Sabres offseason off to a frantic start

And what the team might do with the fourth overall pick? Right now, I've told all the teams that have inquired about number four pick that we're just going to listen for now, take notes and see what they think is the value of number four. We value that very highly, obviously, ourselves. We know there's a great prospect available there. That's... going to be two, three years away or maybe even more before they can make an impact on our team. We want to keep getting better as a team. We had an exciting year, but still disappointing at the end. But we'll gather that information around the league and see what the values. And if we don't think it's as much as making the pick, then we'll make the pick. A lot of excitement around the trades. Yes. But. Still, everyone, I don't think anybody would argue, the team's worse today than a watch. Well, we've dealt away more than we've received right now. It's all hopefully going to change this weekend. Sad to see Alex Tuck go. Yeah, me too. I know, you know, the contract conversation has been a contentious one among fans, but. I always love the idea of keeping them around here of people who want to be in Buffalo. He's been a leader. I'm scared of looking like we're nickel and dimming some of our best players. You don't want that reputation out there. Although, you know, then we turn around an hour later and signed Zach Guy Benson a $7.5 million. I was thrilled to see that. We all love Zach Guy Benson. It is kind of insane when you think he's getting $7.5 million. He hasn't scored 15 goals in a season ever. Isn't that weird? It is weird. It just, I don't know. So what changes now with the pressure of, you know, going from, hey, great young player, we all love them, like the scrappy nature to all of a sudden now you're $7.5 million player. You got to play like that. All eyes are on you to start putting the puck in the net a little bit more. It's going to be a different-looking Sabres team next year. I don't know how different, but it's certainly we just lost two big pieces. We'll see what happens next. Well, this weekend, there's going to be a lot of extra foot traffic. To say that things might be a tad busy this weekend for restaurants and bars in the lower Main Street and Canalside area in downtown Buffalo is a bit of an understatement. There is the NHL draft that begins Friday night, but many of the draft picks, their family, agents, and NHL executives have already started to arrive, along with other special events already scheduled in downtown Buffalo. So what does this mean for restaurants? Jason Sunshine draft room general manager said he upped his order of chicken wings fourfold just for Friday night alone, ordering more than 1,700 wings versus a normal Friday order of 400 wings. We are actually preparing just as if this is a...

Playoff Sabres game. We've had nonstop guests calling in for reservations, numerous large parties wanting to come in. Sarah Young, Southern Tier Brewery Bar Manager, says she and her staff are ready for this weekend. So we bring an extra staff. We're just getting some extra prep ready. We do have some private parties booked this weekend. So, yeah, definitely. getting ready for the extra traffic. By all accounts, bars and restaurants in downtown, and particularly in the lower Main Street canal side area, are preparing for what promises to be a very active weekend. It's going to be busy, busy down here. This is Jim Fink for WBEN.com News. All right, Jim, thank you. It'll be interesting to see what downtown looks like tomorrow night. and over the weekend. While all three New York congressional candidates endorsed by Zohran Mamdani and Bernie Sanders won their primaries Tuesday night leaves Republican, centrist Democrats concerned about the future of the party heading into the midterms, Kevin Cork is in Washington. While the likes of Zohran Mamdani and Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may be celebrating the big city beatdown, other Dems are describing the results as an earthquake, a huge defeat and a tough night. California's Ro Khanna meantime trying to downplay things just a bit. He declared it was simply progressives beating the establishment in the heart of New York. While Connecticut's Richard Blumenthal said the night proved simply that New York is not the nation and that all politics are indeed. Local, Maytime Pennsylvania, Senator John Fetterman, saying, quote, this has become the dancing days of the dirt bag left. Even the AG of New York, Letitia James said she was disappointed in Zohran Mamdani because his candidates knocked out a pair of congressional incumbents. It's Kevin Cork reporting from Washington talking a little bit about the reaction to primary day. We looked at the fallout with Jack O'Donnell. If you missed that, here at On Demand on the Odyssey app. You're exclusive. WB.E. 7 weather forecast, mostly cloudy with scattered showers and storms this afternoon. Highs today in the low 70s. For tonight, we'll have showers through early this evening. Overnight lows near 60. Some clouds Friday morning, get away to some sunshine in the afternoon with temperatures in the low 70s. With your exclusive WBEN 7 weather forecast, I'm chief meteorologist Araminkowski. Brian Coziel, Sabres pre and post-game host on WGR is with us on the Bison Automotive Liveline. Saber's busy in the lead-up to the draft and seems there's a lot of dealing, not a lot of receiving as of yet. But Brian, when was the last time the Sabres with their GM was this active at the start of the off season? Is it a little refreshing? I mean, it kind of feels like the team's embracing the chance to compete. Yes, good morning. They definitely have been as busy as any team in the league over these last few days leading up to the draft tomorrow night. Yeah, I think, I mean, for some, they'll view that as a refreshing change, that you have a general manager that's willing to maybe do what it takes that he feels to push them to the next step. Obviously, we know Buffalo is one goal away in game seven of overtime of being in the Eastern Conference final.

