The stunned feeling wasn’t going to go away any time soon, but whether they liked it or not, hockey was about to become a business again very fast.

After lockers were cleaned out, there were 3 Buffalo Sabres under contract for 2006-07. Three. So aside from the final year of Chris Drury’s 4 year contract, two more years on Jochen Hecht’s 4 year contract, and the final year of Thomas Vanek’s ELC, every other player on the NHL roster needed a new contract. And given the season they just had, it was going to cost a lot more than the $29M payroll the team just had on a $39M salary cap out of the lockout. And Drury’s $2.926M cap it wasn’t going to be the highest on the team anymore with the cap jumping to $44M for 2006-07.

“It’s going to be tough to keep everyone around”

Guys were going to have to go. While he wasn’t keen on leaving as one of Buffalo’s four UFAs, Jay McKee was the name most expected to be the hardest departure to face after his season got cut one game short. McKee had almost seen his Sabres tenure end the summer prior, as he and the team were at odds in negotiations. McKee wanted a commitment of multiple years but the Sabres were holding pat with a single year, which would walk McKee to unrestricted free agency, and look at that, it did. It took until September 10, 2005, but McKee agreed to his $1.596M qualifying offer and remained the longest tenured Sabre for one more year. But now ahead of July 1, 2006 there would be 29 other teams that could negotiate with him and provide the term and dollars he was looking for.

That includes the St. Louis Blues, whose return to hockey out of the lockout resulted in a 57 point season and their first time missing the playoffs since 1978-79. They gave McKee $16M across 4 years. A bag, if you will. An amount of money that Darcy Regier referred to as a “pretty extraordinary” exception to a rule of their expectations for the summer.

Also testing the market would be Chris Drury’s friend and college teammate Mike Grier. Three years older than McKee, Grier would enter UFA for the first time, something his agent Jay Fee mentioned and was likely a theme across the league an offseason removed from the lockout’s end:

What he’s looking forward to is seeing what the marketplace is for him. Mike has waiting a long time for unrestricted free agency, and that is no reflection on Buffalo. Darcy understands players like Mike have earned the right to look around, and Darcy indicated to me that he has a lot on his plate at the moment and he didn’t foresee giving Mike an offer by July 1.

-Jay Fee via The Buffalo News, June 29, 2006

Grier would sign in San Jose for 3 years and a $1.75. While his cap hit in 2005-06 was less at $1.364M, Regier said he would have given the same contract to Grier if given the chance, but the forward spoke of other reasons he would be moving on:

I loved it there in Buffalo. Darcy and the organization treated me well. I just felt going forward San Jose was a better fit. There’s some uncertainty in Buffalo.

It’s a young team. They have a lot of guys who will be unrestricted free agents in a few years. It’s going to be tough to keep everyone around. Sometimes you have to make a business decision and go with your guy feeling on where you think things are going.

-Mike Grier via The Buffalo News, July 4, 2006

The same day, the Sabres did re-sign their first and only pending UFA the same day, as a week removed from a heart procedure, Teppo Numminen was back on the books for another year for a little more than the $2M he played for last season, putting up half of his 38 assists in 75 games on the powerplay.

The man advantage was third in the league in 2005-06 but would have a new architect in the new year after Scott Arniel was the first benchman to turn the Sabres success into a promotion, becoming the head coach of the Manitoba Moose, where he played three seasons to end his playing career.

The powerplay would also get a boost in the form of McKee’s replacement in the form of Jaroslav Spacek, signing for 3 years worth $10M. At the moment, he became Buffalo’s highest paid player, albeit he only became their fifth player with a contract for the upcoming season. After being part of the Oilers cup run following a trade from Chicago, Spacek had 14 points in 24 playoff games, manning the blue line for an average of 25 minutes a game. His agent, Stephen Freyer, pointed out that Spacek almost signed with the Sabres last summer but chose the Blackhawks because of the familiarity he had in the city in previous seasons with the team.

After Doug Janik moved on to Tampa Bay and Rory Fitzpatrick ended up in Vancouver, the UFAs were all accounted for. The rest of the lineup would be filled out by their restricted free agents on new deals. Both Spacek and Grier’s agents mentioned off hand that Darcy Regier had his hands full this summer, and the marathon would begin in the coming weeks, as 12 of those restricted free agents were heading to arbitration.

The Arbs of Summer

Max Afinagenov, Daniel Briere, Brian Campbell, Tim Connolly, JP Dumont, Paul Gaustad, Ales Kotalik, Toni Lydman, Adam Mair, Jason Pominville, Andrew Peters, and Henrik Tallinder all filed for arbitration on July 5, with the first of them scheduled for July 20. While some avoided arbitration quickly, such as Andrew Peters agreeing to $460k for next season (the 6th to sign) and Brian Campbell tripling his salary (#7) with a 2 year deal worth a total of $3M. A handful of days later, Derek Roy and Nathan Paetsch became #8 and #9, accepting their qualifying offers (not arb eligible) while the first RFA roster casualty was Taylor Pyatt, whose $989k was headed to Vancouver for a 2007 fourth round pick. With later scheduled dates, both Henrik Tallinder and Ales Kotalik avoid their hearings with 4 and 3 year deals, respectively. 10 and 11.

