I am not making any assumptions about drafting Draisaitl over Reinhart or Sergachev of Nylander, both taken directly after the Buffalo picks. I am adding the players traded away and players taken with the picks traded away. I did not presume that Aho could have been drafted with the 2nd traded when O'Reilly was acquired or any other wild guesses like getting Konecny instead of White or Beauvillier over Roslovic.
All of the players are easily obtainable with the assets that were on hand.
White is projected to be solid #2 center I put him at RW,
Armia has developed into a good PK power forward.
McNabb is always near the top of his team's +/-
Zadorov is always among the league hit leaders.
Cernak is considered one of Tampa's up and coming defensemen.
Myers has always been reliable and other GM's know this as he was given a 5 year contract at $6,000,000/yr.
The team is at least as good the one on the ice now, with more home grown talent.
Let me add, this is a very young team with most players still room to be better.
Quoting: Stan_Bowman
you forgot to reverse the Jokiharju trade.
I am presuming all the same players being drafted, so Nylander is still available to be traded for Jokiharju! I will give up Jokiharju if you agree that the Sabres probably would have finished last in 2016 as they did in 2014 and 2015 with a shot at Matthews or Laine instead of Nylander.
Quoting: Nick623
If Armia is your 2nd line RW you are still in a rebuild...
Why, Armia is off to a great start 3 goals in 5 games and last year he had 13 goals in only 57 games (nearly 20 goals over 82 games), playing less than 16 minutes a game. BTW are you saying Sobotka is better than Armia?
Quoting: aedoran
When did Buffalo start their rebuild?
How many GMs have they had during their rebuild?
How many coaches have they had during their rebuild?
Well this is presuming all of the draft choices made my Murray were the same, as well as the picks made by the teams to which he traded the picks.
But to answer the question, the rebuild started when Dahlin was drafted and all of the garbage was out of the locker room.
Quoting: Nick623
And the Montour, C Miller, Jeff Skinner etc...
Why, Miller and Skinner were picked up for 2nd round picks, and Montour for a first. There is nothing here that is unreasonable, as all of those picks were available.
Quoting: BuFfaLOFaN
Defiently worse, I would love to undo ROR trade though
Why is this team definitely worse? The only loss is Dahlin (I know that is a big reduction), but Compher, Armia, White, and Roslovic are better than Okposo, Sobotka, and Rodrigues. Zadorov, McNabb and Cernak are all quality Defensemen. But the team probably finishes last in 2016 and has a good chance to get either Matthews or Laine instead of rushing the rebuild.
So you want to keep a captain who said he lost his love of the game. Captains are suppose to instill the team with fire in their bellies and hold players accountable, not give up. Let me add 81, 78 and 62 so how did his presence in the line up improve the team? He was traded to a team that missed the playoffs by one pt in '17-'18 and added not only him but Perron, Bozak and Binnington but we are all led to believe that his 50% FO wins during the playoffs is what lead the Blues to the finals and the cup the following year.