The trade deadline, Darcy Regier says, is a time of tweaks. It's an opportunity for teams to

add to their core, not remake it.

The Buffalo Sabres' general manager, therefore, was content to make a tweak Wednesday. He

was even happier to keep his core.

Capitals 3, Sabres 1: Homecoming night falls flat

The Sabres added power forward Raffi Torres just prior to the NHL's trade freeze, and

Regier didn't have to move one of his key players to do it.

The Sabres sent little-used defenseman Nathan Paetsch and a second-round draft pick to

Columbus for Torres in their marquee deal of the day. Buffalo also sent third-line left wing

Clarke MacArthur to Atlanta for the Thrashers' third- and fourth-round selections in June's

entry draft.

The Sabres kept defensemen Henrik Tallinder and Toni Lydman, whose contracts expire at the

end of the season.

"It's a good day because I think it's a statement about a few things," Regier said. "We

like this group of players here. We feel that with the addition of Raffi it's allowed us to

get a little bigger on the wall. He's got good playoff experience. He's been to the finals.

He's something that we think fits into this group of forwards."

Torres is certainly a complement to the smaller forwards who dot the Buffalo lineup. The

6-foot left winger weighs 216 pounds and isn't shy about charging the net or opponents. The

28-year-old also has a potent scoring touch. He's scored 19 goals — more than any other

Sabre — and has connected on 19.2 percent of his shots, the sixth-best rate in the

league.

"It's closer to home, and I'm going to a pretty good team," Torres, a Toronto native, told

the Columbus Dispatch. "They have a lot of skill over there. I will try to do what I do best,

which is be physical and help them out with scoring goals."

Torres, an unrestricted free agent this summer, was the fifth overall pick by the New York

Islanders in the 2000 draft. His best season came in 2005-06, when he helped the Edmonton

Oilers advance to the Stanley Cup finals. Torres had 27 goals in the regular season and added

four goals and 11 points in 22 playoff games.

He became available after turning down a two-year, $4 million contract offer from the Blue

Jackets.

"While he's only 6-feet, he's a big body out there," Regier said. "He skates very well,

shoots the puck, goes into the paint, will play in the hard areas. When you look at our skill

guys, that fits in with our hockey club."

Paetsch has spent the season as the Sabres' eighth defenseman, playing only 11 times. The

24-year-old MacArthur had 13 goals and 13 assists in 60 games but was a team-worst minus-14.

They were expendable because Regier believes reinforcements are imminent from the minor

leagues. Forwards Tyler Ennis and Nathan Gerbe, and defensemen Mike Weber and Marc-Andre

Gragnani have impressed. It allowed Regier to end the day with two incoming draft picks and

one outgoing selection, which originally belonged to the Vancouver Canucks and was acquired in

2008 for Steve Bernier.

"Eventually, it comes back to the draft," Regier said. "With the draft going from 12 to 10

to seven rounds, you have to acquire picks. In our case we gave up a good pick to acquire

Raffi. Nathan's going to get an opportunity there. It's Vancouver's second-round pick. With

Clarke we pick up Atlanta's third- and fourth-round picks that we think are going to give us

more depth as well.

"We have some good kids in Portland. We have a lot of left wingers in the organization.

Raffi is an unrestricted free agent at the end of the year, and then somebody is going to come

out of that depth in Portland and we feel will play at a pretty high level."

The Sabres' payroll went up with the deals — Torres makes $2.75 million compared to

$1.4 million for MacArthur and $1.05 million for Paetsch — but the players' salary cap

numbers even out.

Solid seasons by Tallinder and Lydman prevented them from changing addresses. Tallinder has

been one of the Sabres' best blue-liners while nurturing rookie Tyler Myers. Lydman is among

the team's top shot blockers and has 12 points.

Their potential contributions during the final 21 games and playoffs outweighed the reality

the Sabres could lose them for nothing this summer.

The Sabres' trade-day setback came when they couldn't locate an offensive blue-liner to

anchor their power play.

"We looked at three different players out there," Regier said. "In one case the price was

just way too high. One player did not get moved. So we tried, but in the end the availability

wasn't there."