This is absolutely ridiculous!! Murray took the 2015 draft, which SHOULD have been the huge reward for Regier starting the tear down, and flushed it down the toilet because he was impatient and thought his personal choices of making a big, strong, tough playoff contender was worth throwing all that draft and prospect capital away. To suggest that Murray built ANYTHING other than a @#$% team with lesser picks and prospects than what he was given to start with, is a flat out fantasy. He took a bad prospect pool and kept it bad, failed to turn Rochester into a quality development destination, and added one...ONE...quality playoff caliber player in O'Reilly.
The curious thing about his ONLY successful trade as GM, is that he could have relied on the best draft in years to solve all his problems, instead of going hard after O'Reilly. Who in their right mind would choose to have Kane, Bogosian, O'Reilly, Lehner, Fasching, and Deslauriers, instead of Myers, Armia, Lemieux, a 2nd/3rd for Stafford, Roslovic, a 3rd or so for Grigorenko, Zadorov, Compher, Aho, White/Boeser/Konecny, McNabb and another couple 2nds? Murray was put in charge of a re-build with a trust fund to work with. Botterill was put in charge of a re-build after the first one failed, with nothing extra in the bank.
The total gems available in that draft would have this team as a solid Cup contender right now, and the rest of the picks and prospects not traded away would either be solid depth or used to acquire it. Complaining about Botterill is one thing, but complaining that Botterill didn't continue with what Murray "built" because he hasn't kept doing what Murray did, which was hurling this franchise head-first into a brick wall, is complete fantasy. It's as if you truly have no idea how awful a job Murray did, and how much of a hole he dug this team into. I have no special thing for Botterill, I just know that ANY GM taking over after Murray had the task of improving what was basically an expansion franchise without the new favorable expansion draft. Little talent, little depth, little in the prospect pool, and a farm team that wasn't developing anyone, and few decent coaches. How is a GM supposed to hire a quality HC that wants to suffer through a ground-up re-build? How fast is a GM supposed to turn that mess into a contender? For anyone to think that should happen in three seasons, without giving away the farm again, is a la-la land optimist.