Buffalo Boy's Blog

Everyone who sees this might think I have lost my screws and thats fine. The more I think about it the more it makes sense. If the right off came up this offseason to trade Ryan Miller I would pull the trigger in a heart beat.

Sometimes, in order to take big steps forward you have to take risks. One such example was back in 1991, the Toronto Blue Jays were considered the team that choked in the big game, they went out and made one of the biggest trades in baseball history:

Tony Fernandez and Fred McGriff for Joe Carter and Roberto Alomar. Everyone thought they were crazy for trading McGriff who was even then a yearly favorite to lead the league in homeruns and Tony Fernandez was a fan favorite and one of the longest tenured Jays.

How about the Pierre Turgeon deal that brought in Pat LaFontaine. It didn't win us a Stanley Cup but its a deal Id make 100 times over because LaFontaine brought immediate leadership and respect to this franchise.

Its been forever and a day since this franchise took a chance in a trade, Darcy Regier for the most part has always played it safe even when he did get good players most would say he stole most of them I mean seriously Chris Gratton for a warm, flat beer would have been enough but we got Daniel Briere out of that, Darcy stole that. He has made other great deals too, lately they haven't panned out but thats because he has been too careful with this team. The most likely excuse is "Chemistry" we don't want to disrupt the chemistry....I don't care if the players go into the locker rooms and sing a round of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" after games, this chemistry ain't gettin it done.

Since the west coast trip this past season I thought they needed a major shake up. This team went out west and was never the same, yeah they played well enough in March to win the division but so what? They went out and traded Clarke McArthur and wound up getting Raffi Torres, nothing special by anyone's standards. A middle of the road player with a bit more grit than McArthur, add to that the fact he never scored a goal in a Buffalo uniform and the trade was pretty awful. I would have rather kept McArthur, at least with him you knew what you were getting, a guy who would show up every 10 games, raise your eyebrows and then go back to sleep.  

Well, its time our GM got creative here. We know what we need, we need size and goals. You need value and in order to get it you need to take value off your team.

Ryan Miller will never be more valuable than he is right now. Package him up with Derek Roy who also has value or Tim Connolly or both and see what you can get around the league. Jonas Enroth is ready in Portland lets bring him up and see what the kid can do and we can go out and sign Marty Biron to be the back up, if Enroth falters, Marty can start and its been shown this year and in recent years past you don't need an all star goalie. You need a solid team.

Thomas Vanek needs help, so taking our big ticket item and going shopping with it can only help this team next year IF its the right move, if its not then Miller stays right here, either way you get better up front or Miller stays and as we all know, a hot goaltender can win you games too. 

Im not saying it has to be done, Im just saying it should be considered. After watching this playoffs and what the Sabres showed in the first round you can't take anything off the table at this point.