FanHouse Maxim Afinogenov

As Adam Gretz mentioned, Wednesday's Buffalo-Florida game featured a melee at the end. After Maxim Afinogenov capped a four-goal third for the Sabres with an empty-netter, Panther Nathan Horton took exception. Perhaps Horton thought Afingenov should have done the Penguin thing and missed the net. The ensuing scuffle broke out into a full-fledged fight between Craig Rivet of the Sabres and Florida's Keith Ballard. Here's a better look at all that transpired, featuring the awesomeness of Rick Jeanneret.

Newsmakers in the NHL is a weekday morning attempt to clear yesterday's rebounds and look to the day ahead.

Ducks 7, Avalanche 2: This game won't be showing up on the career highlight film for Andrew Raycroft, as the veteran netminder surrendered four goals on just eight shots during the second period of Anaheim's 7-2 thrashing of Colorado. Corey Perry scored a pair of goals for the Ducks, while rookie Andrew Ebbett added a goal and two assists in the win.

Last night's 4-3 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning highlighted, for me, so many of the issues surrounding the Buffalo Sabres right now. Their swoon from 1st to 8th in the Eastern Conference has produced the kinds of wailing and gnashing of teeth amongst the fans worthy of a realtor or car dealer. Maybe it's fitting that the primary corporate sponsor for the Sabres is Chevrolet as the Sabres Cup aspirations have mirrored the chart of the GM's stock price.

I got a chance to watch the recently re-booted Sabres play against Tampa, distraction-free, and it was an illuminating experience. Having missed the games against Nashville and Florida I couldn't comment on them, and by all accounts, who would have wanted to? The Sabres are bad right now, and the reasons why are manifest. Ready? See if you disagree with the list:

1. A lack of secondary scoring. The team that was the poster child for a balanced, deep attack has become the Thomas Vanek show.
2. Forwards cheating in the defensive zone and not supporting the defense-men at all.
   
3. Poor transition game because of the large gap between them and the defense.
4. Insistence that this is 2006 and not nearly 2009, so shinny is still the way they think they can win.
5. No one except Vanek is willing to bury a shoulder and drive the net. The entire team, to a man skates across the blue-line, pulls up short to set up a 5 man offense that looks like a bad power play
6. There's little battle in the corner for pucks. Winning one on one battles along the boards was a specialty and now it's a liability.
   
7. They are terrible at even strength, a team total -15.
8. Drew Stafford has no sophmore slump excuse. Grow up or get out.
9. Very little willingness to stand up for each other. They are now a collection of guys rather than a team.

I'll stop there... I could probably come up with more if I spend another five minutes thinking about it.

Injuries are quickly becoming a sub-plot in the story of this year's Buffalo Sabres, well, injuries and massively unbalanced scoring, as Captain Craig Rivet is not playing tonight against the Nashville Predators. The news out of Erie County is pretty ugly. In addition to Rivet's unnamed injury, agitator extraordinaire Patrick Kaleta is out with a neck injury after he was boarded by Andre Kostityn during Saturday's 3-2 loss to the Habs. Tim Connolly is, well, Tim Connolly and is still out with a broken rib and Max Afinogenov is out of the lineup because of a number of short-circuits between his ears. To my mind, Rivet has been pretty ordinary since returning from his knee surgery last month, a step slower.

On the good news front, Ales Kotalik is playing this evening, after missing the last 7 games with a bad hamstring. Al's size will be welcome on the RW, given the chippy (and that's putting it generously) nature of the Preds. The Sabres need him to return to score-sheet where he was to start the season, but Lindy Ruff has him skating right now with Peters and Mair on the 4th line. This suggests to me he's being rushed back to the lineup a little early to get him out on the point for the power play. Any shifts he gets 5 on 5 have to be considered gravy.

This brings me back to the link above to Mike Harrington's article today in the Buffalo News about the top-heavy nature of the Sabres offense.

So Vanek has 18, meaning the Sabres have gotten 38 of their 65 goals from just four players - Vanek, Jason Pominville (eight), Derek Roy and Clarke MacArthur (six each). That's 58.5 percent of the offense, making the Sabres one of the most unbalanced attacks in the league heading into tonight's visit by Nashville.

The rash of injuries down the middle to start the season didn't hurt the offense much as Clarke MacArthur stepped up while others, namely Stafford and Roy, were struggling to find the net. But, as the team returned to relative health the lines got shuffled and with it any chemistry between players. The question I have is, if Connolly is consistently injured and there's no one with whom Afinogenov can play with successfully, why would anyone think the Sabres are much more than a one-line team when one looks at the lower half of the lineup?

Mix in the fact that not one of the defense men are capable of getting a shot through from the point or rushing the puck up the ice to create havoc and there's no threat from the blueline. This has quickly become a predictable team offensively, if not a bit thin.

