It probably would have been
Skinner-Eichel-Reinhart
Girgenson-Larsson-Okposo (defensive line)
Johansson-Cozens-Kahun
Vesey-Mittlestadt- Simmonds

Montour-Ristolainen
Dahlin-Miller
McCabe-Jokiharju.

I'd go:

Skinner-Eichel-Kahun
Oloffson-Larsson-Reinhart
Johansson-Cozens-Vesey
Girgensons-Lazar-Okposo

Dahlin-Miller
McCabe- Joki
Montour- Risto

Gotta say these do look pretty good

Love Kahun on the top line.
Larsson at #2 C what an interesting idea.
Reinhart and Skinner would be a good combo, a set up winger and a sniper.
Very solid defense, three strong pairings
Vesey is a very strong defensive forward what if:
Johansson-Cozens-Okposo
Girgensons-Lazar-Vesey
Give Cozens two veterans steady his play when he makes an error.

So let me see, solid defense, two good top lines, veteran third line, solid fourth line so tell me why was Botterill fired?
Oh now I remember, because we decided it was a good idea to have a forty goal scorer play with Sobotka.

I blame Ralph for that idea. If he would have put Skinner for Eichel for 5 games together they are in the playoffs. Of course he put them together for the last 2 games of the season.

Fired because he loved average defenseman and forwards who provided little to no value to the team lol

So how did Buffalo manage to rank 9th lowest GA 5 on 5.
Was it the average defense, or 29th best GK combo?
You are living in a negative dream world if you think:
Montour-Ristolainen
Dahlin-Miller
McCabe-Jokiharju.
are all average. It is Impossible for "Average" defensemen and sub standard GK to give up that few 5 on 5 goals.
Who ranked ahead of them:
Bruins,
Stars,
Avalanche,
Bolts,
Blues,
Blue Jackets,
Coyotes,
Flyers and
Islanders
Are all considered to have good GK and Defense.
But you somehow over look results and think it was magic that kept the goals down.

Loved to draft defensemen I should have said. Yes the D core we have now is strong but I would of rather of Botts drafted forwards over defenseman like he did.

OK, I understand what you mean.
Who drafted Cozens, Mittelstadt, Pekar, and Davidsson?
Do you remember how bad the Buffalo defense was when he became the GM:
2016-17 Buffalo Sabres:
34 Casey Nelson D 11 Rochester Americans
67 Brady Austin D 5 Kladno
45 Brendan Guhle D 3 San Diego Gulls
46 Erik BurgdoerferD 2 Hershey Bears
77 Dmitri Kulikov D 47 Winnipeg Jets
4 Josh Gorges D 66 Out of hockey
38 Taylor Fedun D 27 Texas Stars
41 Justin Falk D 52 Belleville Senators
47 Zach Bogosian D 56 Tampa Bay Lightning
6 Cody Franson D 68 Omsk Avangard
29 Jake McCabe D 76 Buffalo Sabres
55 Rasmus RistolainenD 79 Buffalo Sabres
Other than Ristolainen and McCabe, it was 3rd pairing, AHL, Europe or out of hockey.
He needed to draft a lot of defensemen as the team had zero depth at the blue line.
But if you examine his first two picks in each of his three drafts, 3 defensemen and 3 forwards. It looks pretty balanced to me.

Besides improving the d corps which he did, he did no other positive things as the GM. Bringing in Frolik for absolutely no reason, don't get me started on the ROR deal,

Did you ever listen to the entire interview?
https://thehockeywriters.com/sabres-oreilly-deserves-respect-not-accusations/
listen at 1:54, 3:00, 4:58 and 5:08 lost his love of the game. We were lucky to get a bucket of pucks after this interview.
Did you remember that STL was in last place until Binnington joined the Blues?
Did you ever read an analysis of the trade directly after the trade: https://nhl.nbcsports.com/2018/07/01/trade-blues-spend-big-to-get-ryan-oreilly-from-sabres/
Only after the trade he had a "spark" https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/ryan-oreilly-trade-blues-spark-now/
I watched the Blues play yesterday, if O'Reilly played with that high of intensity the Sabres would never have traded him and the team would have made the play offs at least one of the years he was here.

Oh, I guess it must have been some other GM who brought in Skinner and Kahun, because with out them they Sabres would have only Sam, Jack and Victor as top six forwards.
Let me add, Vesey was a consistent 16-17 goal/yr forward until Krueger mis used used.
Johansson was a 0.56pts/gm forward until he came to Buffalo
While I mentioned the Defense that Botterill inherited was bad, the team did not have any middle six forwards either.
Legwand, Deslauriers, Moulson, Foligno, Gionta ALL played at least 70 games and scored a TOTAL of 41 goals the season before Botterill took over.
Some how every one thinks Tim Murray built a playoff team. Yes a good top line and a good checking line and NOTHING ELSE.

Edit:
I cringed when Scandella only brought back a fourth.
Then nearly had a heart attack when he traded for Frolik.

We all know it'd be this:

Skinner-Eichel-Reinhart (one of the best lines in the league when they are together)
Girgensons-Larsson-Okposo (famed LOG line, no way Kruger would break that up)
Olofsson-MoJo-Kahun (had great chemistry in the last 6 games, scored 7 goals I think in that span)
Vesey-Lazar-Simmonds ("physical" line)

Dahlin-Miller
McCabe-Joki
Montour-Risto

Ullmark
Hutton

Cozens
Frolik
Mitts
TT
Borgen
etc

Personally I doubt Cozens would get a look in the actual play in. Just the way Kruger is he likes vets with experience and Cozens has none. Maybe he could take Lazar's spot but Lazar is a good PKer.