Top 6 is good, bottom 6 is very rough, Lehner probably wouldn’t have succeeded if he stayed in Buffalo, D is meh, not awful though. I’d say it’s a fringe team

Actually the defense is very good and very young. Miller at 27 is the oldest of the top 7.
Only 8 teams gave up fewer 5 on 5 goals than Buffalo. Remember Hutton had one of the worse GA% in the NHL.
I would imagine if Buffalo had a better offense keeping the puck in the offensive zone the GA would improve as well.
While the PK collapsed last year, the LOG line was very good.
But to the point about making the playoffs:

Where did the Sabres finish when they had both O'Reilly and Lehner?
Second last in the Atlantic, last in the Atlantic and last over all.
So now bringing them back would change everything, even with Dahlin on the team.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.

Just imagine a top 6 of

Skinner-Eichel-Reinhart
Kane-ROR-Olofsson

No. Thats not the definition of insanity. Insanity is a complex mental disease. Not some cute little comment(which Einstein never actually said).

Point is if botts was patience and kept those two, sabres would be in the playoffs. They are literally have been searching for a 2nd line center ever since, along with a quality goalie.

Edit: in case you're wondering, the actual definition of insanity:

Insanity. n. mental illness of such a severe nature that a person cannot distinguish fantasy from reality, cannot conduct her/his affairs due to psychosis, or is subject to uncontrollable impulsive behavior.

So how patient should Botterill have been?
Have a look at the defense he inherited:
34 Casey Nelson D 11 Rochester Americans
67 Brady Austin D 5 Kladno
45 Brendan Guhle D 3 San Diego Gulls
46 Erik BurgdoerferD 2 Hershey Bears
77 Dmitri Kulikov D 47 Winnipeg Jets
4 Josh Gorges D 66 Out of hockey
38 Taylor Fedun D 27 Texas Stars
41 Justin Falk D 52 Belleville Senators
47 Zach Bogosian D 56 Tampa Bay Lightning
6 Cody Franson D 68 Omsk Avangard
29 Jake McCabe D 76 Buffalo Sabres
55 Rasmus RistolainenD 79 Buffalo Sabres
And look where they are now!
He added two NHL defensemen who are still in the league Scandella and Beaulieu.
Grit and Stanley cup experience with Wilson and Nolan.
Secondary scoring with Pomenville and Pouliot.
The Hockey writers were so moved by the improvement that they predicted the Sabres would make the playoffs.
Many Sabre fans avoid answering some simple questions:
Why did Buffalo do so poorly when he was here?
Why was STL in last place on january 3rd, since the previous season they missed the playoffs by one pt?
How could a near Stanley cup playoff team add Peron, Bozak and O'Reilly need Binnington to save the season?
Why did O'Reilly have the worse +/- of all skaters upon completion of the third round?
Why was O'Reilly on the ice for the only Dallas goal in game seven?
Tough questions. The only one that gets a reasonable answer is he was on the ice against the other teams best forwards in the playoffs.
But there are not any good answers for the other ones.
Buffalo got worse every year he was here.
Let me add, the usual course for a team to follow that finishes last over all, last in the Atlantic the previous year and second last the year before that is to start afresh and sell of as many assets as possible and take a fresh start.
So my question is still, you preach patience, what do you do with a player who exits the season with this interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_ZpOdjLiSo
:22 second, "I was not mentally tough enough" your captain should be the toughest of the team.
1:20 "we are stuck in this mind set of being OK" the captain is responsible for making the team a winning team.
1:55 "through the year I lost my love of the game" Kids play this for fun! how can you lose the love of having fun?
3:04 Asked "when did the team as a whole start feeling sorry for itself" he answered 3:14 "It happened right away!"
3:26 paraphrasing here I am getting ready to play overseas it has been a long time since I have had that kind of excitement, have a chance to win something.
4:57 again paraphrasing I was lost my love as soon as the season started, "right from the get go".
5:05 He asked again paraphrasing kids love this game why did you lose it he replied "at times through the year I felt I lost it."
6:02 "Kind of how I felt out of love for it"

EDIT: Sabre fans should be saying to themselves "Oh why did Binnington save the season, we could have had the first over all pick 2 years running."
Let me remind you, there were speculation that STL was about the throw in the towel and were thinking of trading Tarasenko.
https://thehockeynews.com/news/article/five-teams-that-should-go-all-in-on-a-vladimir-tarasenko-trade
https://puckprose.com/2018/12/13/nhl-trade-rumors-3-teams-trade-vladimir-tarasenko/
https://thehockeywriters.com/vladimir-tarasenko-trade-options/
I guess we all forgot about these articles as well.