from Mike Harrington of the Buffalo News,

If you're the rookie GM of the 31st-place club trying to look good in front of ownership, it's probably a pretty easy sell that you're going to build your team around Rasmus Dahlin, Dylan Cozens, Casey Mittelstadt, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, Jack Quinn, Mattias Samuelsson, Arttu Ruotsalainen, a re-signed Ullmark and whoever you draft in the top three in July.

As bad a day as Monday felt like, go read the previous paragraph again. It makes things look less dark. And that's before you add whatever players or picks they might get in any deals for Eichel, Reinhart or Ristolainen.

Maybe that's what they should do. The veterans didn't seem to go out of their way to throw any olive branches on Monday to Don Granato. Frankly, it doesn't look like they give a damn who the coach of this team is going forward. It's not like they perform for anybody who's been behind the bench here at all in recent years, their odd love for Ralph Krueger notwithstanding.

Remember, this franchise has won exactly nothing with those three guys. It hasn't played a single playoff game with a No. 8 pick in 2013 and guys taken No. 2 the two following years. Nobody can argue this trio hasn't given a lot over nearly 1,400 combined NHL games between the three of them. It hasn't meant a thing.

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