Sabres' Murray end-of-year presser
/Buffalo Sabres GM Tim Murray, along with coach Ted Nolan, spoke with the media Tuesday as the team heads into the off-season. Here is some of what Murray had to say.
Would not making the playoffs next season be acceptable?
"Depends how we do it. There's still lots of questions to be answered about direction. There's lots of questions to be answered about our top young players. Are they ready? Is it the right thing for them to here or in Rochester.
"We haven't had pro meetings yet. We haven't had amateur meetings yet. We haven't decided our draft list yet. So there's all kinds of questions that have to be answered that will help us answer which direction we're going in next year. But the direction we're going in, whether it's young, it's old, it's free agency, it's trades - we have to improve. So are we going to improve in leaps and bounds or is it going to be increments - but we will improve.
"But we have to, as an organization, decide how we're going to get there. This is not going to be a five-year rebuild, for me anyway, that's not what I want.
"The mantra is 'you improve every day', so we're going to try to improve every day."
On Ville Leino:
"Buying him out is a possibility. Buying him out is a tool we can use to improve our team. Have we made that decision? Have we sat down as a group and made that decision? No, we haven't. Has everybody thought about that? Of course. It's a very good possibility. It's not 100 percent, but it's a very good possibility that's one of our buyouts."
On rebuilding:
"When you tear it down, it doesn't happen overnight. I don't buy in to five-year rebuilds. I think when you use terminology like that, as a GM you're setting yourself up for a long run if your owner buys in to what you're saying so yeah, I mean, I could sit here and say it's a seven-year rebuild and hopefully I get 10 years out of it. But that's not reality and it's not what I want anyway. I want to rebuild here properly, which takes time - but it doesn't have to take years. So we're not going to take short cuts, we're going to do it right.
"There are circumstances that are out of our control, so if St. Louis go the Conference Final and the Islanders give us the pick, that gives us three first round picks this year. That may change what our plan is the following year."
On Tuesday night's draft lottery:
"I want to win the lottery. I want to win something."
Is it conceivable you could take Aaron Ekblad, given the dearth of goal scoring on the Sabres?
"We could. If he's the best player - and I'm not saying he's the best player - but he's in the group of three or four guys that when we get together in May, will be discussed as the No. 1 pick. So he's in the group. I'm not going to say he's for sure the No. 1 player on our list, but he's in the discussion, there's no question.
"He's a defenseman. We don't score enough, obviously, but we have to take the best player available. I know the players don't like to hear it - I sometimes call them assets - if he's the best asset, the best player available, we would be open to taking him. We think he would improve our organization in the future. Is he going to help us score goals next year? He's probably going to be back in junior next year., if we take him, so no, that's not going to help us. We have to other people, other than the first pick in this draft, to help us score more next year."
Related: Murray says Sabres could take Ekblad with No. 1 pick
Murray says he'd like to sign two veteran forwards this summer who are "strong on the ice and in the locker room."
On tanking for a higher draft pick:
"We want to be competitive... if anybody thinks there's a message of tanking being sent from upstairs, I would suggest they put a camera on me for 60 minutes of the game when we're losing and you'll know that tanking is not what I want. I want to play properly. I want to be competitive. Are we going to lose a lot of games because we're not there talent-wise? Sure.
"I guess I helped the team tank inadvertently by trading away or four veteran players at the deadline, but that was not to tank. That was what was best for the organization.
"The coaches on the bench don't want to lose. The players on the ice - I can't imagine there's one player there that wants to finish last so we can get Connor McDavid so he can lose his job.
"So I know that tanking is a word that's used a lot... where in our organization would the tanking come from if the GM doesn't want to lose, and the coaches don't want to lose and the players certainly don't want to lose in order to lose their jobs."