This is probably a really odd opinion but I don't think we should move any of our 2nd round picks in this year's draft. Here's why:
1)talent
Many scouts believe that a player drafted in the 20's is similar to a player drafted in the 30's this year. For example, Jakub Vrana is ranked between 19-25 in most outlets yet I don't truly see why he's better than Eric Cornel or John Quenneville who are almost always rated as 2nd rounders.
2)baptiste and Hurley
Baptiste and Hurley are both turning 18 years old after this years draft. We used picks 38 and 68 on these guys last year. Had these guys been born a couple days or hours later they would've been eligible for this draft, and both would likely have been mid 1st rounders this year. So we essentially have the 2nd overall pick, a pick in the 12-17 range (baptiste) and a pick in the 19-25 range (Hurley).
3)importance of 2nd rounders
We are all aware if the glut of guys drafted after pick 30 who have carved out good careers and even become stars (datsyuk,Weber,Keith et all) and I'd like to see what Murray could do with the 2nds this year. We also all know how important it is to hit on your 2nds/later picks when building a team. And if we package all 3 2nds like some have suggested we wouldn't even get the chance to get this guys and I doubt we'd get much higher than 14-15.
4)fallers
In bob's final rankings James duthie showed a graph on BM's accuracy over the years. And most of them were 24 or 25 players out of 30. Meaning there could be 4 or 5 guys who are projected 1st rounders and will be there at 31.
Now I'm not against moving up for a guy who's high on the sabres list or a guy who's falling (fowler in 2010,forsberg in 2012 and Shinkaruk last year) but packaging two 2nds to go from 31 to 22 or something like that is something I'd be against.
Discuss.
Some of your other points have been discussed/rebutted, but I want to focus on (& rebut) #2 above. It's a non-sequitir to your argument. How does an event in the past influence present option A (stand pat) vs. option B (package 1 or more picks to trade up) vs. option C (package all 2nd rounders to move up)? The event in the past remains the same outcome regardless of what option is chosen in the present.
The only way past event ARE relevant to the present options is if you're legitimately concerned the Sabres, with very high probability or certainty, will be up against the 50 SPC limit, without slides, and that there will be no way around it. You didn't express that opinion, although others did in the discussion.
One might even turn #2 around to the other extreme and say Baptiste and Hurley have yet to make it to the NHL, and so therefore in a "binary world", i.e., NHL'er or non-NHL'er, they remain non-NHL'ers (as if they never were drafted by BUF). So therefore one would argue to keep the qty 3 = 2nd round 2014 picks and draft them (but you didn't argue that).
sure he says it, but that doesn't necessarily mean he'll do it.
If they have someone very high on their list and he's sill available at 22-25 I'm all for moving up a couple spots. Bu packaging all 3 2nd rounders or moving up 5-6 spots from 31 by sacrificing another 2nd isn't smart IMO
Others are debating this similar point. Stating the obvious, but (as has been discussed in other threads) there are statistical ways to quanitfy the probability of a particular sequential draft choice playing a certain # of games in the NHL. A best fit line, with a confidence interval "error bars", can be fit to each sequential pick. Then, during the draft, when progressing through each pick, one can decide if this year's collective picks in a Talent Tier range is higher or lower than past years, in which case one might choose to bias the best fit line for that particular pick / pick range up or down, respectively. Then a quantitative value can be assigned to that pick vs. the choices you're already holding.
tl;dr = if all talent is equal, hold the picks & maximize probability of success. if talent is unequal, trade picks to increase probability of success. Even in the back-pedaling or clarifying disscussion you agree with that.
I'd be fine with trading all our picks this year, and just having #2 and another top 3-10 pick.
Quality is what we need to be after going forward, not "stocking the cupboards."
Yes, you can find nhl'ers in the 2nd plus but they're needles in the haystack. Give us two 75% probable top 6ers, that needs to be the goal this year and next.
My view as well. It's the logical one, and can be semi-quantified with enough objectivity to not be fully subjective. Also, with Murray running the show, there's less likelihood (IMO) of a 2014 version of the Sekera trade (which objectively was bad value, even if one is accepting that it was made).
