Crusader1969

one of my favorite draft publications: http://www.draftbuzzhockey.com/2017-nhl-draft-april-ranking For those interested - Glass is listed as centre but also can play Right Wing. Compared to Mark Scheifele.

Not at 8 and doubt he is there for Round 2. Good player, great skater and may have been Swedens best Dman at u18s.

Every draft is different. This year Makar and Heiskanen are top 5 picks. Doesnt mean that Liljegren cant turn out to be the best of the lot. If the Sabres don`t like Liljegren they will take the top Forward and that may not be a bad thing either. Adding Guhle and Antipin to next years team is already a huge upgrade in the puck moving ability of the D. Seems like the draft has a lot of good quality to it and is about 20 players deep. It just doesn`t have the Eichel/Mcdavid Laine/Matthews immediate impact to it. Depends on who you listen to. There is no doubt some teams will have Heiskanen above Makar. Case in point bob mckenzies lottery edition. http://www.tsn.ca/patrick-hischier-in-tight-race-for-no-1-in-tsn-draft-ranking-1.736258

I`ll never understand this way of thinking. Why trade away a guy who could become a top 2Dman or top 6Forward for a guy who is your number 3 or 4?. What the Sabres are missing is a guy to pair with Risto for the next 10 years. maybe its Antipin? Maybe its Guhle? Maybe its the guy you draft at 8. Trading away the pick for a 3/4 isnt solving that. Now that Antipin seems to be signed, im even more unlikely to want to trade away a top 8 pick.

I think your guess is wrong. the Top 2 will be gone before the Sabres draft IMO. So Id' say there is basically 0 chance of one of them play for the Sabres next season (unless they trade up). Heiskanen is the only one I can see playing in the NHL next season. Dominated against his peers and played pro hockey. Liljegren can from a physical stand-point but maybe another year of pro hockey in Sweden would serve him well. He had a tough year with being sick

I'll respectfully disagree. I think he is gone top 3. It will be great if you are right though.

2 years and your mind is set that it didnt or won't work? seems way too hasty to me.

Makar could be available at 6 - most exciting offensive Dmen in years. He is the only guy I'm moving up for. If they stay At 8 I'm rolling the dice with liljegren. My early mock NJ - Hischeir PHI -Patrick Dal- Heiskanen Col - Makar Van - Rasmussen Vegas - Vilardi Ari - Mittlestadt Buff - Liljegren Tippett, Glass and Necas would be a consideration.

Could be a trade option for Sabres if the guy they want is on the board at 6. Sabres have 2 2nds and 2 3rds. Extra draft picks may be what the expansion team is looking for?

+1 It would never happen but it would have been great to see them offer Murray a bag load of money to stay and over see the scouting department and move away from the GM position. Murray wont be out of work long.

http://www.tsn.ca/patrick-hischier-in-tight-race-for-no-1-in-tsn-draft-ranking-1.736258 newly released rankings. Makar at 7 would be a Godsend for the Sabres IMO. They should be doing handstands on the way to the podium to select him.

If Taylor Hall is only getting you Larrson are we sure Samson would even fetch a legit top 4 dman at this time? To get Seth Jones the Hurricanes had trade a #1 centre.

I hope your right but I don't think Hischeir and Patrick are definitely going 1 and 2. Heiskanen's u18 performance seems to have vaulted him way up the draft board. I wouldn't even be surprised if he goes #1 anymore. He seems to be a better version of Juolevi. Phoenix is interesting because they already have OEL and Chychrun but their prospect pool is deep at Center. With the analytics driven GM maybe a trade up with them may be possible?

more and more likely that both Makar and Heiskanen don't make it to 6.

Totally Disagree.

Agreed 3 balanced lines that can score is what you want. ROR, Eichel and Reinhart are your 3 centres. Larrson or Girgs on the 4th line.

I think the reason for Chychrun falling was people started to question his hockey IQ. That seems to happen a lot to highly ranked Dmen going into their draft year and is definitely is happening to Liljegren this season. Heiskanen is thought of as this smart, smooth skating dman - much in the mold of Juolevi. And Liljegren is the elite skater, offensive dman who tries to force a play when the easier option may have been better. I dont think I would have a problem taking Liljegren even as high as 6th (assuming Makar is gone)

I like that you have Baptiste rated higher than most. I would even put him as #3. I think he has a good shot at being a top 6 winger.

If I had to chose 1 guy from that list that would be a future full time contributing Sabre it would be Devante Stephens. Though Nelson and Austin will have moments as injury call ups.

Eichel is 20 years old and already near a point per game player and the Tank was a Fail? Omg, talk about being impatient! Columbus goes from 76 points to over 100 the following season. How did they manage such a turn around? How can you assume the Sabres can't do the same? I still can't believe anyone would prefer not to have Tanked. How many years have mediocre hockey do you need to watch before you realize being stuck in the middle isn't working? 100% agree! When the forward lines next season have Bailey, Baptiste, Nylander and Carrier full time and Guhle is on blue line - there won't be many teams faster than the Sabres. Most of which will be coming next season.

I would say you should expect improvement in Cornel this coming season. Look at the first season in the AHL for Baptiste and Carrier - not much better. Give the kid a chance. I'll never agree that Murray was a bad GM. What really did he ever give away?? best anyone will come up with is Pysyk and to me thats really not that much. he overpaid Moulson and brought in a bad contract with Bogo but took out the Myers contract at the same time. I have a feeling that he had an agreement in place for Vegas to take Moulson or Bogo. But i digress

his skating is elite level and he is a smart hockey player. Will be a big part of the Sabres when they can roll 4 lines.

That was supposed to read Toronto writer on Edmonton Radio -

Toronto writer on Edmonton writer said that it all came down to ping pong balls. "if Sabres get McDavid we are talking about them (Sabres) in the playoffs and we are talking to you in Edmonton about what went wrong". God, I want Jack to come back next year and just tear up the league and I believe that he will.

Director of Pro Scouting I can live with but Greg Royce has done as good a job as anyone.