Dare I say Roy is underpaid?
Here's something I didn't expect to say at this point in the season: Derek Roy is making $3 million this season, and he's underpaid. Roy has proved to be worth his salary and more, which makes him a rarity on this team. There, I said it. Everybody happy now?
Last spring, when I was playing GM for a day, Roy was among the players who took a hit in my effort to keep Daniel Briere and Chris Drury. What can I say? I wasn't prepared to shell out an average of $4 million per year for a small third-line center. The key to the whole thing was keeping Drury and Briere, not keeping Roy satisfied. And had they succeeded, the Sabres would be in better shape now.
We ran a chart suggesting Roy make $800,000 for this season. What wasn't on the chart was a plan for escalating salaries that would have had Roy making $800,000 the first year, $1 million the second year and $1.4 million the third year. Where did I come up with those numbers? Basically, I gave him a slightly heftier contract than the one that Jason Pominville signed the previous summer.
It doesn't sound all that ludicrous if they still had Drury and Briere now, does it? Three years for $3.2 million was about the going rate for third-line centers last year.
Instead, Roy's leverage skyrocketed when it became clear he would be the Sabres' No. 1 center. He's lived up to the contract and deserves all the credit. He's been their most consistent player this season. He's been their best player over the past nine games, when he piled up 16 points. Lindy Ruff was saying today how Roy exceeded his expectations, too.
It was in the same column that I suggested Thomas Vanek be offered a four-year deal worth $15 million. I did some checking around and found that's where he fit in the market at the time. The bluebook on Vanek was a little less than $4 million per season or in the neighborhood of what the Hurricanes were paying Eric Staal and the Blue Jackets were paying Rick Nash.
Everything was based on getting Drury and Briere signed, which would have set the market for Vanek. For the umpteenth time, Drury was prepared to sign a four-year contract worth $21.5 million. Briere was looking for five years and $25 million.
If the Sabres get those two locked up, they could have made an aggressive attempt to sign Vanek by using Drury's and Briere's contracts as the standard. Instead, the Sabres fiddled around with Drury, ignored Briere, did nothing with Vanek and wound up losing two players and paying through the nose for the third. By the way, it also would have increased their chances of signing Brian Campbell.
At the very least, the Sabres would have had options with Vanek if they signed Drury and Briere. The best move would have been signing him before the season ended. But even if they failed, and Vanek received the whopping seven-year offer for $50 million, the Sabres could have let him go and taken the first-round picks knowing the roster was still relatively intact.
It was also suggested that the Sabres shop Maxim Afinogenov while they could get something for him because he had a history of disappearing in the playoffs. Take away Drury and Briere, and he's back to disappearing in the regular season, too. That's why it was so important to keep them. Maybe the Sabres wouldn't be fumbling around in 10th, either.
--- Bucky Gleason
