There was plenty of chatter regarding trades and potential trade partners with the Sabres at the draft.
While there was noise and movement around the league, the Sabres listened but stayed extremely quiet.
General Manager Jason Botterill is a man with a plan and he's not going to make any rash decisions.
There are plenty of needs that should be addressed by Botterill and new head coach Phil Housely --
after all, Buffalo still needs help on the blue line and they could use another scoring punch.
But, Botterill wasn't about to do anything crazy to upgrade the team over the weekend at the draft.
"It's a scenario where you're trying to balance things out," he said. "You're trying to make improvements, you're trying to bring people in - players that are going to help our organization right away. You always have to have a look on the long term. We can't be sacrificing young players -- we can't be sacrificing draft picks for a short term fix."
On that same line of thinking, in terms of not rushing and making a mistake that'll cost the franchise, free agency officially opens July 1st.
The window to begin talking with free agents opens today (June 25), although terms (technically) can't be hammered out.
Botterill told reporters in the past five to six years free agency has changed with players re-signing with their respective teams, rather than signing with another team.
"We're still addressing a lot of different positions within our organization. We want to bring in more depth obviously. Whether it's through free agency or trades, we'll continue to look at different things," he said. "I don't think there's as much of that "big bang" on July 1, but hopefully you can find some good value and good depth."
July 1 is also when the Sabres can start negotiating with star center Jack Eichel on a new contract. Evander Kane could also be in line for a new deal.
5 p.m. on June 26 is the deadline for teams to extend qualifying offers to restricted free agents.
