by Matt Barr

Les Bufflons

Good news: The Sabres will return to blue and gold next year. "Bleeding blue and gold" has always sounded better than "bleeding black, red and white with a demonic goat head on front."

Bad news: The new logo is a cross -- an unholy union, you might say instead -- between the San Diego Chargers' and St. Louis Rams' (whom Gregg Easterbook calls Les Mouflons, French ["St. Louis"] for "the sheep"). A buffalo above crossed sabres is evidently too complicated a way to successfully convey the concept "Buffalo Sabres." Maybe they couldn't find any designs with this scheme out there. Oh, wait.

Worse news. (Via Battle of Alberta.)

Free agent news: God bless Jay McKee, multimillionaire. He'll have a chance to win a Stanley Cup; the Blues will fairly quickly realize they're not exactly in the best position to benefit from a ponderous, teeth-rattling checker and shot blocker and will trade him at the 2008 or 2009 deadline to a contender. I wish he were coming back but neither expect the Sabres to make that kind of silly long-term commitment nor begrudge McKee jumping for the security and money.

Losing Mike Grier hurts a little more. The essence of Grier appeared in one game in the Carolina series, I can't remember which one. The Hurricanes scored on a shot from the point past a pylon-ish Grier, who hadn't tried to block the shot. For the rest of the game, he was falling in front of shots as though he wanted the puck to hit him in the face. What a dedicated, gutty, talented player. Good for the Sharks.

Teppo Numminen will break the NHL record for games played by a European in a Sabres uniform, because the team re-signed him to a one year deal. Did you know that about the games played? I didn't.

It's going to be awfully difficult to keep this team together, but so far nothing has happened you wouldn't expect.

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