How do other teams find high quality players in the mid/late first rounds and later but the Sabres don't?

[PerreaultForever]

1 hour ago, Doohickie said:

Perhaps the problem the last several years has been:

1.  With the gutting of the Sabres to tank for picks, too many of those picks have been rushed up to the NHL.

Too many of the lower picks in the tank years have been busts. When you are picking first overall, your second pick is virtually a first and you have to hit on some of those players as well as the obvious first one. We lost mcDavid and got Eichel, but 2nd round we have to do better than Guhle.

The Reinhart year we took the wrong guy and traded Lemiuex but the rest was a bust outside of (perhaps) lucking into Olofsson in the 7th. JBot's got us a bunch of Swedes and Finns, and some of those guys have to develop into pros or his drafts will also end up being busts. Too soon to tell. 

SO MANY BAD DRAFTS over the years though explains it all.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Buffalo_Sabres_draft_picks

[7+6=13]

1 hour ago, Doohickie said:

Perhaps the problem the last several years has been:

1.  With the gutting of the Sabres to tank for picks, too many of those picks have been rushed up to the NHL.

2.  The Rochester Americans were neglected as a platform for development, so the players with potential never realized it.

So it isn't not making the right picks, it's destroying the potential that was drafted.

I think you'd agree it's some of both.  We've not drafted players who've filled roles, and we certainly haven't had a couple players play far above their draft status.  Maybe ERod fits that description but that's not going to cut it.  The book isn't shut because like I said, those hopefuls are there and their story isn't written.  We desperately needed a Nylander, Mitts or Thompson to become very good players and that's not likely.  

I'm worried because I just don't see how we build the middle of the team.  The whole middle.  

It would also help if our top end talent was holy s*$t good, but it's not.  Jack is an excellent top 25 player but he's not a star.  Dahlin gives us the best chance of having one player that's among the best, but ya know, it's defense.  Sam is ok and Skinner is a good player if we can keep him. 

Our top isn't strong enough, our middle is bad, our bottom has non NHL players and our goaltenders are bottom of the league.  

At this point, we're going to have to get lucky in order to be good.  It's a bleak situation for sure.

[MattPie]

https://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/BUF/draft.html

There does seem to be a miss starting in 2010. I'm not expecting the last few years to have hit yet, but prior to 2010 there were a lot more hits in round 3 or later. I wonder if it's overall better scouting across the league. With so much video and information around on the internet, it's less likely there are diamonds in the rough.

I started looking at other teams teams, and I'm seeing fewer players post-2010 in the later rounds too. One notable is Minnesota 2010 pick, Johan Larssssson. The Coyotes, Bruins, and Wild have little to show from their 3+ round picks too.

 

[North Buffalo]

3 minutes ago, MattPie said:

https://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/BUF/draft.html

There does seem to be a miss starting in 2010. I'm not expecting the last few years to have hit yet, but prior to 2010 there were a lot more hits in round 3 or later. I wonder if it's overall better scouting across the league. With so much video and information around on the internet, it's less likely there are diamonds in the rough.

I started looking at other teams teams, and I'm seeing fewer players post-2010 in the later rounds too. One notable is Minnesota 2010 pick, Johan Larssssson. The Coyotes, Bruins, and Wild have little to show from their 3+ round picks too.

 

Hence why teams now are looking overseas for more later round gems... wonder if a few Canadians get overlooked as pendulum swings?

[MattPie]

3 minutes ago, North Buffalo said:

Hence why teams now are looking overseas for more later round gems... wonder if a few Canadians get overlooked as pendulum swings?

If my wild, no-information speculation is correct, not really. The Canadian kids that are "sure things" are gone by the second round and then it's a crap-shoot with various European leagues hoping players can adapt their game. Using 25 legit players per team, there are only 775 players total. I'm not sure how much turnover there is per year, but it's not inconceivable that there are only 75-100 open spots per year to be filled. Someone with more time could probably query how many players with >300 games retire/quit/etc each year; the rest is churn of "temps" that come in and don't make it. I looked quick but didn't see anything obvious to find a team roster with career games played to see how many were vets and how many are newbies.

[Broken Ankles]

i was curious to see if there was any correlation to winning and hitting on Rounds 4-7.  So I took the Draft database for 2010-2017 (no one playing round 4+ from 2018) to find the answers.   So I ranked each team based on 4 categories.  Sum of Total points, Sum of Games played, Count of Total selections or picks, and  Average Position of draft #. (this normalizes for  teams with  more 7's than 4's).    Results are interesting.  Ottawa is first in points scored and games played.   With moderate draft picks and position in the draft.   While the Sabres rank dead last in Points and second last in Games played.   That goes to Cal Peterson and Ullmark playing games as Goalies with negligible  points.    Let me know if you want the data swizzled a different way to help draw conclusions or validate your assumptions.