Buffalo Rising Online

Feb 27th 2007, 7:35am By Dave Staba

Today is the National Hockey League’s trade deadline and you have several options for keeping track of what Buffalo Sabres general manager Darcy Regier does, or doesn’t do, before 3 p.m. Eastern.

You can flip on one of the local television stations or ESPN when you get home from work and see what happened after the fact.

Or you can obsessively track every baseless rumor and poorly sourced report, perhaps even offering your own vision of what Regier should obviously do if he’s not:

A) A coward; B) An idiot; or C) An ingeniously placed component in the shadowy multi-sport conspiracy against Buffalo, its teams and its fans.

There’s plenty of conjecture floating around that Regier absolutely has to do something, anything, particularly given the body-bag nature of recent weeks.

Just about any scenario involves trading away backup goalie Martin Biron, either directly for a physical winger or defensive depth, or for a draft pick to clear space under the salary cap for a veteran to be acquired in a second deal.

The transactions over the weekend and Monday set both the price for impact players and the salaries they carry pretty high. Atlanta gave up forward Glen Metropolit and three high picks for St. Louis’ Keith Tkachuk and the $3.8 million he costs each year, while Nashville sent two prospects and two high picks to Philadelphia for Fragile Peter Forsberg and his $5.75 million per annum.

Bill Guerin looks like a good fit for the Sabres in terms of size (6-foot-2, 220), skill set (28 goals and a physical presence) and salary ($2 million) – if they trade Biron or decide Tim Connolly won’t be back before the end of the regular season.

But with Ottawa, Toronto and Detroit, among others, also eyeing Guerin, he could trigger a bidding war that could escalate beyond what Regier’s willing to pay for an aging rental.

Failing that, to trade Biron – as good a No. 2 net-filler as any contender possesses – for a sixth or seventh defenseman, or a fourth-line forward, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Biron is a free-agent after the season, so the urge to get something for him is understandable.

But if you don’t wind up with someone who helps significantly and immediately or figures into the team’s long-range plans, what’s the point again?

You can make yourself heard by offering your trade suggestions, either sensibly feasible or grandiosely delusional, on this or any number of other easily interactive blogs. (There’s a list of outlets that will be blogging live on the league-wide trade scene through the day here, viewable under the “trade rumours link” link.)

Locally, WGR 550-AM has scrapped its nationally syndicated daytime programming in favor of Buffalo-based trade talk from 6 a.m. until the pre-game show before the Sabres visit Toronto in the first post-deadline game. The station’s Web site, which streams the station’s programming live, also has a trade tracker. Of course, it will make for much better radio if the Sabres actually make a deal or two.

Kevin at BfloBlog.com will surely offer his perspective, as will the boys at The Ultimate Sports Road Trip and the proprietors of the other regional sports blogs listed on those sites.

Of the national sports sites, TSN.ca smites its American-based competition, as is usually the case when it comes to hockey.

TSN has a full-blown TradeCentre ‘07 section, with more than you could possibly want to know about all things deadline.

The official league Web site is, by nature, short on any professional speculation, but has a Trade Central that offers a forum for fan discussion, as well as a list of recent deadline trades and features on teams that made deals to help win a Stanley Cup and those that got the most value back when they went into sell mode.

The Sabres figure prominently on that last list, having swapped Jerry Korab to Los Angeles in 1980 for a draft pick that became Phil Housley, traded Rick Martin to the Kings a year later for a choice they used to pick Tom Barrasso and dealt Mike Wilson to Florida in 1999 for Rhett Warrener and a selection that turned into Ryan Miller.