Two in the Mailbox, the weekly (week and a half this time) mailbag on the Sabres, goalie stuff, Buffalo and anything in between, is back. You can submit to the mailbag using #2ITBmailbag on Twitter or emailing 2intheboxbuffalo@gmail.com.
Jake/@Jvince11 – What do you think the chances are that when Mittelstadt’s season is over that he signs an ELC and at least plays in Rochester? Maybe Buffalo? A Clayton Keller move like he did with PHX last year. Continue reading
Underwhelming return aside, the trade that sent Evander Kane gave added life to two of the biggest pieces of Sabres history. The Rick Martin and Don Edwards trade trees, which converged with the deal that sent Ryan Miller and Steve Ott to St. Louis in 2014, will roll for quite a bit longer now that the Sabres have two more 2019 (or 2020) picks in their pocket.
The Sabres didn’t fetch a king’s ransom for Dominik Hasek but it feels as if Hasek has claim to the highest profile trade in franchise history. Maybe the LaFontaine/Turgeon or Andreychuk/Fuhr swaps earn the title given their blockbuster status, but it’s not every day a team trades away of the greatest to ever pull on the crest.
The Hasek trade was pretty underwhelming, more so given Slava Kozlov’s disdain for the area and limited production on the ice. Of course, the Sabres paid pennies on the dollar for the greatest player to ever play his position. So even though the return from dealing Hasek pales in comparison to other marquee deals, Hasek’s on-ice contributions more than make up for it.
We’ve nearly reached the trade deadline and the (short) list of buyers is falling into place. We discuss Buffalo’s approach and the types of prices we expect to see Jason Botterill receive for players like Josh Gorges, Evander Kane, Benoit Pouliot and others. Additionally, we hit on some targets we hope to see Botterill bring in to bolster Buffalo’s roster for the coming seasons.
Two in the Mailbox, the weekly mailbag on the Sabres, goalie stuff, Buffalo and anything in between, is back. You can submit to the mailbag using #2ITBmailbag on Twitter or emailing 2intheboxbuffalo@gmail.com.
TJ/@steadyriot – Favorite pad set of all time
You might as well try to figure out which wing joint is the best in Buffalo (hint: not Duff’s) before asking this. I assume I’m like most goalies when I say the masks were what first caught my attention and were why I wanted to play goal myself. However, what I really fell in love with were pads.
Nothing beat taking the quick drive to Don Simmons and trying on a few of the hundreds of sets they used to have on display. For me, it was the closest thing you could ever get to Willy Wonka’s factory.
From a strict playing perspective, this begins and ends with the Vaughn Velocity leg pads and a glove with a Koho 580 break (90 degree if we’re getting technical). The blocker is somewhat immaterial to me but I’ve grown partial to Vaughn or CCM/Reebok/Koho model. Continue reading
Phil Housley sits at the center of one of Buffalo’s more interesting trade trees. A memorable player in his own right, the tree includes three, maybe four, of the most iconic players to ever suit up for the Sabres.
Housley’s tenure in Buffalo was somewhat rocky, with complaints about his lack of physicality and grit overshadowing his prowess as a play driver.
After being selected with the pick acquired for the 1975 Cup team’s favorite players, Jerry Korab, Housley was included in a blockbuster that brought the Sabres one of the league’s best scorers. Housley had blossomed into one of the game’s most dynamic offensive defensemen and Dale Hawerchuk was a bona fide superstar. He had scored 35 or more goals in eight of his first nine NHL seasons – seven with 40-plus goals – and had six 100-point seasons. The pair came with a swap of first round picks in 1990, moving the Sabres up five spots. This is where the Jets wind up winning the trade, as they say.
The Sabres selected Brady May with the 14th selection and he’d become a fan favorite and score the most famous goal in franchise history. The Jets wound up picking 500-goal and 1,000-point club member Keith Tkachuk at 19. From there the rest is history. Tkachuck would twice score 50 goals for the Jets/Coyotes before moving on to St. Louis. May was turned into a key member of the 1999 Cup team, Geoff Sanderson.
This one doesn’t have the legs of something like the Martin tree or even the (spoiler alert) Dominik Hasek trade tree. But it stretches over three decades of team history, an impressive span considering the low number of players involved.
Note: I made one slight alteration to this tree compared to the others: splitting Scott Arniel off separately. While he was a simple throw in to the Housley/Hawerchuk deal, I chose to include his branch to make the tree more robust.
Despite nearly a dozen offseason acquisitions, the Buffalo Sabres continue to tread water at the bottom of the league, leaving many fans to wonder if there will ever be a way out of the NHL’s basement.
Their protracted struggles have been attributed to just about anything and everything the organization has done over the past half-decade. But the one talking point that’s rarely acknowledged, if at all, has been how Buffalo’s struggles at the draft have led to a lack of contributors throughout the lineup.
When Tim Murray said he wasn’t interested in a five-year rebuild, he meant it. He took steps to speed up the building process, dealing for established NHL players as opposed to waiting on the assets he and Darcy Regier had worked to accumulate. In a way, it was wise. It’s likely that many of the key assets the Sabres dealt would only be making their NHL debut this season, leaving the club with holes to fill over the past two-plus years. Had the Sabres opted to backfill the roster with veteran stop gaps as they waited for those prospects to mature, it stands to reason they’d be in about the same spot they are now with just as much fan discontent about their progress.
The results can’t be ignored though. While Ryan O’Reilly and Evander Kane have been good they haven’t been nearly good enough to put the Sabres over the top. Murray’s gamble on injecting the roster with NHL talent to hasten the rebuild simply didn’t pay off, leaving a disjointed collection of talent without a proper supporting cast.
For the most part, the lackluster results of 2017-18 sit firmly in Murray’s lap. However, he alone doesn’t own all of the Sabres’ problems. His high-profile moves amplified Buffalo’s lack of blue chip prospects, but the pipeline was thinning well before Murray’s tenure began. Continue reading
I’m a big fan of Drew Magary’s weekly Funbag over at Deadspin. While I’m hardly the writer Drew is, I wanted to try to emulate his weekly feature here at Two in the Box. So on a weekly basis the Two in the Mailbox mailbag will hit on Sabres topics and anything else you might want to discuss. All questions are welcome. Goalie stuff, hockey equipment, Buffalo development, quantum physics (don’t ask quantum physics questions), I’ll take questions on anything and everything. The more the merrier.
You can submit questions via Twitter using #2ITBmailbag or by emailing me at 2intheboxbuffalo@gmail.com. Continue reading
The Blues and the Cardinals haven’t been shy about collaborating on a host of different projects over the last few years. Their partnership has been particularly strong since the departure of the Rams and one of the coolest things they’ve collaborated on are crossover jerseys.
Lately both teams have adorned their neighbor’s logo for a day each year and the Cards will be offering up a promotional version for 2018, with a cool away uniform design. It’s a cool giveaway which would probably even garner attention as a retail item. 
So far, Pegula Sports hasn’t explored too many crossover retail or promotional items since taking over the Bills, Sabres and Bandits. Aside from the various One Buffalo logo shirts, there hasn’t been too much done to explore crossover items like the Blues and Cardinals have created. At least nothing that’s been worth buying. Continue reading
On this week’s episode we cover the fallout of the Jack Eichel and CJ Smith injuries, touch on Alex Nylander’s stalling development and offer up a brief Olympic prediction. We also focus on the rumored links between the Sabres and Flyers and exactly how a deal between the two might come to fruition.
Two in the Box 
