A mix of question and exclamation marks went up this past April when the Buffalo Sabres fired General Manager Tim Murray. The dismissal surprised many in the NHL community not just because Murray was one season into a multi-year contract extension, but also because he was just three seasons into an extended re-build.

I am one of the many observers who were shocked that Sabres owner Terry Pegula abandoned Tim Murray and his plan so soon. I am also one of the many that praised the choice of long-time Pittsburgh Penguins assistant GM Jason Botterill as Murray’s replacement. Murray’s firing may have been rash, but Botterill can quickly justify the move by improving the Sabres’ organization this summer.

With yesterday’s Minnesota trade, Botterill has begun to do just that.

In the trade, Buffalo acquired Marco Scandella, Jason Pominville, and a 3rd round draft pick in exchange for Marcus Foligno, Tyler Ennis, and a 4th round draft pick (source). On one hand, the trade makes the still re-building Sabres older and more expensive. On the other, the additions stabilize a flawed roster, and neither of the players Buffalo relinquished were important long-term assets. I see this trade as fantastic for the Sabres, because both of the players they gained are better than both of the players they lost.

Yes, Jason Pominville IS better than either Marcus Foligno or Tyler Ennis.

Before I harp on Pominville’s worth, keep in mind that neither Foligno nor Ennis is exactly a top flight player.

Don’t get me wrong: Foligno is a useful depth Forward who played some Pentalty Kill minutes in Buffalo. His fancystats are that of a middle-of-the-lineup player, with his 5v5 TM_Rel Corsi For% (his CF% relative to his teammates, weighted by how much ice time he spent with each one) hovering around neutral for the past 4 seasons and his Rel_EGF% (xtrahockeystats’ measure that attempts to account for shot quality) has been very positive his whole career (source).

But Foligno isn’t more than a middle-of-the-roster player, because he doesn’t produce points. In the last 4 seasons, his 5v5 points-per-60 only exceeded 1.11 once (source). To put in that in perspective, of the 360 Forwards who played at least 468 5v5 minutes last year, 268 of them had a 5v5 points-per-60 of over 1.11 (source).

Meanwhile, Ennis is a highly-paid scorer who’s ceased to score. It’s been six seasons since he put up more than 1.4 5v5 points-per-60, and for the last two seasons he has been worse in that statistic than Foligno (source).

Many people lump Pominville in the ‘washed-up’ pile with Ennis, and the consensus is that they are each Cap dumps in this trade. This idea is faulty, rooted in Pominville’s performance in a 2015-16 season where he was supremely unlucky, and in a 2016-17 season where he was unfairly buried on a talented roster. In Pominville, Jason Botterill gained one of the league’s more consistently efficient scorers.

In 2016-17, Pominville’s 5v5 points-per-60 of 2.41 was 9th in the NHL among the top 360 Forwards in 5v5 TOI. In 2015-16, he put up a career-low 1.40 5v5 points-per-60, but that was despite an unusually low 5v5 shooting percentage of just 4.64%. If you aren’t convinced that Pominville’s down year was a fluke, consider this: excluding 2015-16, Pominville’s 5v5 points-per-60 has never been below 1.94 (which is 1st line calibre production) since the statistic was first tracked in 2007-08 (source).

Pominville’s possession and shot quality statistics are also excellent. In each of his last 4 seasons with the Wild, he was top 3 on the team in 5v5 CF% Rel_TM. Pominville’s total EGF%_Rel over the last 4 season was 12th in the NHL among players with at least 1500 minutes played over that time frame (source).

Statistics can’t tell you everything and their predictive value is far from ideal, but when one player’s stats are consistently that much better than another’s, the conclusion is clear. Pominville is the best out of him, Foligno, and Ennis.

You probably won’t need as much convincing to believe that Scandella is better than the players Botterill gave up. Since becoming a full-time NHL Defenseman in 2011-2012, Scandella has played over 20 minutes per-game on a talented Minnesota blueline (source). As a bonafide top 4 guy, Scandella could conceivably be the Sabres’ best left-handed Defenseman. His presence in Buffalo’s Defenseman corps will help stabilize what was a struggling group.

As I touched on earlier, Pominville and Scandella can have the same effect on the Sabres off the ice. They are coming from a Wild team that achieved a good deal of regular season success during their respective tenures. Pominville is an elder statesman and former Sabres captain who will be a wonderful influence on the young Sabres roster that Botterill inherited.

Depending on how much Foligno gets signed for, the Sabres do lose between 2 and 3.5 million dollars in Cap space. However, with almost 20 million still left over, they can afford it.

In the wake of Jason Botterill’s first major trade as GM of the Sabres, Buffalo is more stable both on and off the ice. He is well on his way to making Tim Murray’s dismissal worthwhile.