It’s nice to not need draft picks to come through immediately
When it was time for the NHL Draft, it wasn’t all that long ago when it was the Buffalo Sabres’ time to shine (or otherwise). After all, the future and the hope it offers is the never-ending high to chase when things aren’t going well.
“It can’t get any worse.”
After a while you learn not to say that. Let’s be honest, those words should be banned from being said in reference to sports in Buffalo (and Detroit, Atlanta, Houston, Philadelphia, etc.) and the converse works as well when things are looking promising. Plenty of times in recent history there have been teams that appeared to be on the rise only to see something (or things) go sideways and park the dreams of a title on the side of the road.
Optimism in the Sabres hasn’t been this high in a very long time. The future looks very bright with the emergences of Rasmus Dahlin as a Norris-level defenseman, Tage Thompson as a Richard Trophy kind of scorer, Dylan Cozens as a tenacious centerman who can score, and Owen Power following in the footsteps of Dahlin. Two rocks on defense, two dazzlers up front with a host of others either performing above expectations (Jeff Skinner) or young players on the rise (Jack Quinn, JJ Peterka). There are the prospects in line behind those players like Jiri Kulich and Isak Rosén with Ryan Johnson on defense with high hopes.
It’s a great set up but it doesn’t guarantee future success. It also doesn’t mean being able to goof around at the draft thinking you’re all set so if you miss a pick, it doesn’t kill you. Au contraire. Everything can be good now, but if the pipeline dries up at any point a team is staring trouble in the eye. Adams and his scouts know they cannot allow that to happen which makes every draft a vital one.
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Looking at the Sabres prospect depth chart, one position has gotten thin quickly — defense. That’s weird to say with Dahlin, Power, and Mattias Samuelsson all young and thriving in the NHL, but beyond them there’s Ryan Johnson, Nikita Novikov, Vsevolod Komarov, Mats Lindgren, 2020 seventh-round pick Albert Lyckåsen and that’s it. Johnson and Novikov will be in Rochester next season and Komarov and Lindgren will be back in juniors, while Lyckåsen is in Sweden and who knows if he’ll even be signed. Not all draft picks land contracts and the Sabres have his rights until Summer 2024.
The 2023 draft does not stick out as the draft to help restock the blue line corps for the future, but this is where the Sabres picking 13th overall makes that pick fascinating and that positioning in each round to follow means they could bide their time. There are top defenders in the class, just not a lot of them.
Dmitriy Simashev — Defense — Yaroslavl Jr. (MHL)
David Reinbacher and Axel Sandin Pellikka are the two best and both from Europe. North American defensemen Lukas Dragicevic, Etienne Morin, and Oliver Bonk (yes, Radek’s son, mullet tribute and all) are the tops on this side. But there’s another that should be very well on Buffalo’s radar: Russia’s Dmitriy Simashev.
I spoke with some in the scouting world who told me without prompting that Simashev is a guy Buffalo should absolutely grab and gear up to pair him with Owen Power or even Rasmus Dahlin in the future. Sabres prospects master Kris Baker has been beating the drum on Simashev as well. That’s a lot of respected smoke for me not to ignore.
Watching video of him is interesting. He appears to play with the kind of pace the Sabres play with now and he appears to have the kind of ability that would do very well if he made it to the NHL and the current Sabres system.
Simashev is ranked 19th among European skaters by NHL Central Scouting which, generally, means he could be had later on in the draft, but with so few defensemen of note, a player like that is going to get noticed in a big way.
The Sabres are going to draft defense this year, no doubt about that, the pipeline is too thin. What’s worth watching is how the draft plays out leading up to Buffalo’s time to pick at 13. The draft actually starts at No. 4 because Connor Bedard is going first to Chicago, Adam Fantilli second to Anaheim, and Leo Carlsson third to Columbus. Does Russian Matvei Michkov go fourth or does he slip well down the board because of his status in Russia? If he makes it to Washington at eighth overall and they don’t snag him, in my mind, he slips really far. After all, if you can’t get Alex Ovechkin to help make that happen then who else has a better shot to make it happen?
Beyond Michkov however is how the supply of very good forwards slots out. and what the Sabres’ interest levels are in them.
Quentin Musty — LW — Sudbury (OHL)
There’ll be a strong pull for them to draft local guy Quentin Musty. He’s a big forward and in his second season with Sudbury he’s grown up a lot as a player. I remember watching him in Amherst at the USA Hockey scouting camp last summer and remarked at how little interest he had in playing anything resembling defense against his fellow Americans. Watching some of his video out of the OHL showed a much different player and he credited Wolves coach Derek MacKenzie for helping him in that area.
Musty measured out at nearly 6’2” and 200 pounds. He’s a power forward with fantastic offensive ability. We all love doing modern comparisons for prospects and it’s hard to not notice Musty’s production in his draft season was awfully close to what Alex Tuch did in his. Coincidental for sure but fun ones like this help create talking points and we really do love those.
It’ll be fascinating to see where Musty goes because it feels like his stock is on the rise, but that could be the Buffalo air playing games with perception. Musty was ranked 14th among North American skaters by Central Scouting which would put him in the Sabres’ neighborhood in the draft. The Sabres don’t necessarily need another highly-skilled scoring winger, but one with his size and ability who’s from the Buffalo area doesn’t happen much either.
