I don't know why people are harping on Botterill. He will make trades......in July.
We're harping on Botterill because the same old retread players who have never had success in Buffalo are still on this team. Girgensons, Larsson, Okposo, McCabe, Risto and more, these guys have all been on the Sabres for years and it hasn't worked. It's not going to work.
We have too many defenseman and not enough middle of the lineup scoring, with the biggest hole being 2C. We are having a hard time finding a trade partner, apparently. Is it because of Botterill's overall safe business approach to conserve your assets for long term success? Probably, and that's never a bad overall approach to have, to a point.
But it's also because we're strapped up tight against the cap, limiting our ability to maybe take on a bad contract from a team in order to acquire a truly great player to make a difference. Why are we strapped up against the cap? Because we're giving out $1.6 mil contracts to Girgensons and Larsson like they've earned it, instead of finding cheaper younger alternatives who will also bring some much needed life to the team. Because Sobotka somehow made this roster and is tying up $3.5 mil on the cap, when a cheap buyout could've been placed in the summer. Little things like that were questioned and are all adding up now.
Casey Mittelstadt's development has been poorly handled so far and is starting to give me a sick deja vu feeling of Marek Zagrapan or Mikhail Grigorenko all over again. Dahlin is making so many critical mistakes and looks like he's fully gotten in his own head about it. Eichel hit a tipping point and had to drop the gloves last night to try and wake this team up, and still no response.
That's why we're harping on Botterill to do something.