Calgary Flames

Farewell Captain Clutch

Chris OstranderLeave a comment

In case you hadn’t heard, Chris Drury played in, and won, the Little League World Series. No fooling.

In a related note, Captain Clutch is calling it a career. After an underwhelming and injury plagued tenure with the New York Rangers, Drury was bought out earlier in the summer and has decided to retire from professional hockey all together.

What this tells me is his degenerative knee condition is more severe than originally expected in July. There were many who figured he would find his was onto a contender’s roster at discounted rate for the 2011-12 campaign. After all his face off skills, penalty killing and other intangibles would be very attractive to a team making a Cup push.

Alas, his injuries likely played a large role in this decision.

Drury was, and will be, one of my favorite players of all time. Ever since his first seasons with Colorado I was a fan of his style and skill. When he was acquired by Buffalo I was ready to do back flips.

Drury was part of some of the best Sabres hockey in the history of the franchise. He, Daniel Briere and the rest of the core players carried the team to the Eastern Conference Finals in back-to-back years in what was one of the most memorable runs I can think of with this team. Then, of course there was the goal. Who else?

And here is an even cooler angle

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Regehr to waive NMC to come to Buffalo

Chris Ostrander2 Comments

The news appears to be somewhat vague at this point, but TSN has reported that Robyn Regehr will indeed waive his no movement clause and agree to a trade to the Buffalo Sabres.

According to the report, Ales Kotalik will return to the Buffalo organization, the place where enjoyed quite a bit of success as a power play point man and shootout specialist. Not the first player I would want to receive in a trade, but the Sabres needed to take on cap in order to make the deal attractive to the Flames. The option of shipping Kotalik to Rochester (Buffalo’s new-old farm team) is a very real possibility. I would say that is his likely destination based on the logjam Buffalo has on the wing. UPDATE: The Sabres also acquired Calgary’s second round pick in the 2012 draft. It was previously rumored that Buffalo had sent their second round pick.

The Sabres sent Chris Butler and Paul Byron to the Flames in exchange for the two veterans (Calgary Herald). It seemed as if Butler had plateaued as a sixth or seventh defenseman and Byron gave the Sabres one too many little guys. I contend that they still have too many mini-mites. By unloading these two players the Sabres have parted ways with two guys who probably didn’t have much of a future with the organization. There are numerous defensemen with more upside than Butler and it is obvious Darcy Regier wants to get bigger at forward, just look at their first round draft pick.

When the first reports came through, the rumors of Buffalo sending a pick may have discouraged some cynics who thought Buffalo had traded two prospects and a pick of a defenseman and a useless winger. Knowing now that the Sabres snagged a second round pick in the deal makes this a major win. Darcy Regier has always been a shrewd trader and he won this one as well. A top-four defenseman and a second round pick for two fringe prospects. Sure, you take on Kotalik, but the ease of hiding him in the AHL makes perfect sense to me. It is exactly the kind of attitude the Sabres need to run with as they approach July 1.

Pre draft buzz – Robyn Regehr asked to waive his NMC

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News broke on Thursday that Calgary defenseman Robyn Regehr was asked to waive his no movement clause to accept a trade to Buffalo.

This would be a fantastic trade for Buffalo, Regehr would certainly fill one of the major voids on the blue line and would likely provide a good veteran partner for Tyler Myers.

There are about 500 different reports floating around regarding who the Sabres will be sending. The big name appears to be Luke Adam in a deal that would likely include a draft pick – my guess is Buffalo’s third round selection. Other names floated around are Nik Hagman, Ales Kotalik and Matt Stajan. Personally, I don’t see a world where Buffalo would bring back Kotalik, nor would I want to accept Hagman and his $3m salary. Stajan is an interesting option and easily the most attractive in a trade scenario. He can play center and would certainly add depth at a position where the Sabres are weak.

I am hopeful that this trade comes through. I would be OK with seeing Adam and a pick go to Calgary for a package of Regehr and Stajan. Is that an acceptable trade? Who knows. What can be said is both teams have reached an agreement and are simply waiting on Regehr to approve the deal.

Looking back at my conference predictions

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A prognosticator I am not. My mock NFL Draft senior year was about 15% correct. When I went about predicting the NHL’s playoff picture back in October, I didn’t have high hopes. Let us see how 2ITB did:

East

Prediction – 1. WAS, 2. PIT, 3. BOS, 4. NJD, 5. BUF, 6. OTT, 7. MTL, 8. PHI, 9. NYR, 10. CAR, 11. TOR, 12. TBL, 13. NYI, 14. ATL, 15. FLA

Actual – 1. WAS, 2. PHI, 3. BOS, 4. PIT, 5. TBL, 6. MTL, 7. BUF, 8. NYR, 9. CAR, 10. TOR, 11. NJD, 12. ATL, 13. OTT, 14. NYI, 15. FLA

So I was a bit off in the middle. Not too many people would have bet on that epic collapse by New Jersey and I, admittedly put far too much stock in Brian Elliott and Pascal Leclaire. Philadelphia overachieved (according to my original calculation) and I vastly underestimated Tampa Bay.

Washington was a pretty easy choice to make, as was keeping Atlanta, Florida and the Islanders at the bottom. Otherwise it was a hodgepodge of close calls and near misses.

West

Prediction – 1. LA, 2. VAN, 3. CHI, 4. SJ, 5. DET, 6. NSH, 7. ANA, 8. CGY, 9. COL, 10. PHX, 11. STL, 12. DAL, 13. MIN, 14. CBJ, 15. EDM

Actual – 1. VAN, 2. SJ, 3. DET, 4. ANA, 5. NSH, 6. PHX, 7. LA, 8. CHI, 9. DAL, 10. CGY, 11. STL, 12. MIN, 13. CBJ, 14. COL, 15. EDM

Since the West is such a crap shoot it would have been pretty hard to predict either way. I gave LA too much credit and it turns out the Hawks didn’t have close to enough depth to compete at the level they did last year.

My biggest oversight was with Colorado at nine, turns out they really stink. The Western playoff picture is extremely interesting this season, with the amount of parity out there it isn’t a stretch to say that any team can advance and any team could have finished two to four places higher.

Craig Rivet waived by Buffalo

Chris Ostrander7 Comments

The Buffalo Sabres placed Craig Rivet on waivers this morning. I learned the info via Bob McKenzie’s twitter account. In addition to Rivet, former Sabre Ales Kotalik was waived by Calgary along with Nik Zherdev (PHI) and Marek Svatos (NSH).

Kind of crazy to see Svatos waived. The Preds poached the winger from St. Louis when they signed him out of the KHL earlier in the winter.

It is about time that Rivet was given some sort of out. He has been stuck in the press box for quite some time, he deserved better than the fate he was receiving.

I wonder what will come of the Rivet situation? Do they send him to the AHL? Or are they confident a team like Montreal, Vancouver or Toronto will claim him? Either way, the next 24 hours could be interesting to watch.

Boy, they screwed the pooch on this one

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Pardon my French, but seriously. How awful are the uniforms – well, Calgary’s at least – for this year’s Heritage Classic?

The Canadiens and Flames’ uniforms for the 2011 Heritage Classic. Oh yeah, Gary Bettman is there too.

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