Ta,

After getting off to a solid 8-2-2 start, not losing a game in regulation for 3 weeks, the Buffalo Sabres have defined the phrase 'regressing to the mean,' losing seven of their last eight (1-6-1) and now sit in 9th place in the East, one game over .500 at 9-8-3. What's surprising is that this swoon has occurred once the team got healthy. Starting the season practically down three centers one would have figured a slow start, yet they grab 16 of 18 points. Once Jochen Hecht returned from his broken finger they've won just one game and garnered only three points. I'mnot trying to draw a causal link or anything, but the normally solid Hecht has looked a step behind the play and is a -5 in the last 5 games.

Everything that was going right in October is going wrong in November. Miller and Lalime had the proverbial Bill Clement 'force field' up, the defense kept everyone's forwards to the outside and every decent scoring chance ticked the jumbotron's display in their favor. Now, every mistake winds up in their net, they're hitting goalposts with the same frequency that they were hitting the net and Miller/Lalime have been ordinary, Miller in particular. The second goal he gave up against Philadelphia on Friday was unacceptable for a winning team, but seem to be all too common on teams that are losing. An unscreened shot, forty-plus feet out in the third period of a 1-0 hockey game, must be stopped.

Lindy Ruff has made it publicly clear that he will use his relative roster depth and ice-time to motivate anyone. This past weekend he sat previously-untouchable defenseman Henrik Tallinder and Why-is-he-still-in-Buffalo Maxim Afinogenov. Previously, guys like Drew Stafford and Daniel Paille have had their turns in the press box.

Welcome to the NHL FanHouse 2008-09 season preview. While other sites are previewing "30 teams in 30 days," we decided to take advantage of the extra time off before the start of the season to bring you all 30 previews over the next three weeks. We're counting down in reverse order of finish from last season in each conference every weekday from now until October 3. Look for an Eastern Conference preview every morning and a Western Conference preview every afternoon. Click here to read them all.

Who's In: Patrick Lalime, G (FA-CHI), Craig Rivet, D (Trade-SJS), Teppo Numminen, D (Return from Heart Surgery)

Who's Out: Joceyln Thibault, G (FA), Dmitri Kalinin, D (FA, NYR), Steve Bernier, RW (Trade, VAN)

What's Changed: Not a whole lot, frankly, unless one considers the number of players the supposedly stingy Sabres have under long-term contract now. That, coupled with the lack of tragedy during training camp (*fingers crossed*) should help lighten the mood in the room just a bit. But, honestly, that's just the way this organization wants it (especially in comparison to last year's off-season). With 20 of the 30 people who suited up for the Sabres in 07-08 having been drafted by the team, this is the textbook example of a team that promotes from within.

Recently extended GM Darth Regier believes in building via the draft and come what may that's going to be how he does it. I'm sure nothing has made Regier happier than resolving the dual-affiliation with Rochester which has been hampering their ability to develop prospects properly. During this summer they finalized changing their AHL affiliation to Portland and retained the same staff that helped feed Anaheim a Stanley Cup.

While getting re-acquainted with my favorite hockey blogs of yore in a vain attempt to catch up on the great work being done out there in the time I was away from the world I came across this recent post from D-Lee at RedBlackHockey about the rumors floating around Minnesota's Marian Gaborik. For you 'Canes fans in the audience give it a perusal. But in that post he linked to something even more ridiculous, an obvious fan article at BleacherReport trying to make the case for how the Sabres would be trading a premier player like Gaborik for spare parts like Maxim Afinogenov and Tim Connolly/Ales Kotalik. All protests to his making this stuff up out of thin air aside, Andrew Mason makes the following Eklund-esque pitch:

The Sabres, on the other hand, have plenty of cap space. They currently have nine million dollars free as of today which is a good chunk of change. They can easily sign Gaborik to a long-term deal for whatever he wants-especially if they trade Max plus either Kotalik or Connolly, which would free up an extra $5.23-6.23 million.

No way does Darth Regier trade $6 million in salary to add $7.5 million, which is what Gaborik's payout will be this year (No, this was not a front-loaded contract, as it should have been). And, while the Sabres may have a bit of cap space to work with this season they are, as of the Numminen signing, $2 million over their much-maligned personal cap of $50 million. Regier will try to get value for Max and if none is available he'll hope for a great contract season and bid him a fond farewell at the end of it.

Trading for Gaborik doesn't address the lack of center depth on this team, which wouldn't be an issue if Tim(may!) Connolly wasn't one hit away from mopping floors at a hospital... on the graveyard shift. Further stretching the feasibility of this idea is the need to extend of home-grown RW sniper Jason Pominville, who is going to cost them a pretty penny (north of $4 million for 5-6 years if they're lucky). Regier is going to be loyal to the kids he's helped groom from within. There's no way he pushes Pominville out the door to take on Gaborik, unless the Wild are paying part of the salary, which is not allowed under this CBA.

Lastly, I just don't see Regier trading one guy who can't perform in the playoffs for another at twice the price. So, in my mind this one gets a big E5 and a double helping of Mediterranean Sea Salt.

