Buffalo Sabres GM Tim Murray is a patient man. Murray has been waiting with baited breath for Hudson Fasching to sign his professional entry level contract with the Buffalo Sabres.
The Hockey News calls Fasching Buffalo's number two rated prospect, which is why there is so much Hudson Fasching hullabaloo in Buffalo.
The Sabres will finish their third straight season as a a lottery team.
Tim Murray will go to the draft in search of a big, skilled, fast, nasty winger. He has his eyes set on Finns Patrick Laine and Jesse Puljujarvi. There's London's Matt Tkachuk, too.
Murray already has Fasching in his midst. Now, he must sign him, throw a sweater over his head and watch him play the rest of this season against NHLers.
The heads of Sabres fans will explode in unison of Murray can snag either Laine, Puljujarvi or Tkachuk with his soon to be premium first round draft choice. The Sabres will host the NHL Combine in early June after the Memorial Cup tourney ends. Buffalo will also host the NHL Draft in late June.
Tim Murray is an envied man amid his NHL GM peer group. Murray has a billionaire owner who gives him seemingly endless resources with which to build his hockey team. Murray also has some of the most coveted young NHL stars of the near future in Jack Eichel, Samson Reinhart, Rasmus Ristolainen, LInus Ullmark, Jake McCabe, Mark Pysyk, Zemgus Girgensons and Marcus Foligno. The Buffalo pipeline is jam packed with other promising prospects Brendan Guhle, Justin Bailey, Nick Baptiste, Vaclav Karabacek, Eric Cornel, Anthony Florentino, and Cal Petersen to name a few.
The future is so bright for Sabres fans. They deserve a bone to be thrown their way in the form of a Hudson Fasching signing. Fans want a glimpse of the future now. Hell, there's no arguing that Sabres fans deserve the royal treatment for enduring through through putrid seasons in a row. The NHL basement is a dank, cold, lonely place.
However, living in the basement has its rewards too.
Fasching is one such reward.
Murray and the Sabres are working with Fasching's representatives to secure a deal that will see the power right winger board a plane and fly to Buffalo to begin his NHL career.
Fasching and his University of Minnesota Gophers were ousted from the B1G 10 men's hockey championship game by the Michigan Wolverines on Saturday night.
Fasching, 20, is now free to pursue his NHL career in Buffalo.
The Sabres enter Monday with 68 points. That's good enough for 25th place overall in the NHL standings. They are just three points out of 28th place and seven away from 30th place.
Now is the ideal time for Murray to sign Fasching to his NHL Entry level deal and give him a nine game NHL test drive. Doing so will activate and chew up one year of Fasching's three year ELC.
Who cares? The Sabres are not a budget team. Murray has $35 million in salary cap space for next season. It's time to start investing in the future.
Because of his age, Fasching is eligible to ink a three year contract.
Tim Murray may want to burn year one of his ELC now just to give Dan Bylsma and the Sabres players a preview of the coming attractions on the 6'2" 210 pound Fasching who scored 20 goals and added 18 assists on 37 games played during his junior season. In 115 career games at U Minnesota, Fasching scored 48 goals and added 46 assists.
There is a strong likelihood that Sabres GM Tim Murray will be signing Fasching in the hours to come.
If he wants to take the conservative approach, Murray can sign Fasching to an amateur tryout contract with the Rochester Americans.
I don't see the kid signing a minor league tryout deal when he has proven his value at the NCAA and U.S. Development Team levels of hockey.
If all goes according to Murray's plan, Fasching will make his NHL debut when the Sabres travel to Raleigh to play the Hurricanes on Tuesday night. Sabres fans will get their first glimpse of Fasching when the Sabres host the Winnipeg Jets at 1pm EDT on Saturday afternoon.
Murray strategically acquired Fasching from LA along with Nic Deslauriers in exchange for defenseman Brayden McNabb, forward Jonathan Parker and two second-round draft picks.
The Kings selected Fasching in the fourth round of the 2013 NHL Draft.
Jack Eichel has found chemistry by skating alongside Samson Reinhart for the past month, however, Dan Bylsma is still looking for Eichel other winger. Fasching played with Eichel on the 2012-13 U.S. National Development Team. Eichel and Fasching showed chemistry while playing together at Sabres rookie development camp last July.
Reinhart-Eichel-Fasching is a very intriguing line trio for Bylsma to consider because of its equal parts power, skill, brawn, and smarts.
Did I mention skill?
Bylsma may even want to skate Kane-ROR-Fasching together in order to give the kid protection in the lineup. In that scenario Girgensons would continue to ride dirty with Eichel and Reinhart.
Fasching is a plug and play NHLer. His size and skating abilities make him an exceptional NHL prospect. The only way we will know for sure if he is ready for prime time is if he can assimilate into the NHL game where he will be playing with men. My guess is that Fasching will not have a problem making the jump to the NHL. He has played alongside and against mature, older men in the B1G 10 Conference of NCAA the past few seasons.
Let's just see what Monday brings.