Scraping the barrel’s bottom has become a daily task this off season. The free agent season came and went without a great deal of fanfare and the trade rumors have focused mostly on Erik Karlsson and where he will end up before the 2018-19 or perhaps later.
Leaving Karlsson’s outcome for a later column, let’s take a look at the Buffalo Sabres.
They traded away Ryan O’Reilly as the free agency period opened and made a few acquisitions along with jettisoning O’Reilly who was discontent to say the least. 
At the end of the regular season, O’Reilly made a series of comments disparaging the Sabres and the season and expressing a desire to leave the club.
That desire was fulfilled with his departure to the St Louis Blues.
The @PHN_PODCAST this week had mixed opinions on the trade but the end result may be a better season for O’Reilly in a Blues sweater where he will get support from across the roster. But he also needs to show he is not a cancer in the locker room in the Gateway to the West.
The Sabres seemed to think their issues were also centered on the goalie position and rid themselves of Robin Lehner who signed with the New York Islanders.
In his place, the Sabres signed Carter Hutton late of the Blues and Scott Wedgewood.
Hutton signed a three-year deal at $2.75 million annually. He played well in St Louis but he opted for a free agency route out of the Blues crease.
“Buffalo right out of the gate was really strong, and they knew that I was their guy, and that was something that was real important for me,” Hutton said on NHL.com.
The 32-year old goalie posted a 17-7-3 record with 2.09 goals-against average, .931 save percentage in 32 games; he also had and three shutouts.
Wedgewood signed a one-year, two-way contract that will have him icing in Rochester for the Americans in the AHL.
And just before we end this column we did scrape a little deeper and found that the Sabres’ Jack Eichel will be wearing #9 on his sweater beginning this season.
Will be interesting to see the number of new sweaters purchased in Buffalo with the 9 on the back.
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