There is no reason to do the Eichel trade

Eichel is much better than Barzal and his your captain
Buffalo is gonna lose all whats left of their fans.

You're downgrading from Eichel to Barzal just to get Buchnevich?

I have called the police

You downgrade from Eichel to Barzal, while paying Barzal more for less term.

Delete this now.

Stick to the avs

So let me get this straight. You're essentially trading Eichel and a 2nd round pick for Barzal, Buchnevich, Andersson, and a 5th? I could get into the values in why I don't think this is a fair deal but instead I'm just going to ask why? Eichel is a special talent that most teams never get a chance to have. Barzal is a really good player but he is not on the level of Eichel. It just doesn't seam smart to trade an elite caliber player for a really good player, a decent player, and an unknown commodity. In my opinion, hold on to Elites for as long as you can. They're the building blocks to a Stanley Cup.

I now see you're an Avalanche fan and not a Sabres Fan. I'll instead summarize this as to why this is a bad.

Imagine signing Barzal and trading MacKinnon. Now do you understand why?

I understand all the criticisms listed above honestly. Stripped from team circumstances the Eichel-MacKinnon comparison makes sense. The Avs are a legit Stanley Cup contender though and the Sabres are stuck spinning their wheels. The whole premise is built around the idea that, if the Sabres struggle again during the 2020-21 season, Eichel could request a trade. This scenario gets out in front of that possibility and allows the Sabres to maximize return while not doing a full reboot.
I doubt Botterill mines the CapFriendly Armchair GM boards for ideas, so with the understanding that this is very VERY unlikely to happen, everyone needs to R-E-L-A-X (also a Green Bay Packers fan).

Nah, if you trade Eichel to NYR you better get more than that how about Fox and Zibanajed...plus

Hahaha don't worry I get it. And yes, I very much doubt Botterill looks at CapFriendly for his ideas...then again they've done so terribly over the years that you do wonder.

Back to the discussion though. While I understand shaking it up if Eichel asks for a trade, I wouldn't do the sign Barzal and trade Eichel option. If Eichel wants out, I say you skip the Barzal signing and trade Eichel. Because if you're still bad enough that Eichel sees the writing on the wall, blow it up. I would only do the Barzal signing if Eichel wants out, but you're a legitimate contender for the Cup.

Keep Jack. sign Barzel, trade Ristolainen for picks to make for Barzel.
I like the idea. I wonder if it would cost that much to sign Barzel considering Jack's, Connor's and Austin's contracts and they are much better.

I considered making a team (and still might) where they keep Eichel and also propose an offer sheet to Barzal. The only reason the offer sheet is structured at $10.5+ is to make it prohibitive for the Islanders to match while not giving up four 1st round picks. Ideally, his cap hit falls between $7.5 and $9.5. In this scenario they would have to re-acquire one of the 3rd round picks they traded away, which I built in to the Eichel-Rangers trade that I slapped everyone across the face with.