how do teams share a minor league team?

Question

sabres and panthers "share" the amerks..how does that work,what if each team wanted to bring up the same player,do they rock,paper scissors for the guy or what,and why cant the panthers find a team of their own,there has to be some team closer to them than rochester

i realize the players are signed by the teams but there are only so many guys on the team

thank you...i kinda figured thats how it worked,just seems a long way to goif you are called up...hour ride down the 90 compared to a 4 hour flight

Answer 1

The teams are not really shared it's more like Buffalo has agreed to let Florida send some of their prospects to Rochester. They do this because it saves teams money by not having to sign as many players in order to fill a full minor league team.
When a player gets called up they can only be called up by the team they're signed with. So a Florida signed player can only be called up by the Panthers and the same goes for Buffalo.

Answer 2

When the Amerks (or any other AHL club) have a player called-up they bring up someone from the next tier on the food chain-ECHL or whatever. The ECHL or whatever team then brings up a player from the next step down the food chain.

Although it's obviously convient for the Sabres to have their AHL club in Rochester-or for the Leafs to have the Marlies right in Toronto; anytime a player needs to be sent up, either or both club could be on the road and thus the player could be hours away in any case. In any case, the price of plane tickets for reassigned players is a trivial expense for a NHL club. Having a farm team that bleeds red-ink would be a lot larger expense.