Tweet
This isn’t meant to ruin your Sunday breakfast, but the Buffalo Sabres keep digging their hole deeper and deeper. They can no longer blame the media or the Edmonton Oilers or the collective bargaining agreement for their dizzying week of mismanagement loaded with halftruths and spin control.
Now, an agent, Pat Brisson, is stepping forward with enough gumption to say publicly what people suspected all along, that managing partner Larry Quinn wasn’t telling the whole truth last week. Quinn claimed General Manager Darcy Regier called Brisson, who represents Daniel Briere, and never received a return phone call.
“For the record, Darcy Regier did call Pat Brisson in January,” Quinn said Friday. “There was no offer back to us about any kind of discount or anything. So I think we ought to make the record clear on that. If there had been and everybody came together and said, ‘Let’s all chip in,’ we would have tried to figure out a way.”
According to Brisson, the Sabres never called his office at any point during the season. In fact, he hadn’t heard from them since last summer, the day before Briere was awarded a one-year contract worth $5 million. Brisson at the time was pressing the Sabres to sign Briere to a fiveyear deal worth $25 million, which the Sabres rejected.
“For the record, I had not spoken about a contract extension whatsoever until three days before free agency,” Brisson said from Los Angeles. “I did not get a call in January. I’m not taking a shot at Darcy because I do respect Darcy. But to say that we did get a call? We did not get a call.”
Brisson was none too thrilled to hear his name dragged through a news conference Friday, when Quinn insisted the call was made. As for the five-year offer for $25 million, Briere still would have accepted it six months ago, even after it became apparent he stood to make much more in the open market.
Briere wanted to stay in Buffalo, as he said all along, and was waiting for the Sabres to make him an offer, as he said all along. Why didn’t he inform the Sabres he would have accepted a deal under those terms? Because he figured it would be better to wait until they showed genuine interest.
Instead, they let him dangle.
Now, an agent, Pat Brisson, is stepping forward with enough gumption to say publicly what people suspected all along, that managing partner Larry Quinn wasn’t telling the whole truth last week. Quinn claimed General Manager Darcy Regier called Brisson, who represents Daniel Briere, and never received a return phone call.
“For the record, Darcy Regier did call Pat Brisson in January,” Quinn said Friday. “There was no offer back to us about any kind of discount or anything. So I think we ought to make the record clear on that. If there had been and everybody came together and said, ‘Let’s all chip in,’ we would have tried to figure out a way.”
According to Brisson, the Sabres never called his office at any point during the season. In fact, he hadn’t heard from them since last summer, the day before Briere was awarded a one-year contract worth $5 million. Brisson at the time was pressing the Sabres to sign Briere to a fiveyear deal worth $25 million, which the Sabres rejected.
“For the record, I had not spoken about a contract extension whatsoever until three days before free agency,” Brisson said from Los Angeles. “I did not get a call in January. I’m not taking a shot at Darcy because I do respect Darcy. But to say that we did get a call? We did not get a call.”
Brisson was none too thrilled to hear his name dragged through a news conference Friday, when Quinn insisted the call was made. As for the five-year offer for $25 million, Briere still would have accepted it six months ago, even after it became apparent he stood to make much more in the open market.
Briere wanted to stay in Buffalo, as he said all along, and was waiting for the Sabres to make him an offer, as he said all along. Why didn’t he inform the Sabres he would have accepted a deal under those terms? Because he figured it would be better to wait until they showed genuine interest.
Instead, they let him dangle.
Comment