Buffalo coach Ron Rolston now has to ponder if he wants new assistants. (Marianne Helm/Getty Images)

By Allan Muir

There won’t be many Buffalo Sabres fans left slack-jawed at the news that the team has removed the “interim” from Ron Rolston’s title and made the team’s head coach for next season.

Rolston, who stepped behind the bench in February when Lindy Ruff was let go after more than 14 seasons on the job, did nothing during the stretch run to prove that he wasn’t up to the task. The Sabres, who were 6-10-1 when he took over, finished on a 15-11-5 kick. Not good enough to make the playoff cut in the Eastern Conference, but enough of an improvement to suggest that he could be part of the solution.

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Nail Yakupov channeled Theo Fleury in his tying goal against the Kings back in January. (Andy Devlin/Getty Images)

By Allan Muir

I always have the best intentions at the beginning of each season to make a running tab of the moments most worth remembering. And, much like my determination to get back into game shape, it hasn’t happened yet.

Still, it wasn’t too hard to come up with a list now that we’re at season’s end. The games offered enough highlights–and lowlights–to fill a full-length schedule. Here are my favorites:

The Yakupov Slide: With the goalie pulled and Edmonton trailing Los Angeles by one back in January, Nail Yakupov crafted the signature moment of his rookie season: batting a Taylor Hall rebound out of midair and putting it behind Kings goalie Jonathan Quick with just 4.7 seconds left on the clock. He took a lot of grief for his spontaneous Theo Fleury impression, but it was a beautiful tally at a key moment. That’s exactly the kind of goal that calls for an over-the-top celly (yep, celly). You want to follow a sport that’s had all the life sucked out of it? Watch the NFL.

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Towering Sabres blueliner Tyler Myers’ game had become as small as his salary is huge. (Alan Schwartz/Icon SMI)

By Allan Muir

It was hard to imagine things getting much worse for the Buffalo Sabres after that truly shameful effort against the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday night, but this is a team that demands you keep an open mind about the levels to which it might sink.

So, really, this morning’s news that defenseman Tyler Myers had broken his leg in the 5-1 loss shouldn’t come as a shock, given the way this disastrous campaign has played out for Buffalo.

For Myers, this almost qualifies as a merciful end to a brutal season. The 2010 Calder winner — and the league’s highest-paid player – has lost his mojo and needs his career reset as much as he does his leg. It might have been the weight of trying to play up to that $12 million salary, or the responsibility of carrying an undermanned blueline, but Myers’ game fell apart this year with a flurry of unforced puck errors, weak positioning and poor decisions. Getting away from this gong show might be exactly what he needs right now.

Another positive: the Sabres can get a look at one of their promising young defenders. The team hasn’t announced a call-up yet, but Alex Biega, a fifth-rounder from 2006, could be the guy. At just 5′-10″, he’s nearly a foot shorter than Myers, but he has shown some playmaking ability from the back end.

And if nothing else, the Sabres are one game closer to the draft lottery, right? Of course, the way things are going, the NHL will forget to put Buffalo’s balls in the hopper…

As Jesse Spector summed it up:

Tyler Myers breaking his leg is the dingleberry on top of the cow pie for the Sabres this season. What a disaster.—
Jesse Spector (@jessespector) April 12, 2013

By Allan Muir

No doubt about it. That was a distinct licking motion.

Steve Ott, a favorite of the Home Ice crew, has always gone the extra mile to take an opponent off his game. But what he did in tonight’s game against the Canadiens takes the agitation game to a strange new place.

Facing off against Montreal’s Jeff Halpern, Ott leaned in and licked the Montreal center’s visor. No telling whether that was planned or just spur-of-the-moment insanity, but one thing is clear: We are witnessing a master at work.

Somehow, I think Esa Tikkanen would be proud.

Anze Kopitar, who was so vital to the Kings in their Cup run last season, has struggled to produce lately. (Jae C. Hong)

By Allan Muir

An annotated guide to this morning’s must-read hockey stories:

• The Kings are rolling, but star center Anze Kopitar is fighting it with just one goal in his last nine games. And he’s not the only one struggling: Jonathan Quick ranks 24th in goals against and 41st in save percentage but he hasn’t lost the trust of his teammates.

