The Sabres: Drafting and Prospect Development

[LGR4GM]

1 hour ago, inkman said:

No one should ever draft for need. Even if that player is good enough to make your team out of the gate (which has to be less than 10%), he won't be good enough to make a trendous implact until 3-4 years down the road.  Exception being Connor McDavid/Sydney Crosby types.  

Free agency and trades are how teams need to fill out rosters. The draft is where you get talent so take the BPA.  

The Sabres aren't doing this. Or if they are they have a deeply biased version of BPA. They ignore the CHL players and prioritize other leagues, the GM said almost as much. That isn't a BPA system. 

That said BPA is highly subjective. The Sabres however have clearly not defined BPA on a talent level basis. They are putting other things into their BPA pot. 

[MakeSabresGrr8Again]

8 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

The Sabres aren't doing this. Or if they are they have a deeply biased version of BPA. They ignore the CHL players and prioritize other leagues, the GM said almost as much. That isn't a BPA system. 

That said BPA is highly subjective. The Sabres however have clearly not defined BPA on a talent level basis. They are putting other things into their BPA pot. 

I would suggest that other teams also do this.....Yakapov, Puljujarvi come to mind.

[Taro T]

1 hour ago, MakeSabresGrr8Again said:

You can rank them any way you want using whatever methods are available and you'll still never know at that time of the pick who the BPA really is. 

 

Don't tell that to the people on here who think we should've drafted Boeser instead of trading that pick for Lehner/ Legwand, LOL.

Had the Sabres been able to keep that pick and trade the 31st pick for him instead then that pick would've been part of the O'Reilly package.  Murray was enamored with Lehner (and seeing his play when sober on the Aisle can understand why) to such a degree that he was part of the brain trust that traded away Bishop for Conacher and a pick.

Always wondered if people would've been less upset about Murray trading that pick if it was part of the other package.  (And ftr, wasn't a fan of the Lehner trade either at the time.)

[nfreeman]

1 hour ago, LGR4GM said:

The Sabres aren't doing this. Or if they are they have a deeply biased version of BPA. They ignore the CHL players and prioritize other leagues, the GM said almost as much. That isn't a BPA system. 

That said BPA is highly subjective. The Sabres however have clearly not defined BPA on a talent level basis. They are putting other things into their BPA pot. 

Cozens?

[LGR4GM]

36 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

Cozens?

They ignore CHL players. You listed the singular exception.

[LTS]

BPA = Best Player Available

But how do you quantify that?

Best player at that specific moment?
Best player for the team?
Best player in 3-4 years?
Best player in 3-4 years if I can control his development?
Best player not in the CHL?

I think it's easier to say, you don't pick a one position over another position just because you need that position.  After that, it's a crap shoot.

[inkman]

Looking at hockeydb history of Sabres draft picks (minus the gimmes line Eichel, Vanek, Turgeon) you gotta go back to the effin 70s to call the Sabres first round picks anything other than Abysmal.  

Zagrapan, Kryukov, Dudacek, the Anderson's, some guy named Joel Savage, Dennis Persson (Berglund, Nic Foligno and Lucic all picked soon after)

The list is a horror show. This is why we are where we are.  We have drafted like ball sack.  Having mid to late 1st Rd picks didn't help but you have to hit at least 50% on those and it ain't close.  Ugh.  

[GASabresIUFAN]

37 minutes ago, inkman said:

Looking at hockeydb history of Sabres draft picks (minus the gimmes line Eichel, Vanek, Turgeon) you gotta go back to the effin 70s to call the Sabres first round picks anything other than Abysmal.  

Zagrapan, Kryukov, Dudacek, the Anderson's, some guy named Joel Savage, Dennis Persson (Berglund, Nic Foligno and Lucic all picked soon after)

The list is a horror show. This is why we are where we are.  We have drafted like ball sack.  Having mid to late 1st Rd picks didn't help but you have to hit at least 50% on those and it ain't close.  Ugh.  

I don't think you can call out 1st in the 80's a horror show, but your point is well taken.  Turgeon, Johansson, Barasso, Mikael Andersson, Creighton, Housley, and Andreychuk were all 1st rd picks in the mid 80's. That's 7 1sts with 700-1500 NHL games with 2 Hofers, and 2 more near HOFers.  We also grabbed, Mogilny, Corkum, Hogue, Reekie, Sheppard, Tucker, Ray, Audette, Ruuttu, and Krupp in later rounds. All these guys player 600-1000 NHL games.  Drafting in the 80's wasnt our problem.  By the way trading Johansson to the Caps was one of the worst trades in Sabre history.

I've said for years that Regier's failure to draft and develop any centers beside Derek Roy was one of the chief reasons our franchise failed in the end.  Getting Drury, Briere and Connolly in trade to go with Roy allowed us to prosper briefly, but his misses ultimately destroyed the franchise when Drury and Briere bolted to greener (read $) pastures.

Edited January 10, 2020 by GASabresIUFAN

[Thorny]

On 1/9/2020 at 2:07 PM, LGR4GM said:

They ignore CHL players. You listed the singular exception.

