.
Every day this organization gets a little bit closer to 'having arrived' as opposed to 'is arriving.' They are 2nd in the conference in points, 3rd in the league and have proven that they can beat everyone except Ottawa. What more needs to be proven before some confidence is shown those who've put in the effort, made the highlight-reel plays or the win-preserving saves (or near saves) ? There is a time when you have to look and see that not only has someone arrived, but maybe, just maybe, he's been there all along and now the team is worthy of him.
Year after year we bitch that Martin Biron is, at best, an average to above-average goalie, and yet, every year he does something truly amazing, in the process putting his name in the team, if not NHL, record books with jaw-dropping strings of performances (3 straight shutouts, 13 consecutive victories). In the end, all I can figure is that his biggest fault is he wasn't Dominik Hasek. I keep hearing that he's not the goalie to lead us to a cup. Well, if he isn't, why would a Stanley Cup contender trade for him? And if he is, then why trade him? He's proven he can handle a full season's work, even getting stronger as the season gets longer. He's played for bad teams and worse. What more does he need to do? And, more importantly, why does anyone have any more confidence in Miller being able to do those things when he hasn't done so either? As has been pointed out in our myriad discussions on HF about this, if he'd had competent backups in the past 2 seasons we would have made the playoffs at least once. Asking a goalie to have a 75% winning percentage is a little too much to ask.
It's easy to blame the goalie when the team sucks. It's easy to get spoiled when your team sucked but you had the best goalie who ever played the game in his prime bailing them out most nights fresh in your memory. It's easy to look away from the uncomfortable and disheartening present and see salvation in the future. It's easy to fall back on the 'wisdom of the scouts and GM's.' What is hard is to appreciate what you've have currently, and what it can give you in the future.
The grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence and memories are always better than the experience itself. Biron's legacy, if he is traded before the March 9th deadline, will be to bear the burden of the sins of the Buffalo Sabres rebuilding, the cheerful Scapegoat of the Angry Goat Heads. We rarely like to be reminded of our sins and our mistakes and so, for that and Miller's 2 more years of Restricted FA status Biron's days as a Sabre are limited. I'll cheer for Ryan Miller in the future as hard as I cheered for him back in October, but I'll do so knowing that the crease he occupies will have been paved with all of the pain and sweat of someone who deserved better from all of us.
Ta,
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