Matthew Wood — RW — Connecticut (Hockey East)
UConn forward Matthew Wood mentioned Tage Thompson as an inspiration for him and his game. He’s not 6’7” and he said he doesn’t anticipate growing taller than his current 6’3.5” stature, but he likes to play a similar style handling the puck and using that creativity to create shooting opportunities. Oddly enough, Wood’s freshman year scoring numbers compared eerily similar to Thompson’s when he was in Storrs.
Let’s be clear here: Wood is not Thompson at this point in his hockey career, but Thompson wasn’t Thompson yet at the same age. Time, growth, proper coaching, and proper systems go a long way to helping a player reach their potential (as we all know) and Wood will at least get added time to develop.
Wood is ranked fourth by Central Scouting, but he could go anywhere from four through 20 (nice). It’s wild to have such a wide disparity in possibilities among so many talented forwards, but it speaks to the diversity of their skill sets as well as the difference of opinions among scouts and general managers.
A handful of other names to keep an eye on for the first round from Buffalo’s perspective are:
Zach Benson – LW – Winnipeg (WHL)
Benson is a teammate of Matthew Savoie’s in the WHL and while the Ice are moving to Wenatchee and becoming the Wild next season, unless Savoie makes the NHL they’ll be teammates again. Benson has a lot of skill, but he also shares a trait the Sabres have in abundance among their prospects: He’s not big.
Benson checked in at 5’9”, 163 pounds at the scouting combine and at that size he’s on par with the likes of Savoie, Isak Rosén, and Alexander Kisakov. It’s likely the Sabres would want to diversify their prospect pool at forward, but they’ve also shown that skill wins out above all else. When they say they’re taking the best player available it’s not lip service and Benson put up fantastic numbers in the WHL with 36 goals and 98 points in 60 games. He was asked at the combine if a guy like Brendan Gallagher was a player he models his game after and if that’s the proper comparable, that’s a great thing. That’ll play all day everywhere and it could mean that Benson is off the board before Buffalo even gets to pick.
It feels like if the Sabres go for a forward in the first round it’ll be a bigger guy because of the diversification. Fortunately, there are a few other bigger forwards with first-round talent they could take a shot at that fall in line just below Musty and Wood.
Colby Barlow – LW – Owen Sound (OHL)
At 6’, 190, Barlow has that kind of tank-like size. The funny thing is, he is a shooter. He scored 46 this season for Owen Sound and he’s got the speed and shiftiness to work himself into a shooting position at that level. Everyone loves a goal scorer and he can fill it up. Larger forwards that can fire it almost always works at the NHL level and even if he’s not a “giant” he plays big with the skills. His shooting is a bit similar to what Kulich can do, which is great, but this feels like a classic, “We’ve already got one of those at home” kind of setups for Buffalo.
Calum Ritchie – C – Oshawa (OHL)
Sometimes I think back on old nicknames from other sports and sometimes they fit how players now play in hockey. When I watch Callum Ritchie highlights the thing that comes to mind is something I always thought in respect to James van Riemsdyk as well: “Big Smooth.” It was Sam Perkins’ nickname back in the day when he was with the Los Angeles Lakers, and honestly, if I can shout out a Latham, NY legend completely out of nowhere, I’m going to. But it fits with what I watch of Ritchie.
Ritchie is big and lanky at 6’2”, 185 pounds and he handles the puck using the long reach to kind of lull defenders to sleep. The second defenders bite he’s tucked it around them and he’s generating a scoring chance with a shot or a pass. Size will always play, but when you can play with size on top of that, it’s great.
Understandably from Buffalo’s perspective, drafting a center might seem foolish, but centers are like defensemen in that you can never have enough of them. Plus, a center at this level already (likely) comes with defensive competence because they wouldn’t be playing center if they weren’t responsible.
Danny Nelson – C – US-Under 18 (NTDP)
Who doesn’t love a big forward? Nelson is a 6’3”, 202-pound center with the US National Development Team Program which almost automatically puts him on the Sabres radar. He’s ranked 22nd among North American skaters by NHL Central Scouting which likely puts him in range of the second or third round. If the Sabres go defense with their first-round pick, it will conceivably put Nelson in range for them for one of their two second-round picks.
Nelson seems to play a stereotypical big man’s kind of game. He plays effectively along the walls, but a lot of points came from making a solid pass or just hanging around the net. He’s headed to Notre Dame next season so a guy his size will play well for Jeff Jackson’s Fighting Irish. He had 40 points in 50 games with the Program as well as 52 penalty minutes. Scoring and roughhousing go hand-in-hand in the NHL, especially when you know teams will be looking for either their version of Matthew Tkachuk or an irritator out of the same mold. Let’s be clear here, however: No one can be like Matthew Tkachuk.
These are just a few players that stuck out to me or were brought to my attention by those more in the know about prospects. Any of my observations of them I wrote above were made with help from YouTube videos and their creators. Also, I’m not a scout, I just watch a lot of hockey. I can’t tell you who’s a good skater, but I know who a good skater isn’t. I can’t break down the science as to why I believe it, I’m a total eye-test guy over here with full admission that I should watch them more.
We’ll hear from Kevyn Adams this week and again probably a couple times in Nashville as well. Yes, we’re trucking down there next week driving to Music City and for me it’s my first time back in 11 or 12 years and first time back at the NHL Draft since 2019 in Vancouver when the Sabres drafted, among others, Dylan Cozens. Vegas drafted Peyton Krebs that year, too. Fate and happenstance and all that being funny. It was Jason Botterill’s final draft with Buffalo and…it’s starting to look decent now that Ryan Johnson signed.