OhMyDahlin

If Tim Murray was "incompetent," that says a lot about Jason Botterill then.

Not a single one of those players moves the needle for this team, at all...we have enough 4th liners and AHL players.

Botterill traded a 3rd round pick for Beaulieu, and then traded him for a 6th round pick. He gave a 3rd round pick, Ennis and Foligno for Scandella and Pominville. He traded a 4th round pick for Sheary and Hunwick's contract. He traded a 5th round pick for Scott Wilson. The O'Reilly and Kane trades were absolutely horrendous. He's been rebuilding the team and has had only 18 draft picks in 3 years, even after trading players like O'Reilly and Kane...that's pretty bad. Murray had 25 picks in 3 years, on top of getting guys like Ryan O'Reilly, Evander Kane, and Robin Lehner. He traded Brayden McNabb, Luke Adam, Brendan Lemiuex, Joel Armia, Dan Catenacci, Jerome Gauthier-Leduc, Nikita Zadorov, JT Compher and Mikhail Grigorenko. Not exactly great prospects, none even close to O'Reilly and/or Kane. Botterill has been no better than Murray was...the team is still as bad as it was. (The only thing that looks better under Botterill is drafting, but that's more on the scouting staff than it is on the GM.)

Would you give up Reinhart and Mittelstadt for Risto? I doubt Winnipeg is this stupid. The great thing with Tyler Johnson is he can play both.

Botterill is hoping to win games 2-1 with all this defense and hardly any offense.

I'm not trading with St. Louis again. (Plus they have Pietrangelo and Parayko on the right side.) Vegas isn't taking money in...any trade with them would be like the Miller trade. Anaheim...meh, they have nothing that interests me but Rakell, and they're not trading him. (And as a rebuilding team, they're not trading Terry, Steel, Jones, Comtois, etc.) Edmonton and Winnipeg make the most sense...and Chicago, but they can't afford it.

Quite interesting to look back on this after three of Jason Botterill's drafts... I was spot-on with drafting more NCAA players and not drafting CHL players (we finally got one!)...but I missed out on the Swedes. (I'd personally rather draft more NCAA players than Europeans, but that's just me.)

I've looked through here and Twitter... Anybody know if Mike Vellucci is still a possibility? He just led a young Charlotte Checkers team to the Calder Cup. He was AGM and Director of Player Development with Carolina before he took the coaching job...we need more talent developers working with this young team. http://gocheckers.com/articles/features/mike-vellucci-s-fingerprints-all-over-checkers-calder-cup-run Sounds like a Krueger type of guy.

I think Thompson starts there, but I wouldn't send Mittelstadt down...a full summer of training will help him more next season. They should be brought in for the 2020-2021 season, but if they're not then they should be brought in together the following season. Bringing them over next season would give them two full seasons in the AHL until they reached age 23...which at that age, they should be NHL ready. I would want these kids playing and developing together in the AHL as soon as possible. (Then brought up to the Sabres together.)

Look at Charlotte, Syracuse and Toronto...they are driven by their young kids. Charlotte: Necas, Roy, Kuokkanen, Saarela, Gauthier, Geekie, Bean, Fleury, McKeown, Nedeljkovic. Toronto: Bracco, Moore, Brooks, Timashov, Engvall, Liljegren, Sandin, Rosen, Borgman, Kaskisuo. Syracuse: Barre-Boulet, Volkov, Katchouk, Raddysh, Verhaeghe, Foote, Masin, (and their goalie was Ingram, until something happened). Sure, there's a Cory Conacher here, or a Chris Mueller there, but for the most part these good teams are led and driven by their prospects. The Amerks don't need more Kevin Porters, they need more high-end young talent.

Asplund and Oglevie should take on more minutes and both should see their production increase. Borgen should be the team's #1 defenseman and Thompson should be a top-line player who leads the team in goals. Next season should see an influx of talent with Samuelsson, Davidsson, Laaksonen, Weissbach, possibly picks #7 and/or #31, and hopefully some NCAA free agents. But this is about all we have left in the system...and exactly why we need to use our draft picks to stockpile the prospect pipeline, because it's quite thin.

No, he's great with Eichel and Mittelstadt will be the 2C in the not too distant future. Keep Eichel and Reinhart together, stop splitting them up...good duos stay together.

Josh Allen could turn into Tom Brady and Jack Eichel could turn into Wayne Gretzky, and Sullivan would still find a way to complain about how they got those players. "Well, they traded up for Allen and tanked for Eichel, it doesn't matter how good they are."

We cannot afford to give all that draft capital up right now...if we were one player away from being good, maybe, but we're not. We need to keep building this team the right way, through the draft and smart moves. Good teams don't build competitive contenders by trading all of their draft picks for one player, and giving out a bunch of high-priced contracts.

Ecstatic if we pick Cole Caufield...a true sniper that this team hasn't had in I don't know how long. Disappointed if we pick Bowen Byram...or any defenseman in the first round. I think the Sabres will pick Matthew Boldy...because Turcotte, Caufield and Zegras will be off the board. My ideal draft would be... 1st round: Cole Caufield (F) or Matthew Boldy (F) 1st round: Bobby Brink (F) or John Beecher (F) 3rd round: Robert Mastrosimone (F) or Shane Pinto (F) 4th round: John Farinacci (F) or Ryder Donovan (F) 6th round: Michael Vukojevic (D) or Drew Helleson (D) 6th round: Grant Silianoff (F) or Alex Campbell (F) 6th round: Ethan Haider (G) or Cole Brady (G) 7th round: Will Francis (D) or Mike Koster (D) (5 forwards, 2 defensemen, 1 goalie...I think that replenishes the prospect pipeline quite nicely, and evens it out a little bit.)

It's crazy that some of you (Sabres fans) thought O'Reilly was overpaid at $7.5M...but you're cool with paying Skinner $9M+. Botterill has screwed this team so bad. I won't be surprised if Krueger takes over as GM and hires his own coach within 1-2 years.

He would be an excellent mentor for Dahlin...just look at what he did for Hedman. Plus, if they trade Ristolainen, they need another RHD...even if they don't, I'd rather have Stralman, Ristolainen and Montour, than Bogosian.

In today's NHL the 4th line needs to score...our 4th line does not do that. In an ideal scenario, our 4th line would consist of something like Smith - Asplund - Rodrigues. EDIT: This team needs a total overhaul of bad players...guys like Girgensons, Larsson, Sobotka and Wilson need to go. (Bogosian, Scandella and Hunwick too.)

Who's done it? NCAA head coaches rarely leave for an NHL head coaching job. As a close follower of NCAA hockey I cannot think of one example where an NCAA head coach left to be an NHL assistant coach. With that said, Krueger should get Ken Hitchcock as an assistant...they seem to be close friends and have worked together before.

If a GM said something on the radio, yes...but it was a reporter, so it's not tampering. If Botterill says, "we want Erik Karlsson and are prepared to make him a big offer," that's tampering...but if Paul Hamilton says it, it's not tampering.

Or he hit the "rookie wall" because he had never played more than 34 games in a season, since he was in bantams. (And those 34 games were his one season in NCAA...before that it was 25 games.)

Taylor belongs right where he is...and Leaman isn't leaving a head job in the NCAA for an assistant job, especially with what he's building. That would be excellent.

Aren't you a ray of sunshine?

So does having a sense of humor and understanding sarcasm.

I'm well aware...that was sarcasm.