1. They don’t “have“ Ryan Johnson. He hasn’t signed and can go ufa in August.
2. Jokiharju is a bad player who can’t play with either Dahlin or Power. He has to go…not be counted as their best RHD and a top 4 option
3. Whenever one of the three good D they have got hurt…the team became an absolute disaster. There is nothing in the pipeline. Nothing. They had 22 picks the last two years and took almost nothing but offense.
4. Right now…before this draft…Buffalo can’t fit all their high picked forwards onto the roster when they’re ready. They have 4 first round forwards who haven’t made the league yet. Three who can play center. Thats behind Tage, Cozens signed for 7 years and Mittelstadt/ Krebs. Just at Center. And not counting on anyone drafted outside of round 1 to ever do anything.
They have 0 defensemen coming. And 3 on the roster
1. Well theoretically they could have him.
2. He's okay. I didn't say he's great.
3+4 I've said they don't need more forwards, but the defense isn't in bad shape. They have 2 elite d-men who are extremely young, that's already an incredible start. They could use a RHD, maybe 2. But They have a very strong group of LHD.
The likely scenario though is that Reinbacher will be gone. ASP is 50/50 if he'll be gone. I think Reinbacher goes pretty high though, so I think Vancouver could be pretty likely to then take ASP, as they also really need d-men and then Arizona need d-men too and have two 1sts, so they could also go for ASP(if they don't take Reinbacher at 6 already). Then there's a gap to the next RHD(in my opinion).
So Buffalo's 1st option is to trade up and get 1 of them. The 2nd option is to trade down and they should target Tom Willander. But like I said, trade down for him. At 13, he's not very close to BPA in my opinion. They could just simply take the best forward available too. And then make moves down the road with their incredible forward group to get d-men.
Then the final option, which I think is maybe the best option, is to trade the pick straight up and get a top 4 RHD. Similar to Vancouver trading their second 1st rounder to get Hronek.
And with Buffalo, that would make even more sense given that forward group they have already and their rebuild is over.