Enough of skating with a few sabres teammates at the Northtown Center.
Sabres captain Jason Pominville will be leaving Monday to play for the Mannheim Eagles of the DEL. Mannheim is the hometown of Pommer's friend, Jochen Hecht.
@billhoppenhl reports:
If it does get settled quick, then I’ll be able to skate for a few weeks, a month – whatever it is,” Pominville said after skating inside the Northtown Center. “It’ll be a mini training camp. And if not, I’ll have a team for the rest of the season. I think it’s a move I wanted to do. I just want to play.”
Pominville has skating in Buffalo for the past two months with Jordan Leopold, Drew Staffprd, Marty Biron, Jochen Hecht, Matt Ellis, Cody McCormick, Steve Ott, and a couple of other Sabres.
While trolling the Lake Erie waters in Buffalo, waiting for the owners to bite on the players' most recent CBA offer, Pommer has been eyeballing Europe for the past month or so.
According to Hoppe, Pommer has selfish reasons why he chose Adler Mannheim.
All along, he told his agent he wanted to join Mannheim, one of the DEL’s best teams, because his childhood friend growing up in Quebec, Yanick Lehoux, plays for the Eagles.
Former Sabres forward Jochen Hecht, who’s working out at the Northtown Center, has a standing offer to rejoin the Eagles, his hometown team he previously played five seasons with. Former Sabres defenseman Doug Janick’s also on the team.
“I think it’s one of the best European leagues definitely out there,” Pominville said. “For me, since the start, it’s the team I told my agent I wanted to go to. It’s a team my family felt comfortable going to because we know my friend that plays there. We know that maybe eventually Jochen will be there. We’ll be living close to our friends. That’s the good part about it.”
Pommer is coming off his best season in the NHL, in which he scored 30 goals and 73 points.
He was the lone Buffalo representative at the NHL All Star Game in Ottawa.
Pommer isn't the only Sabre to jump the pond to play in Europe during the now 76 day old NHL lockout.
Thomas Vanek played with Graz 99ers in Austria. Christian Ehrhoff is killing it right now with the DEL Krefeld Penguins. Tyler Myers is playing well for Klagenfurter AC. Tyler Ennis is with the SCL Tigers. Reggie Sekera is with KHL Bratislava Slavan. Jhonas Enroth is playing in Sweden. Alex Sulzer is playing with his hometown Ingolstadt in the DEL, and Mike Weber is playing with Lorenskog in Norway.
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