You nailed it!
Looking good!
Plug in Mittelstadt and Hagg and it looks even better!

Mittelstadt is likely out for the year

I'd like to keep the cozens, okposo, Murray line together. I'd also like to put asplund back with olofsson and Thompson.

Without Mittelstadt, I'd put tuch with skinner and girgensons and then do hinostroza with bjork and eakin (although ideally ruotsalainen)

Eakin has no business on an nhl team.

I am aware, ideally Krebs gets called up to center skinner and tuch and girgensons centers bjork and hinostroza. Too bad mittelstadt got hurt

Adams certainly displayed lack of hockey knowledge last year.
He let Larsson walk and signed Eakin.
At least Karmanos knows how to pick the inexpensive UFA's and signed Pysyk, Jankowski, Anderson, Hinostroza, Davidson and Hayden.
The first two former first round picks and the last 3 with a connection to Granato.
Passing over Pysyk last year when the team wanted to compete was a huge error.

Too many mistakes from this team to even count anymore. I feel like for the first time in forever, though, we have competence up front. It really does feel good and I can see a clear picture into the future

You know I completely agree.
Jason Karmanos IMO is the catalyst.
Everything changed when he became Associate GM.
Note the title, not assistant, associate.
In addition to the above mentioned UFA's, look at the Rochester line up.
A very nice blend of young players Krebs, Quinn, Peterka, Laaksonen, Samuelsson, Murray and Luukkonen (both of the last two with the Sabres) and veteran leadership Mersch, Malone, Prow, Davidson, Houser, and Jankowski (now with the Sabres also)
Last year under Adams the Amerks missed the playoff after three consecutive years.
They are back in business this year.
I judge the Sabre GM by how well the Amerks perform.
They also missed the playoffs all three years Murray was the GM.
The AHL team has to do well so the young players develop a winning attitude.

EDIT
TBH, I had that same feeling Botterill's first year.
He made great moves which prompted the Hockey writers to predict the Sabres would make the play offs.
His last year, he made too many errors starting with hiring Krueger, ending with trading Scandella essentially for Frolik.
Only getting a 4th for Scandella was really bad but turning that 4th into Frolik was worse.