Time to review Jason Botterill's 3 Drafts for the Sabres

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Reviewing Jason Botterill's draft picks as Sabres general manager

Kevyn Adams has unashamedly dropped 4 of Botterill's picks calling them failures and quickly pulling the plug. But there are other successes. UPL is a big maybe. And a few guys that are threatening not to come - especially important to try and keep is Portillo. Samuelsson looks like a win for the Sabres. Mittelstadt has to go out and re-establish himself all over again.

Three draft picks of former General Manager Jason Botterill didn’t show the Buffalo Sabres’ current management enough to earn entry-level contracts this spring.

Kevyn Adams, who replaced Botterill as general manager in June 2020, relinquished the NHL rights to three 2018 draft choices – defensemen Linus Cronholm, Miska Kukkonen and William Worge-Kreu – by choosing not to use any of the organization’s 50 contracts on the trio.

Their official departures came one year after Adams walked away from 2017 second-round pick Marcus Davidsson, a Swedish center who endured injuries after he was Botterill’s second selection with the Sabres.

Despite the misfires, early draft returns from Botterill’s three-year tenure are promising. Rasmus Dahlin, Mattias Samuelsson and Dylan Cozens are members of the Sabres’ young core. Injuries have prevented Casey Mittelstadt from establishing himself as a long-term solution at center, though he still has the talent and time to become one. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen can still develop into an NHL goalie.

The three classes included some possible depth players chosen outside the first round – the Sabres missed with those picks too often under Tim Murray – and a few home runs. A significant question remains: Can/will Adams add the three unsigned players from 2019 in defenseman Ryan Johnson, goalie Erik Portillo and center Aaron Huglen?

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Year by year:

2017 NHL Draft

2017 Sabres selections Recap

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2018 NHL Draft

2018 Sabres Draft Recap - 5 of 6 picks are defensemen - Botterill's patience got him fired.

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2019 NHL Draft

2019 Sabres Draft Recap

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Watch this sick goal by Aaron Huglin....

All the angles of Aaron Huglen's LAX goal for #USA against Canada in the Hlinka Gretzky Cup, goal of the summer for sure pic.twitter.com/C1sOpvDSFh

— CJ Fogler AKA Perc70 #BlackLivesMatter (@cjzero) August 11, 2018

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So Botterill's drafting? Overall pretty successful. Some good (or great - Dahlin/Cozens), some poor or wasted, and a few guys uncommitted. Overall probably would be considered pretty good by NHL experts.

His first round picks looked pretty good, but it's easier to hit with the first overall pick when everyone in the world is telling you that Dahlin is the best overall player. You'd better take him. Casey Mittelstadt looked like he had arrived, until he got hurt. He's still trying to re-establish himself. And who doesn't like Cozens?

But success as a GM can, perhaps, be better judged by your successes from rounds 2 down. To me, Samuelsson is a win for the Sabres and a feather in Botterill's cap. We'll see about the rest. I like Bryson, but how far can a 5' 9" defenseman go in the NHL?

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Kevyn Adams on Ryan Johnson:

Adams didn’t draft Ryan Johnson as he was taken in the first-round of the 2019 draft after Dylan Cozens. Johnson hasn’t made an announcement, but Adams said after the season that things are pointing to him going back to Minnesota for his senior year. Adams said Johnson, like Erik Portillo hasn’t mentioned becoming an unrestricted free agent next summer, “He hasn’t said that to us and I have been very honest and have a very good relationship with his group and all I’ve said is we like him as a prospect and if he decides to go back to school because he thinks it’s going to help him, we’re fully supportive of that, but we’d also be happy to have a conversation about having him join our organization, so they have not indicated that.