Sabres acquire rights to UFA

[looooob]

The Buffalo Sabres and Anaheim Ducks completed a transaction earlier Tuesday. Going to Anaheim are value defenceman Johnny Oduya and prospect Tom Fritsche. Coming to the Sabres are the rights to UFA C Sergei Fedorov and prospect David Toews.

"There is something in this deal for both teams for sure" said Sabres GM Looooob. "Cap space is a commodity in this league, and Oduya is a great SIM player who makes only 0.5 M for this season, however we have to find room on our team for Green, Gilbert and Enstrom this year, so Oduya was going to be our 7th guy, and we have 9 CPHL caliber d so this was a surplus for us. In Federov he was a UFA guy we specifically liked at the acquisition price for a few reasons. He has a broad range of skills, can play forward and defence , and we believe he may have a renaissance in the NHL if he stays in Washington"

Otherwise 2 younger brothers changed hands, Fritsche to Anaheim, Toews to Buffalo. Both guys are getting mileage of the family name, but the Sabres seem happy to buy 3 years of assessment time with Toews, as they weren't sure they were prepared to offer Frische an AHL deal.

Sabres lineup for now looks like this:
Smyth Fedorov Lupul
Penner Reinprecht Wolski
Steen Stajan Fedotenko
Lucic Scatchard Ortmeyer
Thornton Belak

Green Schultz
Gilbert Beauchemin
Enstrom Devries
Pratt Walker

Giguere
Dubie
Sabourin

A fairly solid team through 3 lines and six D, although maybe missing a game breaker and a true number D, and of course a backup goalie. the fact that Thomas Fleischmann, Kamil Kreps and Sean Bergenheim may all be pushing for icetime from the AHL team means more moves may still need to occur.

[I wanna be like Miikka]

Yeah simply put we were well over cap so someone had to go and Federov was the odd man out. Oduya had a great 2nd nhl season with the devils playing top 4 minutes, racking up 26 points and posting an impressive +27. He will be a great utility dmen for us and has a very cheap contract which is something we really need.

Obviously we would have liked to keep toews as we think he is vastly underrated but due to the cap crunch we were forced to deal him for a young dman that will contribute immediately.

[nyrcrisfer]

Nice return for the Ducks. Didn't they get him earlier in the summer for a 3rd rounder or so? Not sure but either way this is a great return. As stated Oduya had a stellar sophomore season... his rating might be just as good as Fedorov's this season and he's a lot younger and will be much cheaper.

[looooob]

yeah you certainly could be right. Oduya has ended up being kind of a tweener on my team, but he could really break out. Devils fans seemed to be down on the guy even midway through the year but then he seemed to really come on strong, I like him. he's got a great value contract for this year in the CPHL, but then he'll be due for a new deal at age 28. seems like I have alot of young D that I was trying to break in at once, and I always stink at forward. Anyways we're hoping feds finds a fountain of youth with OVechkin