They're not that far away in terms of maybe being where they need to be. But as you also said, as of this moment, it's been subtraction of two good players. It's really been what the major stories have been. It's been trading of Bo Byram, one of their top four defensemen to Chicago. And then it's also been the sign and trade deal that happened yesterday with Alex Tucker Carlson to Washington. So two really important pieces are now gone. And now they have a lot of ammunition now. They've got a lot of draft picks. They have more cap space than they did before. So there's a lot of options open on the table here. It opens up a wide variety of ideas and things to come that could obviously help replenish what was lost. But two huge pieces of why the Sabres were division champions last year are now elsewhere. Let's go to Alex Tuck. It meant a lot to the Sabres, a big piece, obviously, of the trade that sent Jack Eichol out of here and now on his way out. What do you think of the move and how do you think he'll be remembered here? I think for a long time, Alex Tuck will be remembered for me as maybe one of the only, if not the only, all-star caliber player in the league that said, I want to be a member of the Buffalo Sabres. I mean, for obviously up until this. season when the Sabres broke the drought, got into the playoffs, the team was bad. You had virtually any star in the league that had thought about maybe trying to sign, or the Sabres trying to sign them as a free agent or trying to trade them. No one was coming here. Everybody had Buffalo on their no trade list that had one, like it was a place where people didn't want to be. And I'm sure if you could get honest answers from guys like Rossus Colley and Paige Thompson during the course of The majority of the time with the Sabres, they probably, you know, if you could have gotten them to answer to say, hey, would you like a change of scenery? They probably would have said yes. But Tucker Carlson ever since he got here, it said, hey, you know, growing up in Central New York, I always dreamed of playing for the Sabres. He's like, I want to be the one that helped part of turning it around. And he was. So I thought losing him symbolically was going to be a big blow. However, obviously the tone of the franchise and the view of the franchise around the league now has quickly changed. over the last six months to the point where now I think players will want to be a Buffalo Sabre where teams will be willing to make trades where you have players that would be willing to come here and not necessarily stepping with a no trade clause. But puck is a player that played in so many situations, power play short-handed, five-on-five, the end of games even when it was six-on-five, when he was trying to get the puck into the empty net, and he was so good in so many facets. He was a great leader. The contract itself is probably around where we all expected it to be $10.5 million. To me, if the savers were at 9.5 or 10, like, to me, I've seen to think, what is the half a million at this point? Or what is one more million at this point over the course of an eight-year deal? To me, if it was that close, I would have pulled the trigger on it knowing that, hey, we're in more of a win-now mode with this situation with this team. It's not looking ahead of the future. They could ultimately...

