After a total of ten goals in 137 games for the Sabres, Ville Leino is going to leave.
At roughly .07 goals per game, quick math says that if you wanted to see Leino score in person, you needed to buy a ticket to fourteen games to give you a decent shot.
How bad was he?
The ten players listed below were all busts or, at the very least, non-factors for the Sabres and every single one of them put the puck in the net with more frequency than Mister Six Years Twenty-Seven Million Dollars (and none of them cost Trending Buffalo a thousand bucks.)
We strongly disliked most of these guys but Leino makes them each look like Gilbert Perreault. (Click a player’s name to see his career numbers.)
1. Slava Kozlov- goal every 4 games
You likely hated Kozlov with the fire of a thousand suns but it doesn’t hold a candle to how much Kozlov detested every second he spent as a member of the Buffalo Sabres. Still, he was infinitely better than Ville Leino.
2. J.F. Sauve- goal every 4 games
We thought Bob Sauve’s kid brother was a flash-in-the-pan-slash-bust for the Sabres back in the early 80’s. Ville Leino had not yet redefined bust.
3. Vladimir Tsyplakov- goal every 5 games
This blue-collar nothing had more heart in his Belarusian pinkie finger than Leino has in his entire oft-“injured” body.
4. Brad Boyes- goal every 7 games
Remember how Boyes never scored for the Sabres? He scored twice as often as Leino.
5. Normand Lacombe- goal every 8 games
You’d be better off drafting Norm Lacombe in the first round AGAIN than letting Ville Leino spend another moment in your locker room.
6. Jeff Parker- goal every 9 games
Even Jeff Parker’s family doesn’t remember that Jeff Parker played for the Sabres. Compared to Leino, he was dominant.
7. Denis Hamel- goal every 10 games
Hamel had a lengthy pro hockey career– playing primarily for teams like Rochester, Binghamton, and Adirondack. VILLE LEINO STOLE $27 MILLION FROM THE SABRES.
8. Chris Taylor- goal every 11 games
This guy wore Pat LaFontaine’s number 16 while Patty’s body was still warm, did nothing with it, and still goes down as a more productive piece of Sabres history than stupid Leino.
9. Bob Corkum- goal every 11 games
Sucked for the Sabres TWICE… but never as badly as Ville Leino.
10. Wayne Primeau- goal every 12 games
The Sabres drafted Wayne Primeau and Keith Gretzky. Flip that around and we’d have a different story to tell around here. Keith Gretzky wasn’t better than Leino but Wayne Primeau sure was.
BONUS: Matt Ellis- goal every 15 games
Tries hard, accomplishes very little and gets paid next to nothing to do so? Cool.
Still, he’s scored about as often as our boy Ville Leino.
VILLE LEINO STOLE $27 MILLION FROM THE SABRES – VERY TRUE – perhaps the Sabres should feel a civil suit against Ville for ‘Theft of Services’…The most important thing, however, is that is he ‘No longer here’…Biggest free agent bust in Buffalo sports history.
David, you call yourself a ‘student of the games,’ yet you seem to lack understanding of different roles players have on a hockey team. Most of the guys you mentioned were never brought in to score goals. The reason everyone hates Leino is because he was brought here for the sole purpose of scoring, and did not. Also, Leino did not steal $27 million from the Sabres; they only paid him two thirds of the remaining amount of his contract, bringing the grand total to $22.5 million. I understand that this is written in the style of a satire, but botching the facts makes it seem like you don’t know what you’re talking about. If we, the readers, can’t trust that what you’ve written is true, we’ll simply stop reading.
Ridgie30 , it was $22.5 million in the end, not $27 million.
sabres_fan Ridgie30 I think you may be a little too serious…Loosen up – it’s the off season…It was an interesting article/comparison…by the way – based on their ‘role’ or not, you need some production from your grinders/4th liners etc. David was demonstrating that even the role players over the years were more productive (almost by accident). I’ve played and coached the game for 40+ years…I got David’s point…If you count all the money spent toting Ville around on chartered flights, meals, hotels, etc. – that adds up too – so the expense was/will be FAR greater than $22.5 million (think of the HUGE number starving people in the world this would have fed)…AGAIN, the important net/net of all this: Ville is gone…