If there’s going to be a players’ meeting with the owners, you can count a couple key Sabres players out of it.
Bill Hoppe of the Olean Times Herald spoke with Jordan Leopold, Buffalo’s player representative, and he had strong words about any possible meeting between the two sides.
“I’m not going to be there,” Leopold said. “I don’t want any part of it.”
He was only getting warmed up.
“I think it’s funny we have Don Fehr on our side. After two years, he seems to get under the owners’ skin. They want to remove one for one. I don’t know where this will lead us. It’s an interesting concept.”
Thomas Vanek was similarly skeptical of the NHL’s motives.
“They have a guy in place in Gary [Bettman]. They pay him. We have a guy in place in Don [Fehr]. That should be good enough. I think just another PR stunt to show that they’re trying to do anything.”
The amount of mistrust from many of the players for the owners is incredible. At some point, that relationship has to be patched up to make things happen.