you know, compete for the Stanley Cup next year and having Alex Tuck would be a big piece of that. So I think it's a big loss. They really do. I know the back end of the contract, people are worried about like, what's it going to look like when he's 35, 36, 37? To me, if they had won a Stanley Cup before that, all that to me doesn't matter. Yeah, good point. The question now, what do the Sabres do with their draft picks? I mean, everyone was assuming they'd go after another forward, but now with the Bo Byram hole, where do you think they go? Yeah, I think if the Sabres end up staying at four, and we're seeing a variety of reports that Yarmalkelaan and the Sabres DM may be willing to move that fourth pick, that he's already getting calls for multiple teams. So as of this moment, they're picking four, and could that mean a defenseman? Probably, I think there's a good player that would be available for them. But Chase Reed is the highest. labeled prospect in terms of the defense on most draft experts, prospects board, a 6-2 defenseman who can really skate well. He's playing right now in Tuesday Maria, the OHL. So that's the guy that probably, you know, he's committed to Michigan State. He probably would play there next year, but you never know if the Sabres provide an opportunity to say, hey, look, we're going to give you a shot in the NHL. Who knows how that could play out? That obviously is to be determined at a later time. Most of the draft gurus out there are saying that the top two to three picks are likely going to be forward. So there is a chance that the Sabres could have the top defensemen on the board available at Pick 4. Gavin McKenna seems to be the lock pick at number one, and the Toronto Maple Leaf had that. I would expect that you'll see Maple Leaf fans downtown Buffalo tomorrow as the draft, of course, is in Buffalo. But now for Saber fans, the draft is much more intriguing. They've got pick four. They've got pick 20. versus when they had just picked 27 a week ago. So attending the draft as a Sabre fan tomorrow night might be a lot more interesting. And if they don't pick it four, well, that means probably a monster trade has been made, and there's going to be excitement about that, too. I'll be fighting off those leaf fans at the draft, you know, busy defending the turf, Brian. On the, you know, okay, so they have pick number four, and everyone says, well, you'll probably be able to get your pick of the best defensemen available in the draft. And I'm looking at the Sabres right now, and I've got to see, that's four more years of... Matia Samuelson, Rasmus Dahlin, and Owen Power, at least four, because that's how much is left on Samuelson's deal. Four more years of them together. Why do I need another big defenseman if I'm looking at that, saying like, all right, that's four years to try and capitalize on having these three monsters on the back end. And here I am planning on the future of my defense. Like, oh, my gosh, if I hear the word future one more time, I'm going to puke. I think it's a fair point, Brian. I really do. I think this team should be thinking about how can we win a Stanley Cup next season. Like I think that could really be their vote right now because I think the rest of their lineup is...

one that you could compare to say that they could get it done. Questions about goaltender? I know we've talked about that before. Do you want to upgrade or do you want to keep going with the combination of Uco Pekalukin and Alex Line and hope that that works again? Or even if one of them in some sense steps up and grabs the number one role or you're going to continue that rotation? Or can you use what now is more salary cap space, maybe more trade ammunition, more draft picks? to try to land a superstar goaltender like Connor Hallibuck in Winnipeg that has been linked to some certain themes, including the Sabres. So that's all on the table. Yeah, so I don't think necessarily they have to take a defenseman. My guess is if they get to pick four and they haven't made a deal and there's nothing that Yarmal Keck al-Line likes in terms of maybe offers coming in, and the top defenseman's A3D is sitting there. I think that's where they'll go, but I don't necessarily think that that has to be that way. We know there's so many different options that he can do right now with all this extra salary cap space that they've moved out with Byron's contract out. By the way, Greenway's contract out was another piece of that trade that I think Yarmokekeleinen did a nice job with. That saved $4,000, too, right there. So with Tuck's contract out, I mean, there's a little bit more maneuverability now, I think, on his part in terms of what he can do. Yeah, I don't think they have to take a D at four. And I think looking to the future, they've got redeemed Mercia too, a highly, you know, touted prospect who they picked in the first round just two seasons ago. So they've got that too. So I think there's depth there already. I think the options are wide open to me with how good they're at at this moment. And, of course, where this franchise has been, we know nowhere near the playoffs for 14 seasons before this year. If they can do a trade that makes them better this year, this upcoming season that makes them have a better chance to win the Stanley Cup, I think Yarmot should do it. All right. Hey, Brian, thanks so much. That's the WBEN, all local. All new episodes are made available each weekday morning, produced by the award-winning WBEN Newsroom.