• Funny thing about lousy teams dressing a bunch of kids down the stretch: they sometimes find a way to win. The Dallas Stars were buzzing on the energy provided by newcomers Alex Chiasson and Lane MacDermid in an unexpected 3-1 win over the Ducks that pushed them two points further from the Seth Jones Sweepstakes.

• “Hey, Rob…what are you doing tonight?” 43-year-old former roller hockey star Rob Laurie was an emergency backup in net last night for the Ducks.

• The new-look Buffalo Sabres found another way to win Friday night. Luke Adam, Jochen Hecht and Brian Flynn broke long scoring droughts to lead the effort.

• Cory Conacher was “decent, if not spectacular”  in his debut with the Senators.

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A pressing question: Is Ryan Miller going to be part of the Sabres’ future? (Photo by Joel Auerbach/Getty Images)

By Allan Muir

Jason Pominville got while the gettin’ was good.

At least, that seems to be the way Thomas Vanek and Ryan Miller are looking at the deal that sent their captain to the Minnesota Wild on Wednesday, leaving them to bail water for the final 11 games of the season in Buffalo.

John Vogl of the Buffalo News wrote this afternoon that the two stars plan to speak with Sabres GM Darcy Regier about his plans for the franchise moving forward.

That doesn’t sound like code for, “We’re so thrilled to be part of this that we can’t wait to sign long-term extensions.”

Both players were diplomatic, but blunt about their futures.

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Jordan Leopold was traded Saturday from the Sabres to the Blues (Chris O’Meara/AP)

The Buffalo Sabres sent 32-year-old veteran Jordan Leopold to St. Louis Saturday afternoon in exchange for a pair of draft picks. But was it just a run-of-the-mill pre-deadline deal…or the first sign of an impending First Niagara Center fire sale?

We’ll know more in a couple days, but if Buffalo GM Darcy Regier uses this as a model to deal with the rest of his impending UFAs, it’ll be a step in the right direction for the beleaguered franchise. Leopold was not going to be re-signed, so for Regier to snag a second and a fifth (which graduates to a fourth if the Blues get out of the second round of the playoffs) is a win for the Sabres. Read More…

No need to wait until Sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY! According to this brilliant parody video by YouTube user Jenrossi1991, the Buffalo Sabres fire sale starts now and everything must go!

Well, everything but the great Rick Jeanneret, of course.

Nice work, Jen. Somebody please get her a cookie.

Best buddies again: Ryan Miller feels that Patrick Kaleta’s remarks were misrepresented by a member of the media. (Don Smith/NHLI via Getty Images)

By Allan Muir

It sounds as though the fences have been mended in the Buffalo Sabres’ room.

Ryan Miller, speaking today to Sabres TV, said he’d cleared the air with teammate Patrick Kaleta after telling him through the media to “grow up.”

“I’ve actually apologized to Patty,” Miller said. “I felt like what I was told he said and what he actually said were two different things. I’m not gonna get too far into it, but the meaning was different enough for me to react the way I did. And what he actually said sounded more like a player who just wants to come back and play as soon as possible, and he’s frustrated…which is completely what you’d expect. So we’re going to try to move on from that.

“Either way, I probably shouldn’t have handled it like that, but again, I was frustrated and I think everyone in Buffalo knows I’m prone to say stupid things…over the course of the season. I handled it with Patty, I wanted to handle it publicly. It wasn’t the right thing to say, no matter what.”

Miller’s initial comments came after Sunday’s 5-3 loss to the Capitals. “You can get me to say anything after a loss like that,” he said.

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By Allan Muir

The crew over at Sportsnet generated a lot of online buzz between periods on Tuesday night when Nick Kypreos suggested that the Buffalo Sabres had planted the For Sale sign and would “dearly love to move” Ville Leino and Ryan Miller.

OK.

First, Leino is going nowhere. The Sabres could package him with their 2013 first rounder — a likely top-five pick — and ask for nothing more than Gary Bettman’s phone number in exchange, and they still wouldn’t find a taker. No team is going to assume the four years and $18 million remaining on a deal for a player who scored eight goals last season and has yet to play in 2013 due to a hip injury. That albatross will remain around GM Darcy Regier’s neck for as long as he’s allowed to steer this ship.

As for Miller? The moody netminder has been rumored to be on the block before. So what’s different now?

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