Definitely. They have 1 CHL player TOTAL in 3 drafts, a league low. CHL isn’t a consideration for JB outside the very top of the draft 

1 hour ago, inkman said:

Looking at hockeydb history of Sabres draft picks (minus the gimmes line Eichel, Vanek, Turgeon) you gotta go back to the effin 70s to call the Sabres first round picks anything other than Abysmal.  

Zagrapan, Kryukov, Dudacek, the Anderson's, some guy named Joel Savage, Dennis Persson (Berglund, Nic Foligno and Lucic all picked soon after)

The list is a horror show. This is why we are where we are.  We have drafted like ball sack.  Having mid to late 1st Rd picks didn't help but you have to hit at least 50% on those and it ain't close.  Ugh.  

Ennis? That’s a good NHL player with a first round pick. Stafford, too, to a bit lesser degree. Exceptions that prove the rule, to an extent, I suppose. 

Edited January 10, 2020 by Thorny

[inkman]

2 hours ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

I don't think you can call out 1st in the 80's a horror show, but your point is well taken.  Turgeon, Johansson, Barasso, Mikael Andersson, Creighton, Housley, and Andreychuk were all 1st rd picks in the mid 80's. That's 7 1sts with 700-1500 NHL games with 2 Hofers, and 2 more near HOFers.  We also grabbed, Mogilny, Corkum, Hogue, Reekie, Sheppard, Tucker, Ray, Audette, Ruuttu, and Krupp in later rounds. All these guys player 600-1000 NHL games.  Drafting in the 80's wasnt our problem.  By the way trading Johansson to the Caps was one of the worst trades in Sabre history.

I've said for years that Regier's failure to draft and develop any centers beside Derek Roy was one of the chief reasons our franchise failed in the end.  Getting Drury, Briere and Connolly in trade to go with Roy allowed us to prosper briefly, but his misses ultimately destroyed the franchise when Drury and Briere bolted to greener (read $) pastures.

I didn't count Housley or Barasso as they were gimmes like Eichel.  

[inkman]

2 hours ago, Thorny said:

Definitely. They have 1 CHL player TOTAL in 3 drafts, a league low. CHL isn’t a consideration for JB outside the very top of the draft 

Ennis? That’s a good NHL player with a first round pick. Stafford, too, to a bit lesser degree. Exceptions that prove the rule, to an extent, I suppose. 

Sorta.  No Sabres fans would claim either of those players were difference makers.  I suppose you cold argue those players go top 5 ninety percent of the time.  If those are the Sabres "good" first rounders (minus the HOFers that everyone knew would be good selected in the top 6 of the draft), it really speaks to how awful the rest of the lot was.  Right now our roster should be supplemented with the young stars we drafted around the Eichel and Dahlin drafts.  Instead we got Mittlestadt, Girgensons, Risto, Reinhart (I love him but for 2nd overall he's fallen a bit short), Nylander (who thankfully turned into Joki), Grigorenko (who was used to get ROR who we gave away), Kassian, Pysyk, Armia.  If those guys were added to a core like Boston, Chicago or Pittsburgh, those teams probably don't miss a beat.  Trying to build around those guys as your core, yikes.  

[Thorny]

6 minutes ago, inkman said:

Sorta.  No Sabres fans would claim either of those players were difference makers.  I suppose you cold argue those players go top 5 ninety percent of the time.  If those are the Sabres "good" first rounders (minus the HOFers that everyone knew would be good selected in the top 6 of the draft), it really speaks to how awful the rest of the lot was.  Right now our roster should be supplemented with the young stars we drafted around the Eichel and Dahlin drafts.  Instead we got Mittlestadt, Girgensons, Risto, Reinhart (I love him but for 2nd overall he's fallen a bit short), Nylander (who thankfully turned into Joki), Grigorenko (who was used to get ROR who we gave away), Kassian, Pysyk, Armia.  If those guys were added to a core like Boston, Chicago or Pittsburgh, those teams probably don't miss a beat.  Trying to build around those guys as your core, yikes.  

Fair enough. Not disagreeing with your conclusion, but Ennis was a 26th overall pick. We got better than adequate value from that spot with him. If we got the same relative value with some of the other picks, we'd be in better shape. 

Edited January 11, 2020 by Thorny

[Curt]

12 hours ago, inkman said:

Sorta.  No Sabres fans would claim either of those players were difference makers.  I suppose you cold argue those players go top 5 ninety percent of the time.  If those are the Sabres "good" first rounders (minus the HOFers that everyone knew would be good selected in the top 6 of the draft), it really speaks to how awful the rest of the lot was.  Right now our roster should be supplemented with the young stars we drafted around the Eichel and Dahlin drafts.  Instead we got Mittlestadt, Girgensons, Risto, Reinhart (I love him but for 2nd overall he's fallen a bit short), Nylander (who thankfully turned into Joki), Grigorenko (who was used to get ROR who we gave away), Kassian, Pysyk, Armia.  If those guys were added to a core like Boston, Chicago or Pittsburgh, those teams probably don't miss a beat.  Trying to build around those guys as your core, yikes.  

This is kind of my view.  Buffalo hasn’t done bad at finding NHL players.  It’s not that they’ve drafted a bunch of guys who flamed out.  It’s that they have done a bad job of drafting/acquiring impact players.  Not enough guys who have developed into high end players.

Edited January 11, 2020 by Curt