http://www.buffalonews.com/sports/sa...ry/320549.html
Now on the market: One speedy, electrifying, jersey-selling right winger, who also commits grievous turnovers, strays outside the system and makes linemates wonder what he’s doing.
Maxim Afinogenov, the longest-tenured Buffalo Sabre, may have played his final game for the Blue and Gold. The 28-year-old’s career took a big step back this season, and General Manager Darcy Regier acknowledged Thursday it may be time to trade the eight-year veteran.
“It’s something we really have to look at with Max,” Regier said at the team’s season-ending news conference. “He’s a great guy. I have only good things to say about him, but he may well be one of these players who’s ready for a change.”
Afinogenov is entering the final year of his contract and will make $3.5 million. It’s the same amount he earned this year, when nearly everything went wrong.
Afinogenov was a point-per-game player the previous two seasons, but those numbers dropped drastically. He had just 10 goals and 28 points in 56 games. He also was a team-worst minus- 16 as some of his numerous turnovers led directly to goals for the opposition.
“It isn’t from lack of trying,” coach Lindy Ruff said. “When things go bad for a while, it was ‘try harder.’ It would have been easier for him to try to simplify. The more he tried to beat people, the more it was costing us in certain situations.
“Compared to last year, when you’re 15 games over .500, those mistakes don’t mean anything. When you’re on the bubble, it highlighted the mistakes.”
Whenever the team went on a losing streak this season, players and coaches said it was because they strayed from the system. Afinogenov was straying personified, as he would try to use his uncommon shiftiness to get around people even if the odds were one-on-three.
“That’s Max,” Ruff said. “You know it’s his greatest gift and sometimes his biggest weakness because guys don’t know what he’s doing.”
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The Sabres’ front office set several goals for this summer. The most important involves signing goaltender Ryan Miller and forward Jason Pominville to long-term contract extensions. Miller and Pominville are under contract for one more season, and the team can renegotiate beginning July 1.
“We’ll do everything we can to lock them up,” Regier said. “We’re hopeful that we can get it moving as soon as possible, but we’re not going to look at it as though if it’s not done by July 2 that we’re losing players.”
Miller will be the more expensive of the two. Franchise goaltenders earn annual salaries in the $6 million range.
“We’ve certainly discussed the ballpark that he’ll be in,” Regier said. “We all feel it’s important for us to find a way to keep him.”
It’s also important to get him a backup. Miller played a team-record 76 games, and it was too many. Miller finished his workload with 34 starts in a row as Ruff lost faith in Jocelyn Thibault.
“It is a priority,” Regier said of acquiring a dependable reserve. “It’s an important consideration for us over the summer.”
Ruff does not want to use Miller as often in the future.
“Ideally no, not the number of games he played,” Ruff said. “It was a very trying season for him, in a case where you don’t know what you’re going to get out of your goaltender until you go there.”
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Part of the reason the NHL went through a lockout in 2004-05 was because teams said they were spending 76 percent of their revenue on salaries. Managing partner Larry Quinn said the Sabres are almost back to their pre-lockout days. He said the Sabres spent about $46.5 million on salaries, though that total includes the $2.6 million not given to Teppo Numminen after he failed his physical.
“The whole basis of the collective bargaining agreement is to spend about 56 percent of your revenues on hockey players,” Quinn said. “We spent about 65, almost 70 percent of our revenues on hockey players last year. We’ve been able to keep ourselves in the black because, quite frankly, we operate very efficiently here and we’ve gotten some tremendous support for our fans.”
Quinn said not making the playoffs will ding the team’s bottom line, but not as much as people believe.
“During the playoffs, you’re contributing about half of your money back to the league in this new system,” Quinn said. “So although it’s important and you make money on it, it’s not what it used to be.”
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Originally Posted by CaptPantalones
No offense, smash.
