First Round Picks and the Sabres Top Six

[LGR4GM]

So a thought occurred to me. Tim Murray has potentially assembled a top 6 that is solely comprised of former first round picks with the exception of ROR (33rd overall).

Jack Eichel - 2nd overall

Sam Reinhart - 2nd overall

Evander Kane - 4th overall

Kyle Okposo - 7th overall

Tyler Ennis - 26th overall

 

On Defense, our top 4 are:

Rasmus Ristolainen - 8th overall

Zach Bogosian - 3rd overall

Dmitri Kulikov - 14th overall

Jake McCabe - 44th overall (2nd round

 

 

We have added so many former first round picks it is kinda crazy. Any thoughts on this? I know McCabe and ROR are 2nd rounders but out of 10 top players 8 are first round picks, 1 should have easily been a first round pick, and one is a good 2nd rounder. Clearly first round picks are worth their weight in gold.

[Weave]

So a thought occurred to me. Tim Murray has potentially assembled a top 6 that is solely comprised of former first round picks with the exception of ROR (33rd overall).

Jack Eichel - 2nd overall

Sam Reinhart - 2nd overall

Evander Kane - 4th overall

Kyle Okposo - 7th overall

Tyler Ennis - 26th overall

 

On Defense, our top 4 are:

Rasmus Ristolainen - 8th overall

Zach Bogosian - 3rd overall

Dmitri Kulikov - 14th overall

Jake McCabe - 44th overall (2nd round

 

 

We have added so many former first round picks it is kinda crazy. Any thoughts on this? I know McCabe and ROR are 2nd rounders but out of 10 top players 8 are first round picks, 1 should have easily been a first round pick, and one is a good 2nd rounder. Clearly first round picks are worth their weight in gold.

 

That was the strategy laid out by Regier.  Remember the flyer sent to season ticket holders that had the stats for all of the goals scored in the league by 1st round picks compared to the goals scored by all the other picks?   Very beginning of the Bad Times.

[WildCard]

I mean, it makes sense, no? Good players tend to be drafted higher, we've all seen the info many posters have laid out on this subject. I believe it's more so that GMTM is targeting good players and those players happened to be drafted higher, than he is solely targeting players that were drafted higher 

[dudacek]

I'd add Lehner to that group. He's a 2nd-rounder, but one of the first goalies taken that year.

 

We've is right on the Regier thing, but it also fits with the variation laid out by Murray early on: acquiring talent that for whatever reason had hit a roadblock in their growth with their existing franchises.

 

That's Bogosian, Kane, Lehner, O'Reilly and Kulikov to a T.

[nfreeman]

Clearly first round picks are worth their weight in gold.

 

As far as the Sabres demonstrating that the plan is working, nothing has been clearly established yet.  Not a GD thing.

[Eleven]

That was the strategy laid out by Regier.  Remember the flyer sent to season ticket holders that had the stats for all of the goals scored in the league by 1st round picks compared to the goals scored by all the other picks?   Very beginning of the Bad Times.

I do not remember the flyer.

[GASabresIUFAN]

I remember the flyer. It listed our myriad of upcoming draft picks a couple of years ago. I have a copy on my computer and will post it if I can find it. Granted many if these picks were traded away by GMTM for Kane, Bogosian, ROR and Lehner.

 

Other then ROR, the jury is still out on the other big time trades. Also GMTM has also traded away in those trades and others most of Regiers top picks with the exception of Ennis, Big Z, McCabe and Risto from 2008 to 2013.

2008 12th overall - Myers (gone)

2009 13th overall - Kassian - traded for Hodgson by Regier, Hodgson bought out by GMTM

2010 23rd overall - Pysyk - traded for Kulikov

2011 13th overall - Armia (gone)

2012 12th overall - Girgorenko (gone)

2013 16th overall - Zadorov (gone)

2013 35th overall - Compher (gone)

Also 2014 31st overall - Lemieux (gone)

 

However, do we really miss any of these players except maybe Compher? Amazingly our prospect pool, especially at forward and in goal, is still very full and our roster looks to be 4 lines deep. Only D (beyond Guhle and Borgen) and arguably centers looks thin from a prospect standpoint.

 

One other note: LG, you listed 9 players, but sadly only 4 of those 1st rounders were Sabres picks with a 5th a 2nd rd picks. Doesn't really say much for our prospect development.

[LGR4GM]

One other note: LG, you listed 9 players, but sadly only 4 of those 1st rounders were Sabres picks with a 5th a 2nd rd picks. Doesn't really say much for our prospect development.

