00:00this year it's next week so i get the deadline and i i did great because usually i think a
00:07lot
00:07of us dread this day it's either who you're selling or just who you're not getting and even
00:14when the sabers have been good i don't have to be old to remember that at all like owen wouldn't
00:19right but even in years where the sabers been good buyers has not usually come naturally to
00:26them i mean it's even this week they had a player turn them down so it's always been like it
00:33only
00:33gets to like right here and i wonder if this year isn't different even though there have been
00:39acquisitions that we'll talk about right now with paul hamilton joining me on the west her hotline
00:45three players added here since yesterday paul logan stanley and luke shen from winnipeg
00:51sam kerrick from the rangers just to ask do you know that this is all of it or could there
00:58still
00:59be more there still could be more because remember the nhl is still in the 1980s so to make a
01:06trade
01:06you have to strap it to the back of a pigeon and send it to new york city so five
01:11o'clock they're
01:12still you know doing trades and things like that so i don't know how in 2026 they're still this far
01:19behind the times but yeah i've sat here waiting for the gm till 5 5 30 because all the trades
01:25weren't in and uh all that so we we hope to have yarmo kekalainen by four but this is the
01:31national
01:31hockey league so who knows there will sometimes be announcements from reporters or even from teams
01:37like we're done so we can look for that here in the next little while i guess since it is
01:42well
01:42um that used to be a thing here in buffalo but things have changed here those folks aren't
01:49around anymore so that usually does not happen anymore so paul what do you think of the three
01:55players i mean let's want to start with winnipeg i think that happened first what happens to the
02:00lineup with the additions of logan stanley 6 7 230 and luke shen well yarmo kekalainen started by
02:09trying to make a big splash um he tried with two different st louis blues it didn't happen for
02:15a couple of different reasons uh so then he decided it's time to the depth and i knew all along
02:21that he
02:22wanted to be he didn't think this team was tough enough um so it doesn't surprise me at all he
02:27went
02:27in this direction uh to get a 6 7 230 pound defenseman who hits and uh causes havoc uh this
02:36year
02:37has been a pretty decent offensive defenseman he's never had more than a goal in a season
02:42this year this year yeah um so you know he the the problem with him is how the sabers have
02:50worked
02:50very very very hard at cleaning up their own end and cleaning up their turnovers they used to be a
02:57turnover machine and now the turnovers are fewer and far between which really helps the goaltending
03:03because they're not facing three on ones all night in a couple of cases three on o's and um you
03:10know
03:10so stanley unfortunately for saber fans it does turn the puck over more than you'd like um but there
03:18are things to like about his game he does you know it does make a good first pass um not
03:24the best in
03:24his own end uh so just a depth type of a guy he's a guy that would be on the
03:29third pair and by the time
03:32you're in a 1-1 game in the third period you're probably not going to see him again or you
03:36might
03:36see him once in the period or just kind of the way they've been doing it with bryson and
03:40metza and kesselring that's kesselring plays a little bit more than the other two um so that that's
03:47really not a big change um shen definitely is a he i think he's your new number seven guy
03:54you know bryson is now gone and i'm thinking metza goes back to being the captain of the rochester
03:59americans uh anybody that they want to be eligible for the ahl playoffs had to be sent down today
04:05uh by the trade deadline and they can come back but they had to be sent down to be on
04:11the roster
04:11the clear day roster so we'll i'm sure metza probably is down there i don't know about ausland
04:17um but um so you know they would have to do that but you know it's a good guy to
04:22have in your number
04:23seven slot because he still can play he's not what he used to be i mean he's to an age
04:28now you know
04:28he's not what he used to be but he still can play and play play pretty well and he brings
04:35two stanley
04:35cup championships to the locker room uh he's a two-time uh champ with the tampa bay lightning
04:41which is important especially for a team whose best players are named dalene and thompson who have
04:46not won stanley cups now thompson has won gold medals for team usa on two different time occasions
04:53dalene basically keeps saying he hasn't won anything another guy who hasn't won anything
04:58josh norris said last night on the post game show quote this is the most fun i have ever had
05:04playing
05:04hockey so that's that one for you i can believe it i mean yeah what's not what's not to enjoy
05:11right
05:11now about all this exactly you know they're so um zipping through teams yeah that's what you get in
05:17you know they they get a guy who is a career 52 percent face-off man in carrick um you
05:23know i i'm a
05:24i'm a fan of josh dunn i think he does a lot of good things for the sabers but i
05:27think carrick is better
05:29um he's an nhl veteran uh he again is a guy that if you mess with his teammates you will
05:36he will arrive on the scene rather quickly and uh he he can win you that odd face-off that
05:43you might need
05:43that drives lindy ruff insane that he really doesn't have guys to win key draws for him
05:48with paul hamilton so what do you think all that said immediate the immediate changes to the lineup
05:56might be you mentioned metza may be being squeezed out bryson is gone uh to winnipeg
06:02roseanne is also gone to winnipeg but wasn't here and i want to get to that in a minute but
06:08carrick goes in like tomorrow the other guys go in or one of them does when they get here which
06:14reportedly might not be until next week yeah you got that visa problem and you know with with coming
06:20from winnipeg where carrick is on his way lindy ruff said he's a good possibility for tomorrow so we
06:26may see him tomorrow uh the other two yeah whenever the visas and all that kind of stuff that have
06:32to take
06:33place that i get very confused about uh whenever that's all done then uh you know they'll be able
