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You all know I love Betterall. Let's all remember the team he inherited.
No defense, Ristolainen, Bogosian and McCabe were the only NHL quality defensemen and how many games did the last 2 play his first year, 71? Ristolainen was rushed to the NHL the year after he was drafted, played on a very bad team and never learned how to play defense.
No cap space, Bogosian, Moulson, Okposo, nearly $17,000,000 of dead cap, nearly 25% of the cap for 15 goals, and 13 games on defense.
No secondary scoring. After Kane, Eichel, O'Reilly and Reinhart who was there, Pouliot, Pomenville and ???.
A rudderless locker room, how many of you remember Nolan declaring that there was no accountability? Tell me who is responsible to hold the players accountable? The on ice leaders, we all know them, we call them captain.
Other teams cast offs, Lehner-a bipolar alcoholic, Kane-an off ice womanizer, an on ice selfish skater, O'Reilly-"I lost my love of the game" Captain!
I know everyone cries about O'Reilly, but what did he ever do for Buffalo, 81, 78 and 62, the points Buffalo had his 3 years here. BTW, when did STL turn it around, oh yes when Binnington joined the team. The Blues missed the playoffs by one point the previous year and they add Peron, Bozak and O'Reilly but were in last place until Jordan went crazy and won 49 out of 60 pts.
What has Betterall done?
The team now has up to 8 NHL quality defensemen and he added, Pilut, Gilmour, (two free agents) Miller, Montour, Jokiharju, Dahlin, Scandella for a first, second, Nylander and Foligno (and of course the first over all).
Still working on the cap space, but at least Moulson is off of the books.
Vesey, Johansson and Sheary added to the team for a third and a fourth has improved our secondary scoring. BTW Vesey was a great trade, not only will he get his 17 goals this year, but did you notice he also kills penalties?
Based on the performance of the first game it would appear the locker room issues have been resolved with the additions of Johansson and McCabe as the alternate captains.
We can all cry about the O'Reilly trade, but he never lead the Sabres to a winning season, much less the playoffs or Stanley cup. Last year, I noticed a more active Eichel, playing 200 feet of the ice, hmm did his lazy leader leave the team? This year, I saw him fighting for the puck in the defensive zone corners, he never did that 2 year ago.
As for the rebuild taking 2 to 3 years, we wasted 3 years of a rebuild with Murray. He had a great prospect pool, great draft picks and talent to trade from the NHL club. When he left we had one of the worse prospect pools, a last place team and no extra draft picks. BTW the Amerks missed the playoffs every year he was GM. The Amerks have made the play off both year Betterall was GM.
IMO the rebuild started when the Sabres drafted Dahlin, and the locker room problems gone.
There is my tome, let me add, Girgensons and Larsson started in the OZ only 16% of the time last year but managed to have a 50% Corsi, the team has one of the better PK's and if the GK was better, they may have had a top 5 PK. With only 16% OZ starts they still managed 11 goals. If any of you watched last year's playoffs the Jackets used Dubinsky as their face off specialist and he had only 6 goals and his salary is about double of Girgensons and Larsson combined.
So this is the second year of the rebuild, let's see how the season ends.