Thomas Vanek: A One-Man Wrecking Crew

In what has been a fairly successful season for the Buffalo Sabres after 30 games, much of the praise has to be thrown at Thomas Vanek. After struggling for the better part of last season, Vanek really turned it on in the closing months.

His performances have lived on this year, and the Austrian is the No. 1 reason the Sabres are fastened to the eighth place spot in the Eastern Conference.

From his days at the University of Minnesota, the 24-year-old was a highly fancied commodity. When the lockout ended, Vanek found himself on the Sabres roster and didn't disappoint in his rookie campaign with 25 goals, and 23 assists in 81 games.

In 2006-2007, Vanek was earning somewhere below $1 million under his rookie contract with Buffalo. A pay increase was inevitable after he became the team's first 40-goal scorer since Miroslav Satan in 1998-1999.

Along with his 43 goals, and 41 assists, Vanek earned an NHL-best plus-47 in that category. Kevin Lowe broke out the chequebook, again, offering Vanek a seven-year, $50 million offer to join the Edmonton Oilers.

A whopping $10 million would be headed his way in the first year of the contract. With the losses of Daniel Briere and Chris Drury that summer, the Sabres had no choice but to match the offer sheet to prevent another star's departure.

Pressure was on Vanek's shoulders from day one of the 2007-2008 season. The first half of the 82-game schedule was a nightmare as he couldn't find his dependable form that emerged the previous year.

I'm sure Vanek would have welcomed a smaller salary, but the money was his with the expectations. Fans, including myself, kept wondering if Thomas would wake up from his coma on the ice.

Then, I began to consider the fact that money wasn't the issue. When Buffalo still had a talent-boasted lineup with Drury and Briere, Vanek was a third-line player. Of course, this meant that he didn't usually see time against the oppositions top defenders.

It may have came as a shock to realize the goals were no longer going to arrive plain sailing. I don't know if there was a scorer as hot as Vanek in the second half of the season.

Hat-tricks were coming left and right, and Vanek began to resemble the superstar that made goalies agitated. Even with the ugly start, he finished the year with 36 goals and 28 assists.

That's 64 points in what many considered a rough chapter for Vanek. Well, this time around the struggles are long forgotten.

No. 26 currently leads the NHL in goalscoring, with 24, three ahead of Jeff Carter, who's trailing in second. He is on pace to match Alexander Ovechkin's 65-goal 2007-2008 year.

His goals to assist ratio is nearly 5-1, and the native of Vienna has 37 percent of Buffalo's tallies to date.

Those numbers remind you of Pavel Bure's days in Florida, where he did the majority of the Panther's scoring.

Going to the net, deflecting pucks, and shooting at will, this truly is the rebirth of the dangerous sniper.

Thomas Vanek is a gun firing endlessly, and he isn't running out of ammunition anytime soon.