Botts had a great offseason Vessy brings scoring depth that can play up and down the lineup. Johansson a good player that can play any where. Plus they stole Colin Miller and Henri Jokiharu. I just wish he didn’t bring back Girgenson and Larson.

They also have no 2C, no RW depth, 10 D on the team and are still not even close to making the playoffs.

I’d say it was actually quality. He upgraded the D, added some depth with Mojo and Vesey and kept Skinner. Can’t fill all the holes on that team at one time.

Eh. I liked how little he did to be honest. Of course, glaring issues are in fact lack of secondary scoring, 1 more piece of top 6 help, lack of a solid top 4 LD option for now and lack of a better goalie situation. I think all positions though are attainable simply through personal growth at each issue I mentioned. Vesey/Sheary might find decent roles as a 3rd line scoring option. Olofsson/Reinhart/Mittelstadt/Eichel could all prove themselves further in the league and fill out that "One top 6 player" hole we have. Lots of uncapped potential between all those players. McCabe might find his top 4 role, though that seems unlikely to me at least. And our new goalie coach may very well help out Hutton/Ullmark a bunch. Just look at what he did for Carolina's goalies last year.

Although i am in agreement, i am still hoping for one more move. If he can spin ristolainen for a decent center, it might get us to a bubble team. They say old players get older, young players get better- of course THEY have not seen how badly we develop our young players. We have young players who can take a step, and we have a new coach. I expect kruger to minimize events, it wont be as exciting as watching tampa or the leafs, but one more center and we might be in a lot more games. The center depth is just scary to me, after eichel, you have mittelstadt who HAS to take a huge step, then you have some combination of rodrigues, larsson, girgensons, and sobotka. Moving reinhart or johnsson to center is a possibility i suppose, but it shorts us on the rw and im not sure either are really good as centers. Rochester has asplund and routsalainen, but we would need injuries to even get them here. I am not a botterill fan, hes probably middling, but objectively i would grade him as incomplete right now.

:: looks at calendar, sees there are 3 more weeks of summer ::

The success of the Rochester Amerks is one of biggest improvements in the Sabre organization. Can anyone remember when Rochester made the playoffs two years running? To fully develop young players it is necessary to put them into a winning atmosphere. This past season he added Gilmore (he was Hartford Wolf Pack’s top scorer and his 20 goals were second to only the Amerks’ Redmond 21),
Signing Hammond went completely unnoticed by nearly everyone, but his lifetime S% is .010 higher than either Hutton or Ullmark. Let me add, we all remember when DATM needed to spend a 5th to bring in Nilsson, Hammond offers security, depth and a potential NHL GK. But he also brought Bales on board and if he can do his magic with Ullmark and Hutton as he did with Murray and McElhinney & Mrazek the GK will be fine.
Dea and Lazar may add depth to the Sabres but IMO they were added to improve Rochester as both of them performed very well in the AHL.
But to the Sabres, Vesey>Pominville, Johansson>Sobotka, Miller>Bogosian, Jokiharju>Nylander (or if you wish Hunwick), the moves were made at the expense of a 2nd, 3rd and Alex. The improvement of the Sabres and the Amerks IMO these are signs that he had a very good summer. But the season has not started and I seriously doubt that he is done, but it is difficult to understand how the progress could be unnoticed.
Let me remind all of the naysayers, He inherited a last place team with one of the worse prospect pools in the NHL and no extra draft picks. The rebuild started with Dahlin, prior to that the team was in quicksand.

I wouldn't say he had a "Great" off season. Added some depth and better defensemen. Love Mitts but still lacking that 2nd line center.

Think he did OK on the trades and the signing of Johansson. But that eight year deal to Skinner.....IMO a long term mistake.

If Botts could bring in a 2C, scoring wings and a top Goalie he would have. It's not as easy as sending Scandella away for a 4th round pick a la all of these Armchair GM moves. Teams aren't lining up for our castaways.

It's a process and Botts made headway this summer.

Unfortunately he was over a barrel. He basically signed a ufa, everybody overpays in ufa. You could make the point that you have to overpay to get guys to sign here, buts it's a condescending tired point.

Agreed. Not in a hurry to spend on a goalie though. There was probably real progress on d. Well there was turnover at least. They will be better, not sure if that's average or good, to be fair.

Botts had a fine summer . Yes he did not get the coveted 2c. But please tell me where , how and who he was supposed to get. Without overspending in the inflated free agent market , Who was trading one without having to make a Tim Murray type trade and grossly overpaying for a short term solution. And who were we supposed to trade for one with Risto's trade value at an all time low with him being bashed continually by our own fan base . Quite frankly we still lack assets in the system thanks to poor drafting by previous two GM's and the previous GM's overpaying through the ceiling try to make his accelerated rebuild happen . At this point they should hang on to Risto and see if Ralph can redeem him and get his trade value back up . We have an amazing pipeline of d talent developing so I do see Risto getting dealt at some point but let's not give him away . Botts has done exactly what he said he was going to do when hired just over 2 years ago . Drafted and developed well. This team is being built for long term success . We have a very good pipeline of Young centers coming along with Mitts , Cozens ,Asplund , Pekar and Davidsson. Mitts seems to have had a good summer . Perhaps he steps up and Cozens will not be far behind. I understand the impatience but the crying and judging from the cheap seats and not wanting to understand what has been done to rebuild this organization in 2 short years is just sad. Botts inherited a raging tire fire with a farm system in pieces and no real developing talent in the pipeline and the team in cap hell with a ton of bad contracts from foolish trades and signings. With improved coaching and the moves that were made there will be improvement this year just not quick enough for most . But basically Botts has gotten us out of the abyss the team was in when he took over .

Could have got Huala or Sotoberg on the cheap. Kadri would have been ideal (and was traded for a player like Risto) but that deal probably was not going to happen.

I'm not denying that GMJB didn't make some ok moves, but he this team has giant holes which he refuses to fill (and exacerbates in some cases). Also he only pays attention to talent aquasition and not to roster construction. So while the roster may have gotten better overall, it will still have the exact same issues as it did last year. GMJB has been here for 3 years now and the team is still worse than when he started.

Are you crappy at Math ? Botts has been here just over 2 years. Kadri was never going to be traded within the division !. How do you know about Huala's injury status after last year ? You think we should have signed a 33 year old player to a 5 year contract like Soderberg got ? Please . Bet Arizona is regretting the crap out of that move before the contract is half over ! This organization is much better than when Bitts started . He inherited a tire fire This thing had to be rebuilt from the ground up. If you have not been following the trade market has dried up because of all the unsigned RFA's and while that was happening Risto's trade value plummeted. What were we going to trade to pry a 2c loose from any other team without harming us long term and not overpaying ?. That is of course if one was actually available. It is just so much easier on your playstation or Xbox . Welcome to the real world.

Worse then when he got here? By what standard do you think that.
His top goalie was drug addict.
His top LW was a womanizer
His #2 center gave up.
The locker room atmosphere was terrible, you do remember Jordan Nolan complaining that there was not any accountability?
He had no secondary scoring and added Vesey, Sheary and Johansson for a 3rd and 4th.
His team had ONE NHL defenseman (who could not play defense). He added, Miller, Montour, Jokihariju, Pilut and what's his name some big swede?
Rochester missed the playoff 3 years in a row (after making the playoffs the 2 previous seasons).
He inherited a prospect pool that was one of the worse in the NHL (after 3 years of trading prospects and picks for a drug addict, a womanizer and a quitter).
He had no extra draft picks.
And you say "the team is still worse than when he started" you are reading too many of Harrington's columns.