Teppo Resigns With Buffalo!! Is This Going to Lead to a Trade?

Well, Teppo Numminen has offically signed with the Buffalo Sabres for at least one more year per TSN at 1.1 million.

All I can say is this is a great signing as it gives the Sabres another veteran along the blue line.  As it stands now though however there are now eight defensemen on the roster.

The seven are: Numminen, Jaroslav Spacek, newly acquired Craig Rivet, Toni Lydman, Henrik Tallinder, Nathan Paestch, Mike Weber, and Andrej Sekera.

This signing will mean one of two things for the Buffalo Sabres:

1. Teppo gives the Sabres five experienced and proven defensemen on the blue line along with Rivet, Spacek, Lydman, and Tallinder.  At 6 foot 2 inches and 200 pounds he will be another big body to aid Ryan Miller but is also good enough to be involved in the offense as his 40 and 29 point seasons since the lockout.  Although he only had two goals in each of those seasons his 65 assists combined says a lot about how he is willing to setup the other guys for the goals.   Along with the invaluable leadership he will bring as he donned the "A" with Buffalo and gives them another right hander in the back as the only other one currently is Rivet.  This will allow Buffalo the flexibility to keep 22 year old Sekera and 20 year old Weber to stay in the minor leagues but with NHL experience and continue to develop their game.  Then in the case someone goes down with injury they can call up one of them.  So say Tallinder or Lydman go down with injury they will not have to rely on rookies or minor leagues with no NHL playing time to have to come up and play.  As any Sabre fan knows it is entirely possible for half the defense to get injured.  IE 2006 Eastern Conference Finals, four of the Sabres top defensemen go down to injury and missed all or part of the series.

2.  Having Teppo gives the Sabres the option if they do not want five and let both Sekera and Paestch to get consistent playing time this year to trade one of the five to a team for some offensive help.  Possibly one of the d-men along with Max, and another young player for Gaborik as I have mentioned a player Buffalo is currently involved in rumors with?  That's stretching but there might be a deal in place that hinged on Teppo coming back or not.  As I said Teppo gives them depth so that might make one guy who was a "necessary" to being "expendable".

For now though, having Teppo will give the team offensive and defensive skills along the blue line and leadership that this team sorely missed last year as he missed all but the last game against Boston last year.