(photo: Mark Mulville/Buffalo News)
With the start of pro and college football a month away, and the NBA draft over and baseball… well forget baseball.. I’m left to blog about NHL free agency. Hey it’s either that or more stories about the iPhone.

The Buffalo News has dubbed July 1st “Black Sunday.”

I’m not going to say that Buffalo Sabres management low-balled captains Daniel Briere and Chris Drury but regardless of how you feel about the deals offered to Briere and Drury, as the Buffalo News put it — they’re history.

Briere signed a massive 8-year, $52 million deal with the Flyers and Drury inked a 5-year, $35.25 million deal with the Rangers.

What sticks in my craw as a Sabres fan is not that the Sabres let Briere and Drury go, the Buffalo News’ Tim Graham said the franchise was never in the running to resign either player, it’s that they went to Eastern conference foes. With Drury in New York and Briere in Philly, Sabres fans will be able to get an up-close and personal look at what used to be and what might have been.

But this is the reality of the modern day NHL, the Sabres had to part ways with J.P. Dumont last year and the departure of Briere and Drury will make them better able to make long-term commitments to Thomas Vanek, who’s emerged as one of the league’s most exciting young players and goalie Ryan Miller, the Sabres’ franchise player.

So what’s next for the franchise? The team has been a non-factor in free agency the past two seasons and still managed to rack up the league’s best record last season and make deep playoff runs but it also hasn’t sustained a personnel hit of this level before. Someone in that locker room is going to have to step up and become a leader.

The Buffalo News coverage of the story:

Sabres’ captains now part of Buffalo’s past

Drury goes to Rangers, Briere settles on Flyers

They’re history

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.