06:40to join the sabers and you think carrick plays and maybe stanley plays when he arrives and maybe
06:46shen but maybe not i i think uh kozak and dunn become the two extra forwards and uh shen i
06:54think
06:54becomes the extra defenseman the other two play how about um the departures here paul i guess really
07:00we can cover the draft picks but what's there to say i mean this is going to be a year
07:05where you're
07:06going to sell your draft picks and they did not to my knowledge at least or at least not to
07:10this point
07:11give up a first no they did not give up a first um you know rosianna i just he needs
07:19he needs a change
07:20of scenery i mean he's done okay this year when he's been up but i'm still not thoroughly impressed
07:25and i'm still not of the mind that he is going to be a decent nhl player maybe at some
07:31point
07:32but uh you know so definitely he needed a change of scenery i don't think there's any any you know
07:40thought about that so yeah that's a former number one pick that was the number one pick they got in
07:45the wrist of line and trade you look at that draft you can say yeah rosianna bust and i i
07:51think he may
07:51be but look at look at all the players around him i mean nobody really made the league it was
07:56a
07:57horrible draft uh so it's not you can say yeah it's a mistake but i i say to myself yeah
08:04there's
08:04only one or two guys that maybe you could have taken that were below him that were but would have
08:08been better so um he yeah it's he paul was kind of an obvious candidate for a move i mean
08:14not just not
08:15just for his sake but there's only so many spots here before the sabers got good we were you know
08:21going
08:21back a couple years and thinking about cool leak too like not everybody can play in the top six
08:26and do i have guys that are cut out for a role in the bottom six or do they need
08:31to be in the top six
08:32to be worth it then you're talking about money too and this player there just wasn't room yeah and
08:38that's why i didn't get real carried away when murtka i think murtka is gonna he looks to me like
08:43he's gonna be a very good right-handed shooting big defenseman uh but if he would have gotten
08:48traded they like kleber almost as much it was the second round pick the year before uh you know
08:54playing at minnesota duluth the year before that the second round pick is sterbick who is a right
08:59handed shot he's not quite as big as kleber but uh a lot of folks think kleber is as good
09:06or better
09:06than murtka uh so and the thing is probably all three aren't going to make the buffalo sabers
09:12you know the sabers have other guys here too uh you know so yeah all right if you had to
09:18trade
09:19murtka for something i don't think it's that big a deal because you have other folks in the pipeline
09:25that are also good i mean the cupboards are not bare around here so even when you trade a guy
09:31like
09:31savoy or let's say you had you did trade murtka you still have other guys coming that some feel are
09:38maybe even better do you think it's interesting what winnipeg wanted from the sabers like so
09:43roseanne makes sense i think we're just talking about him uh does bryson work if you're trying to
09:50advertise you know winnipeg has its press conference and we think bryson can be what
09:56in the future and then of course the picks are the picks yeah i mean bryson i think i think
10:02he fit his
10:03role in buffalo very well which was the number seven guy and then metza showed up so maybe metza
10:08was number seven and bryson was number eight whatever they're the two depth defensemen and i
10:13thought both performed well i honestly feel bryson was having his best year um you know he's a good
10:19puck mover uh you know he he plays his angles really well defensively and metza has been excellent i mean
10:28his numbers are crazy uh so uh you know but you're you're bringing shannon so the sabers might have
10:36just said look at you know we they probably would have wound up winnipeg could have gotten him for
10:41free if they wanted because they probably would have wound up waving bryson so um i don't know
10:46exactly how that worked but i i see him as a number seven defenseman in the nhl and nothing more
10:53nothing since the moves from earlier with the two players from the jets and the one from the rangers
11:00to the sabers and i say that because as we talked about earlier uh there still can be and are
11:05trades
11:06that are getting out around the league even though it's after three uh paul hamilton i gotta know where
11:12you are you're not on the zamboni i'm pretty sure you wouldn't be doing this no i'm actually in the
11:16front atrium uh just because they have a bigger media room that we only use for occasions like this
11:22that are off the atrium so i walked out with our equipment so i could talk to you live
11:27didn't want to bother the writers inside the room so nice and yeah i think if kek aline were to
11:32start
11:33early it would be on social media where we could just join it in progress yeah i'm hoping that we
11:38could i'm planning on being able to hear that uh share that i do see i do see some sabers
11:43folks
11:43starting to file into the room right now okay uh paul 26 5 and 2 since this all started that's
11:51insane numerous best team in the nhl comments last night on espn since you know that started
11:59um and now they're tied for first what what is by the way they have just sent out a notice
12:04kek
12:04aline is starting shortly so we should probably okay do you have a quick thought on just sort of
12:09how insane all this is because we've we've we've asked you that before i know but after last night
12:14what's uh what oh that the sabers are in this position yes yes yeah amazing yeah and the fan
12:19and and the the players are just giddy about it because they're all they've done been doing is
12:23selling and selling and selling every year now they're bringing guys in and they they just love
12:28it so a sign that they probably are done once we get yarmo kek aline in the room there's not
12:33going to be anything else they're definitely done if we just got this uh thing from the sabers
12:38all right i'll let you go thanks i'm gonna i'm gonna get going yep good paul hamilton
12:41on the western hotline he'll set up so we can hear kek aline in here uh shortly and maybe i
12:48should
12:48break now we'll figure
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