I listed 9 players. 4 are Sabres 1st round picks, 1 is a 2nd round pick. That is 5 of 9. 3 are other teams first round picks and 1 is a second round pick that is the other 4. The oldest of the 1st round picks I mentioned is Ennis from the 2008 draft. The 4 first rounders on Buffalo are from 2013 to now excluding him. In what way does that say we have a development issue? 

Edited September 24, 2016 by LGR4GM

[GASabresIUFAN]

I listed 9 players. 4 are Sabres 1st round picks, 1 is a 2nd round pick. That is 5 of 9. 3 are other teams first round picks and 1 is a second round pick that is the other 4. The oldest of the 1st round picks I mentioned is Ennis from the 2008 draft. The 4 first rounders on Buffalo are from 2013 to now excluding him. In what way does that say we have a development issue?

 

Ideally most, say 75%, of our top 10 players (top 6 and top 4 d) would be developed by the Sabres. Instead we really have only developed 3 players (Risto, Ennis and McCabe). Anyone could have drafted and inserted Sam and Jack into the lineup as neither played any games in our minor league system. For a small market team like the Sabres, developing players is the key to long term success. Regier's failure to draft and develop players, especially at center, lead to this team's downfall. GMTM has traded away siginifcant prospects to try to accelerate the rebuild, and so far I don't have a huge problem with it. However, at some point that has to stop if this team is going to be a long-term success.

 

However, my point is if Regier's drafting development system had worked, the rebuild that we have just gone thrpugh may never had been necessary.

[LGR4GM]

Ideally most, say 75%, of our top 10 players (top 6 and top 4 d) would be developed by the Sabres. Instead we really have only developed 3 players (Risto, Ennis and McCabe). Anyone could have drafted and inserted Sam and Jack into the lineup as neither played any games in our minor league system. For a small market team like the Sabres, developing players is the key to long term success. Regier's failure to draft and develop players, especially at center, lead to this team's downfall. GMTM has traded away siginifcant prospects to try to accelerate the rebuild, and so far I don't have a huge problem with it. However, at some point that has to stop if this team is going to be a long-term success.

 

However, my point is if Regier's drafting development system had worked, the rebuild that we have just gone thrpugh may never had been necessary.

Then you can't use your 75% number. Either Jack and Sam count or they don't. I am also unsure where you got the 75% thing from. Considering all the trades DR did prior to 2013 where picks were unloaded, I am not surprised that we don't have more home grown Sabres in our top 10. The rebuild would have been necessary because DR failed repeatedly to change the culture of a team that was soft and always blamed others for their failures. Pominville's go to was "we need to be better" it implies IMO that they thought they were better and just needed to do that. ROR's and Gionta's go to was "we aren't good enough" which implies responsibility. 

 

I do agree that developing players is a key to success either big or small market. Let's see how the long list of talent we have in the pipeline does. Just because we trade that talent away doesn't mean we didn't develop it properly.

 

Zack Kassian, Joel Armia, and Mark Pysyk were our only 1st or 2nd round picks between 2009 and 2011.  In 2008 you got Ennis and in 2012 you got Zemgus and McCabe. Now you could argue that we didn't develop those players well but I think those were DR type players who aren't the best NHL types you can get. Also I forget which draft it was but one of those drafts was utter garbage. The fact GMTM turned Pysyk into Kulikov and used Armia to help get Bogosian/Kane is a good thing.  My point is with DR having final say on drafting, the Sabres were always going to need to rebuild because he lacked the ability to either tank or to identify the types of leaders and skillsets needed for todays NHL. DR values smaller shifty fowards and he likes softer type defenders IMPO. GMTM like medium at least size forwards who can skate and Big mobile defenders. It is just a different philosophy.

 

If guys like Karabacek and Cornel, and Olofsson and Bailey fail to develop then yes, we have an issue but with GMTM accelerating the rebuild, saying we should have 75% of our top 10 as Buffalo drafts seems off. Also you are only talking about 1 or 2 extra players. We traded Pysyk for Kulikov and we traded Zadorov and Grigs for ROR. SO in essence we used those former 1st round picks we developed to get better players. 

Edited September 24, 2016 by LGR4GM

[GASabresIUFAN]

Edit: Dup post deleted.

 

LG I agree with you about Regier and that is my point. We failed to draft and develop prospects to sustain the winning team, thereby forcing the rebuild. In addition Regier's continued failures once in the rebuild to draft and develop players forced GMTM to trade those prospects away plus others to get what he needed to field a decent team. Think about it, once the rebuild began in earnest we had 4 1st rd picks in 2012 & 2013. These 4 guys, 2 centers and 2 D, were supposed to be the cornerstones of the rebuild, but now just 3/4 years later, only 1 is in our top 10 (Risto), 2 were dumped (Grigorenko and Zadorov) and 1 looks like our 4th line center.