Ta,

Every day from Monday to Saturday, The Ice Sheet will take a look at the biggest stories in the league that happened on the ice and elsewhere the night before.

Daniel Alfredsson might be the best player not named Zetterberg in the NHL right now. It seems that since May of 2006 no matter what he does during a game versus the Buffalo Sabres it winds up becoming a goal. He got his 14th and 15th last night against a Sabres team that can't seem to hit a bull in the butt with a handful of sand, no less a gaping net on a 2 on 1. (HINT: Derek Roy, you should give back your paychecks for the month so far)

Personally, watching Sabres games right now makes me think that they've walked into the DVD collection of the lost season of My Name is Earl. At some point GM Darth Regier is going to have to make a list of all the bad things he's done since he pledged himself to the Dark Side and start making up for them.

He can start by apologizing to Chris Drury, because whatever it was that caused him to sign in New York, it has to be left at Regier's feet. This collection of players is completely rudderless and right now and they have zero chance of making the post-season, no less salvaging any bit of their pride. Maybe they should all grow some bottom-feeder mustaches and hope karma takes pity on them.

Yesterday it was revealed by the Buffalo Sabres that defenseman Teppo Numminen would require heart surgery after an undisclosed issue was uncovered during his physical with team doctors. This morning it has been reported by the Buffalo News that the team has suspended Numminen for failing to report in adequate physical condition.

"The NHLPA was notified today that the Buffalo Sabres have elected to suspend Teppo Numminen without pay," NHL Players Association spokesman Jonathan Weatherdon told The Buffalo News. "We are currently reviewing this matter."

Numminen this summer signed a one-year contract worth $2.6 million. Sabres General Manager Darcy Regier said the guaranteed contract was not insured, meaning the club would be on the hook for the whole amount had it not suspended him.

I'm sure that this is the crux of the issue here. From what I've been able to piece together the Sabres are at or over their projected budget for this season and saving themselves Numminen's $2.6 million was probably deemed necessary.

The speed with which the club reacted to this situation is something I'll be interested in hearing the explanation for. I would be hard-pressed to believe thatboth parties had not discussed this possibility when the contract for this year was negotiated. It would only make sense given that it wouldn't be insured. Therefore, either this move by the organization was always on the table or the physical pointed at something which would hold Numminen in breach of their agreement. I'm just vamping here, trying to make the facts fit the situation.

The BN article goes into some speculation as to the nature of the problem, it possibly being a valve replacement procedure now deemed necessary by doctors. But, again, no one knows anything at this point.

Also, HF Mod Buffaloed brought up the situation with Max Afinogenov when he suffered a concussion in Russia during an off-season:

A few years ago the Sabres suspended Afinogenov when he suffered a concussion in Russia and couldn't pass the pre-camp physical. I'm not sure about this CBA, but under the old one it was required that the player be suspended. A big deal was made out of the Sabres mistreating Max then and nothing came of it. This is standard procedure.

I'm sure that Regier will address this issue at some point today, most probably during Schopp and the Bulldog's radio show on WGR550 this afternoon.

UPDATE: In the meantime, Teppo talked with WGR's Paul Hamilton this morning.

Ta,

RW Maxim Afinogenov is already off to a shaky start this post-season, bringing up memories of less-than-memorable post-seasons in the past. Last night during the Sabres 3 - 2 victory over the New York Islanders he and Thomas Vanek were effectively benched by head coach Lindy Ruff, getting only 3 shifts and under 2:40 TOI in 3rd period. They were on pace for their normal 15-16 minutes through two periods, but the goal by Ryan Smyth with 0:08 left in the 2nd period had Lindy Ruff's ruff turning purple with fury.

While Vanek's troubles and eventual seat in the press box last post-season could be simply attributed to youth on a deep team (as opposed to the Penguins and Evgeni Malkin), Afinogenov's problems now span over multiple seasons at a much older age. Though, to be fair, consistency is something that Vanek is still working on.

Afinogenov has never been the game's smartest player and a certain number of mistakes are expected. But, the hooking penalty that led to the game-winner in Game 2 and the goal last night, where neither he nor Vanek were even on-screen in any of the replays of Smyth's goal, point to larger issues with regards to his ability to handle the pressure of the playoffs. His play, at times, so far has been much better than in years past. He's definitely not backing away physically like before. But, it's consistency that wins in the playoffs, not moments of brilliance. Those seminal moments are set up by shift after shift of paying attention to the details of the game and that's where Afinogenov still needs to improve. He's 28, when exactly is he going to finally learn this?

His is a nearly unique talent in today's game. A speedster a step ahead of a fast game, who can make an entire arena hold its collective breath. But this is a team built to win Stanley Cups, not President's Trophies, and if he doesn't learn to channel his energy and be responsible on every single shift he may find himself in another team's re-designed sweater next season, such is the reality of the salary cap.

The Sabres will have to make tough decisions come July 1st and if it's a matter of trading Max to keep Briere, then, with another ineffective post-season, that may become a viable oiption for Regier at the draft table.

Ta,