On February 22, 2011, Terrance Pegula became the new owner of the Buffalo Sabres. He stated in his press conference "Starting today, the Buffalo Sabres' reason for existence will be to win a Stanley Cup." He also stated that "Starting today, there will be no financial mandates on the Buffalo Sabres hockey department" Today is July 3rd, and so far, Pegula is keepin' his word. The Sabres season ended last year in a exciting series that lasted 7 games against the heavily hated Flyers. Changes soon happened right after the NHL season ended. Pegula bought the Sabres old AHL affiliate, Rochester Americans, and they have now brought back their great relationship. And they even made a bigger impact at the NHL draft by drafting LW Joel Armia of the Finnish Elite League in the first round. Armia will be staying in Europe for the season to train. Also during the draft, we got Robyn Regehr from the Flames along with ex-Sabre Ales Kotalik in a trade that involved Paul Byron and Chris Butler.
Around every July, Sabres fans have always been let down by having some bad choices of picking up players that are on the free agent market. This season we were not let down. Christian Ehrhoff, who was on the Canucks last season, was signed to a 10 year, 40 million dollar deal. Also, the man who ruined pretty much every Sabres fan on Easter Sunday, Villie Leino, is on the team as well. Leino inked a 6 year 27 million deal.
To be honset, I was one of those people to say that Darcy Regier should be fired. Now that Pegulla let Regier have a open salary cap, my views on Regier have changed. I think that also Regier was told not to spend to much money on the team from Tom Golisano, the ex-Sabres owner. The Sabres will be one hell of a team to look for this NHL season. The Sabres are indeed very lucky to have a owner like Terry Pegula.
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