Trading all the way down.

Eli my buddy and friend.... I bet you had a blast doing this......

Here are my thoughts:

1. I as a season ticket holder want and need Dahlin in a Sabres uniform. After all the years of sitting through putrid hockey please please please I need this to happen;

2. The problem with this plan is the salary cap. There is no way that a team could ever pick up those players and draft picks and be able to sustain under the cap;

I always felt that a team in the NFL should try this approach..... trade down multiple times in the 1st Round to gather up 2nd Round and future 1st & 2nd Round picks. Since you have a much larger roster in the NFL I thought that a team could fill many holes on their roster with young players who have rookie contracts (4 years outside of 1st Round and a possible 5 years for 1st round picks). You may not win in year 1 or 2 but if you draft right your team in year 3 & 4 and beyond could be really really special.

Agreed. With a small roster and limited cap space, it's a totally different game. The biggest returns I got above were getting rid of Bogosian and O'Reilly for picks and prospects, with no salary coming back.

If I put everyone waiver exempt in the AHL, it's a 23 person roster with about 10M in cap space. But then you can't see Turgeon, Dal Colle, Guhle, or Sparks.

I can't see Buffalo trading away Dahlin. Dahlin is exactly what Buffalo has been looking for for years, an outstanding offensive force on the blueline. O'Reilly I can see being traded, but most likely not at the draft. Buffalo will hold on to him for as long as they can, and find a good deal that they are comfortable in doing at the deadline. I'm not sold on Mete, he hasn't shown much as of right now, but Lehkonen isn't needed, Buffalo has a pretty solid top 9, and Lehkonen would add to the log jam. The same goes for Dal Colle, he has no points in 4 career NHL games. If he were to make the team, I could see him having a 4th line job at first and moving up if he proves himself. I also can't see Buffalo signing Brock Nelson as Buffalo has a log jam up front. Lehner is the goalie Buffalo needs to be a temporary band-aid until Luukonen develops into an NHL level starter. As for the Detroit trade, I can't see Svechnikov being picked after Zadina. Svechnikov is able to make an immediate impact for whoever picks him, but Zadina might need a year to develop into a full time NHLer.

Okay, WEB, I agree that Buffalo isn't trading Dahlin. My point was to respond to an earlier thread suggesting they could do so if any one team gave up three blue chips they wouldn't want to part with. Trades like, Vrana, Burakovsky, Grubauer and a 1st. Or Gallagher, Galchenyuk, Pacioretty and a 1st. My point was that those trades were not happening (which I think was also the point of the original post) and Buffalo could get a lot more than that if they start now and trade down five or six times.

Buffalo fans on here keep trading Lehner for Nelson and starting Ullmark. Nothing to lose and years of good goaltending to gain if he can keep up his success over a larger sample size. Nelson scores almost as many goals as ROR, freeing up the latter to be traded while his value is still pretty high after a good season, with a lot of term left, and start playing Mittelstadt.

Carolina already has Zadina's linemate from the WJC, Necas. I like Svechnikov more, too, but some Canes fans on here are thinking chemistry. Carolina could safely trade down a spot, for whatever is offered, but that's beyond the scope of this mockup.

To the larger question of whether Buffalo is interested in this? I trust @wagsnags that they aren't, so your agreement is of course correct. Maybe a team like Chicago that's in denial about rebuilding could? It'd be fun to see. And I had fun writing it. Thanks for playing along.

Oh, and yes, obviously Scandella is still better than Mete. But Mete has the speed to build a good offensive pair with Ristolainen, and those next two pairs can shut guys down. Again, chemistry.

But the main return was the first, six seconds, third, fourth, fifth, and cap space.