Where has the magic gone?

I've reached the tipping point.

It was Saturday night and the Buffalo Sabres were coming off of a 10-1 win against the Atlanta Thrashers. Before that game, they had lost ten in a row and hadn't won since before Christmas.

That win should have been a turning point for the team. Derek Roy was back from a shoulder injury and his line, along with Drew Stafford and Thomas Vanek combined for seven goals and five assists. That line played like the top line the Sabres need. And when all three are healthy, they've been great. However, injuries to Stafford and Roy at different times during the season have broken up the chemistry.

The Atlanta game was the breakout game the team needed to get back on the right track. So how did they follow that game up last Saturday night? With a 4-2 loss in Toronto. An inconsistent effort. A fruitless rally late in the game. A spotty back-breaking goal late in the third period. All things fans have seen throughout the entire season. Heartbreaking. I threw the remote control...and I never do that kind of stuff.

Toronto, a team that is shopping their captain Mats Sundin and a team that fired their general manager just days later. An uninspired performance against a floundering divisional rival is the last thing the Sabres needed. Then again, to the Leafs, the Sabres are also a floundering divisional rival, still looking to recapture the magic of the last two seasons that seemed to walk out the door with Daniel Briere and Chris Drury.

Buffalo has been an enigma all season. Some games, they look like contenders but those games have been far and few between. Most nights they look like a team that presses too much because the bounces haven't been going their way. And the bounces haven't. The Sabres have hit more goal posts than bodies this season, and that's a big part of the problem.

Most of the leaders that were expected to step up this season just haven't. Vanek leads the pack in the Academy Award voting for biggest disappointment. He hasn't lived up to his $10 million salary in the least bit. Coming off of a 43 goal season, he had just one during that recent 10-game skid. He's been clearly frustrated by his lack of production but hasn't been able to really break out of the funk he's been in.

It seems the weight of being a number one guy and a potential leader is weighing him down dramatically. A big time player in college and dominant in virtually every league he's played in, the struggles he's facing now are foreign. And he can't figure it out.

While players like Jochen Hecht and Paul Gaustad have exceeded expectations, the majority of the team has not.

The struggles of players like Vanek, Jason Pominville, Tim Connolly, and Maxim Afinogenov (even before the latter two got hurt), are all the result of players stepping up into roles they are not ready to fill. The whole team is suffering from this. Management miscalculated the rate theses players would grow at and thought they were ready to lead the team on another deep run into the playoffs.

With the team muddled at the bottom of the standings, general manager Darcy Regier and Larry Quinn have a lot of decisions to make as the Feb. 26 trade deadline looms nearer and nearer. The team's hottest commodity is defenseman Brian Campbell, a free agent to be who just broke off negotiations with the Sabres. If the team continues to play like they have been, Buffalo could be pretty big sellers at the deadline.

Which I, personally, would have no objection to. A mini-fire sale might be the best thing for the team. Bring in some new players who are hungry for ice time and willing to listen coach Lindy Ruff's message. The team has held on too long to players like Afinogenov, Ales Kotalik and Dmitri Kalinin far too long.

Buffalo is in trouble this season, and after that Leafs game (the Phoenix game never happened, right?), I think the Sabres have to look at changing a few key pieces for the betterment of the franchise. It might be too late to save this season, maybe not, but a few moves, including the trade of Campbell, will benefit the team in the long run.

When the Sabres were stuck in last place during the 2003 season, Regier pulled the trigger and brought Briere in. After acquiring Chris Drury that off season, the team was on the fast track to a positive turn around. The rest is history.

Your move, Darcy.