Please see the following article describing the Patrik Berglund situation from yahoo.

It is most bizarre.  In fact, we cannot think of a time in which a professional athlete just decides to pull an “Office Space” and not show up for work (‘uh, yeahhhh……mmmmkkkay”).  In Berglund’s case, the Sabres were wildly overpaying him at $3.85mm per year.  In our opinion, he should have been giving Sabres GM Jason Botterill a very nice Christmas gift of some sort for being employed…..by anyone…..not sulking about diminished ice time or whatever (heck he was out there for 13 minutes a game, which isn’t terrible).  Oh well, who says money can buy happiness?

He would have a gripe relative to performance if he had actually been, performing.  However, Berglund is only in the 37th percentile league wide according to our proprietary arbitration analyzer, with respect to performance adjusted per AB point.  However, he is paid in the 60th percentile of the NHL.  To compare his salary for other players in his category, he was being overpaid by roughly 2.5mm.  In short, Berglund is the quintessential replacement player.  Buffalo will not miss him….at all.  And, in fact, on an AB level, his -3.11AB score was an overall detriment to the team.  As an added bonus, Buffalo now has some additional wiggle room to sign someone to help them make a….. gasp…..playoff run.

We would be remiss unless we pointed out that Buffalo traded Ryan O’Reilly for him (as part of a larger deal) in July.  We used to love ROR (especially when he wasn’t getting paid 7.5mm) due to his uncanny ability to create turnovers (as opposed to his driving skills, lol).  We always thought of him as a fine player (except he’s not great at getting back on defense).  He is chugging along this year at a point per game clip on a truly lousy team after having 61 points last year, while one of the cogs in his recent trade is now no longer in hockey.  At least that misstep has been paved over by the Jeff Skinner signing (cue Rick Jeanneret announcing that Skinner….winner…..in ooooooooooooooovvveerrrrrrrrtime).

What is most interesting is that hockey in Buffalo has been resurrected and the Blues, well, are singing the Blues this year.  Go figure.  That’s why the games are played……and, for the rest of this season anyway, Buffalo will be playing them without Patrik Berglund.  Merry Christmas, Buffalo fans.