02 August 2007

2007-08 NE Depth Charts: Buffalo Sabres

Now that a month has passed since "Black Sunday" (Captains Daniel Briere and Chris Drury left for much greener pastures) a little objectivity can set in...Buffalo is still very well-off. And although they signed Thomas Vanek (7 years, $50 million) and Derek Roy (6 years, $24 million) to more money than they would have liked, at the end of the day the Sabres have these two offensive talents locked up until they're both 30 years old.

Depth chart:

Thomas Vanek Derek Roy Maxim Afinogenov
Ales Kotalik Tim Connolly Jason Pominville
Jochen Hecht Paul Gaustad Drew Stafford
Dan Paille Adam Mair
Andrew Peters Mike Ryan



possible rookies: C – Marek Zagrapan,
W - Clarke MacArthur, Patrick Kaleta, Mark Mancari.



Defence:




Henrik Tallinder Toni Lydman
Brian Campbell Teppo Numminen
Dmitri Kalinin Jaroslav Spacek
Nathan Paetsch





Possible rookies: Michael Funk, Andrej Sekera, Mike Card



Goaltending:




Ryan Miller Jocelyn Thibault

The next major front office order of business must be to lock up Ryan Miller for as long as possible. For all the press about Buffalo's new-NHL powerhouse offence, they go nowhere without Miller.

With the entire roster now signed, the Sabres' cap hit stands at just over US$45million, leaving about $5.1 million of space under the cap, giving them room to afford any sort of "rental" if they go that route this season.

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