 

Yes we do get credit for drafting Jack and Sam and certainly GMTM did everything in his power to insure we had a chance to get Jack. However, I was trying to point out how few players who we draft actually become better player under our care. This may very well be changing under GMTM. Bailey's growth has been astounding. McCabe has grown as well and it looks like Baptiste is making strides.

Edited September 24, 2016 by GASabresIUFAN

[LGR4GM]

I don't know if GMTM has a development issue, but Regier had both a drafting and development issue. It's the reason that the rebuild became necessary in the first place.

 

In addition, with a top 10 of Jack, Sam, Ennis, ROR, Kane, Okposo, Risto, Kulikov, Bogo, and McCabe were are only batting 500 and only 3, Risto, Ennis and McCabe, actually spent time developing in our system. Jack and Sam jumped right from the jr/ncaa to the NHL. Ideally I'd like to see this top 10 with 7-8 of our own players, but I understand GMTM wanted to acclerate the rebuild and traded away many of our prospects to do it. However, long-term this is not a recipe for success.

That isn't realistic. I think you would be hard pressed to find any top 10 NHL team with 8 players in their top 10 being homegrown.

 

The rebuild became necessary because DR failed for 7 years to address the issues at center ice and put in place a team of weaker leaders to run the team. 

 

Long term we need to develop our 1st round and 2nd round picks. So Cornel, Estephan, Bailey, Guhle, Karabacek, Nylander, and Asplund of the system. With most of them we won't know for another 2 years if we did a good job and still I would expect 50% of them to never  play meaningful NHL minutes.  Trading guys who aren't panning out for guys who look good is also a key trait. ROR trade for instance. Drafting Zadorov and Grigorenko was not bad at all. It helped us acquire a really good player.

[GASabresIUFAN]

My 7-8 players/75% comes from my review of previous successful rebuilds in places like Pitt, Chi and now TB. TB top 6 forwards are all TB developed prospects, plus their top D Hedman. Pitt's first cup team featured Pitt draftees as their top 3 scorers and top 4 D. Chi was much the same.

[LGR4GM]

My 7-8 players/75% comes from my review of previous successful rebuilds in places like Pitt, Chi and now TB. TB top 6 forwards are all TB developed prospects, plus their top D Hedman. Pitt's first cup team featured Pitt draftees as their top 3 scorers and top 4 D. Chi was much the same.

Pittsburgh is a train wreck at drafting so not sure you want to use them as an example.

 

I guess I don't really understand what you are going for? Our rebuild won't be complete until 8 of our top 10 are home grown? We can't win the cup unless we do that? Im slightly confused is all, about it.

Edited September 24, 2016 by LGR4GM

[GASabresIUFAN]

My concern is that rebuilds not primarily based on internal players aren't as successful long-term. As of right now our rebuild is only 50% at best based on internal prospects and if Ennis and McCabe don't earn top 2 line roles, then we are down to 30%.

 

While I'm happy with the roster, i'm concerned that GMTM's rush to accelerate the rebuild may ultimately limit the success of the rebuild. I'm hope I'm wrong.

[LGR4GM]

My concern is that rebuilds not primarily based on internal players aren't as successful long-term. As of right now our rebuild is only 50% at best based on internal prospects and if Ennis and McCabe don't earn top 2 line roles, then we are down to 30%.

 

While I'm happy with the roster, i'm concerned that GMTM's rush to accelerate the rebuild may ultimately limit the success of the rebuild. I'm hope I'm wrong.

but no one has done a rebuild the way Buffalo has. Pittsburgh, Chicago, TB. None of them traded for a top 6 forward the age and caliber of ROR. We flipped Mark Pysyk for Dmitri Kulikov, Kulikov is only 1.5 years older. I don't really agree with your theory as you have presented it. I think you need to get as much young top end talent into your top 10 as possible and how you acquire it, either by the draft or by trade is irrelevant. Also I think it will matter more to the rebuild if the picks in the system now and the picks in the next couple years pan out. Guys like Nylander, Bailey, Ghule and players not yet drafted. 

[Thorny]

As far as the Sabres demonstrating that the plan is working, nothing has been clearly established yet.  Not a GD thing.

Plus, most first round picks still don't become top players. It's just that most top players are first round picks. So it's not the first round pick that is worth gold, it's the successful players.