But Briere did go forward with his and received his award 4 days later. Instead of the $1.9M qualifying offer, the arbiter awarded him with $5M. 58 points in 48 games followed by another 19 in 18 games in the playoffs gave him the significant bump. Despite some fearing a trade would become inevitable, the Sabres did accept the deal to make Briere the new highest paid Sabre (only Dominik Hasek and Miro Satan had made that salary before to that point). The co-captains were back under contract (athough Briere was disappointed it couldn’t have been a long-term deal), but the shock to the payroll would mean there would probably be one more cap casualty coming.

Before the Briere decision, Toni Lydman’s 4 year $11.5M (joining Tallinder as the only two under contract for 2009-10) and Jason Pominville’s 3 year $3.1M deals to avoid their own arbitration hearings, which officially brought the payroll for 2006-07 to where it was in 2005-06 with the extra guys still needing deals. Also between the award and the official signing, Tim Connolly was extended for 3 years for a total of $8.9M despite his status for the next season still up in the air. Paul Gaustad signed for 2 years $1.4M total.

The biggest of those avoiding arbitration was their leading scorer in the previous season: 3 years worth $10M for Maxim Afinogenov, with Regier referencing the term as being their priority in that deal. But there were two more that went the distance and won their hearings. One was fairly inconsequential, as Adam Mair was awarded a raise from $450k to $675k, but the other was going to be dicey.

There was about $7M left for three players, two of which we haven’t mentioned yet. In addition to JP Dumont having his hearing, the team still needed to negotiate new deals with non-arb RFAs in Dimitri Kalinin and, oh yeah, Ryan Miller. On August 2, Dumont was awarded $2.9M. Like McKee, it was a tough part of the business, but the Sabres would choose to reject the award and make the forward an unrestricted free agent. He’d sign in Nashville on August 30. He became the fifth arbitration player to have their award rejected by the team dating back to 1999.

Unfortunately, it’s part of the business. It had a little but to do with the amount of the award, certainly. The other part, quite honestly, we’re up against the cap…I think the new [salary-cap system] is about choices. If you have success, you’re not going to be able to keep all your players. You’ll have to spin some off, I think, which is part of teh intention of the system. It’s intended to create parity.

-Darcy Regier via Rochester D+C, August 9, 2006

On August 31, Kalinin signed for 2 years $4M total to round out the skaters, meaning it was onto the goalie room.

Goalie Money

The goaltending payroll bookended the summer conversations. Martin Biron’s QO was going to be $2.1M, and after the emergence of Ryan Miller as the season went on and then into the playoff breakout, it wasn’t going to be as simple as the 28 year old knowing “I’ll be back,” He became a trade chip at the draft, with both Biron and his agent wanting to have a chance to be a starter somewhere else if possible, but ultimately was not moved and then did sign that qualifying offer and would be locked in as Ryan Miller’s backup until told otherwise.

As for Miller, he and agent Mike Liut expected the negotations to be “smooth“, it just took awhile to get too intensely into them with all of the other players also needing contracts on the arbitration deadline. It didn’t get completed until September 8th, but pen was put to paper on a 3 year deal worth a total of $8M. The $2.6ish Million cap it meant that the roster was filled with $1M to spare, also meaning there was less of an urgency to move Biron more quickly, and the tandem would work together to get Miller to the official elite status at the position.

Other Housekeeping

In addition to Scott Arniel leaving, it would be the final draft for amateur scouting director Jim Benning, who went to the Bruins to become their director of player personnel after 13 years with the Sabres. The scouting staff also lost Terry Martin, their pro scouting director, to Colorado and did not renew Don Luce’s contract. Kevin Devine would become the director of amateur scouting, while James Patrick was hired and Brian McCutcheon, who would be taking over last season’s 3rd ranked powerplay, was promoted to associate head coach.

It was the start of the organization’s Video Scouting Era, which according to Regier:

It’s viewed as nontraditional, viewed in some cases as threatening. I don’t think it is being or has been embraced by many other organizations — if any…All change to differing degrees is met with resistance. This has been no exception…All we need to do is be right. We like the way we’re doing things. We think it’s the best way for us.

via The Buffalo News, August 10, 2006

But directly from Benning, also from the 8/10 news:

Tom Golisano took over as the owner and he cut not only the scouting department but almost all the departments in the organization. We figured out a way to get the same coverage by not having as big a staff, but in some cases getting more coverage through use of the video and other different ideas Darcy had.

It was certainly a different time in the organization. The increased contract sizes across the roster wasn’t just about fitting under the cap but what the impacts were to payroll. Fortunately for them, they went from 8,861 season tickets in 2005-06 to having to place a cap at between 14,000 and 14,500, creating the first season ticket waiting list in about 25 years for the organization. The team would go on to sell out every game of the 2006-07 campaign, so the payroll was certainly accounted for.

Training Camp

Energy was flowing right out of the start of camp. Danny Briere was hungry, Andrew Peters was juiced, Adam Mair was ready to run through walls. Lindy Ruff saw the eagerness and trusted that they would be ready to get down to business even with paydays across the board. And while the national media wasn’t in the room day in and day out during camp, both Sports Illustrated and Sporting News had the Sabres marked as predicted Cup winners, not just contenders.

The defense was back healthy and possibly on its way to possibly being the best blue line in franchise history. As for the changes needed from the roster shuffling, Ales Kotalik aimed to take the next step with some of the responsibilities defensively that Mike Grier had the season prior. With JP Dumont out, Thomas Vanek had his eyes on building further upon his 25 goal 23 assist rookie campaign and overcome being scratched for parts of the previous playoff run.

Only one thing left to do. Wait what the heck is that next to STARTS NOW? Why is it on Briere’s jersey?

Part II Tomorrow