Quoting: swinny
This has played out before in everyone's favour. But, if he is "buried" (a term I will use loosely here), ya gotta think he can be flipped for a similar asset or a pick. Letting him go like that..... 🤷♂️. Mind you, Buffalo has been a strange place for a decade..... about when the Pegulas bought the team. Coincidence????
I know. What you mean.
I think he put pressure on Regier while he made many good moves with Pegula as the owner,
Darcy grasped at straws when Brad Richards signed with the Rangers.
He signed Lieno which was almost enough to get him fired IMO.
Murray was the worse though. He was gifted with draft picks, assets to sell and what was rated as the best prospect pool in the NHL
He was fired and left the team with 2 NHL defensemen, no secondary scoring, no extra picks, what was considered one of the worse prospects pools and a club the ultimately finished last over all.
I know every one thinks Botterill sucks and he did make some bad moves (firing Housley, trading for Frolik were really bad and getting a really soft return for Scandella. I am not including O'Reilly because the Sabres with O'Reilly finished second last in the Atlantic, last in the Atlantic and last over all, then in his exit interview said he was excited about playing in Europe and it was a long time since he was excited about playing hockey).
While the results are not what was expected, the defense is miles better (only 8 NHL teams gave up fewer 5 on 5 goals then the Sabres).
The prospect pool is at least considered middling (especially with Dahlin, Jokiharju and Olofsson graduating so quickly).
Next year we may see more of those prospect play in Buffalo.
Let me remind you and anyone who reads this, it took a 4.04 GAA with a 0-8-4 stretch by Hutton for the Sabres to miss the preliminaries by one win.
Vesey, Skinner and Rodrigues all has their career worse seasons.
I guess Hutton has some vision problems, which IMO the Sabres should never have played him if that was the case. So another mistake.
Well there is my rant.