Buffalo could add another outstanding young player in the first round. They could also trade the pick to better attack their desperate need to make the playoffs next year.
The truth is what always hurts the most. The truth is what it is and that’s unassailable. It can be loudly denied, or it can be quietly ignored. For the Buffalo Sabres, the truth is inescapable even for those unaware of it.
The 2025 NHL Draft offers up the opportunity for the Sabres to create their own new truth. The draft provides an annual ray of hope for the most downtrodden franchises and it’s hard to argue the Sabres are the most down in the dirt organization in hockey. Missing the playoffs for 14 straight seasons doesn’t happen without mistakes galore, but opportunity is there to change all that again.
The Sabres own the ninth pick of the 2025 draft and despite it being a top 10 pick, the player they could select there likely won’t be able to help them alter their chances of ending the playoff drought right away. They’ve stockpiled picks under GM Kevyn Adams and restocked the prospect pipeline admirably. The Sabres have drafted well, and the results have been reflected in the success they’ve had at the AHL level in Rochester. But success hasn’t reached the NHL yet and that’s the problem.
The 2025 class features players who were born in 2006 or 2007, the last two years in which the Sabres made the Eastern Conference Final. These NHL hopefuls were four or five years old when Buffalo last graced the Stanley Cup Playoffs. For those of us who aren’t in our formative teen years, remembering what happened at those ages can be the kind of mental test that requires a nap or some time alone to ponder the passing of time. For guys 17-or-18 years old, it’s not all that long ago.
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Playoff relevance is important for teams in free agency, but what about the draft? The motivation to be a player who can change the future and do something big is ever present.
“I want to win the Stanley Cup one day, so just trying to bring impact to whatever team drafts me, and if the Sabres drafted me, try to get them to the playoffs and get them a Cup one day,” Brantford Bulldogs center Jake O’Brien said. “Whatever it takes for the organization.”
Talking to the media can be like a job interview for players. No one wants to say the wrong thing and in hockey circles, no one wants to look too bold or brash. It’s the way it is and you respect it. That said, some guys just like to have fun talking about anything.
“I talked to Buffalo, and they seem pretty interested, but we’ll see how the draft goes,” Soo Greyhounds forward Brady Martin said.
Martin, a 6’ center who cited Tom Wilson and Brady Tkachuk as inspirations for his game is as close to finding a character out of Letterkenny as you’d find in the draft. Before stepping up for his meet with the press, his roommate for the week, Jack Nesbitt, called him “Brady the beaut.” He’s a farmer and a character and plays the kind of hard-nosed hockey we’re seeing by the bucketload from the Florida Panthers. Asking him about what he’s seen of the Sabres, if anything, was worth asking.
“I haven’t watched a lot, I watched more when Eichel was there, but I haven’t been watching a lot of Sabres hockey, they’ve kind of been rebuilding the last couple of years,” Martin said.
Some laughs and snickering arose from the assembled media. Martin just wanted to be nice, of course, but informing him of how old he was when the Sabres last made the postseason, his eyes widened in amazement. Disbelief, maybe, but 14 years is a long time, particularly to an 18-year-old.
O’Brien or Martin could be guys the Sabres draft to be part of the future, one they hope where the playoffs is a regular occurrence and not a once in two hockey generations sighting, Halley’s Comet but it’s a puck. There are others who should be high on their list from this draft if they’re interested in making the pick.
O’Brien would be excellent. He’s a goal scorer and playmaker and, most importantly, a center who accomplishes both extremely well in the Ontario Hockey League. Adams said at the end of the season he likes where they are up the middle with Jiri Kulich, Josh Norris, Ryan McLeod and Peyton Krebs. There’s Noah Östlund and Konsta Helenius in Rochester as well. On the one hand, you see exactly what Adams is saying. On the other, you see the potential for things to get fuzzy quickly with injuries and development stress. Of course, O’Brien falling to nine would be a surprise of its own.
Martin would provide an element that’s been thoroughly absent from the Sabres for 20 years. After watching Tage Thompson get brained by Stefan Noesen with no response from teammates this season, the need to have a physical element to the lineup was apparent yet again. The Sabres need a real bastard in the lineup and Martin has the right mentality, temperament and personality to be just that. Considering some of the teams that spent more time with him (Montréal, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh) history sometimes shows its hand.
Martin isn’t the only potential NHL hard ass in the class. Porter Martone from the Brampton Steelheads is another although the chances he slips to nine are also low. He’s a power forward winger who takes his play inspiration from Brady Tkachuk as well. He mentioned learning when and when not to engage in the nonsense that erupts around him.
“I think a big thing I learned this year is when to do it,” Martone said. “It’s kind of on my time. I don’t let other people take me off of my game and me doing that every single time. You see Tkachuk in the playoffs and it’s his time. He chooses what he does when he creates that stuff because I feel like for myself, I’m a very offensive player and I want to create plays so I can’t spend all my time in the penalty box.”
There’s Moncton Wildcats center Caleb Desnoyers who would make for a savvy pick. Desnoyers would be a dream player for Lindy Ruff considering his dedication to playing great two-way hockey. Players doing that in the QMJHL, a notoriously all-gas-no-brakes offensive league, and doing it exceedingly well are unicorns. Desnoyers has a dogged style of play and cited Jonathan Toews as a guy he looks up to for his kind of play. He’s a rabid competitor and that he helped Moncton win the QMJHL title and a spot in the Memorial Cup speaks to that.
There are also defensemen that could help the Sabres down the road. Blue liners aren’t “fun” picks, we know, and they’re not the kinds of picks that get fans juiced up, especially when Rasmus Dahlin and Owen Power are already locked in for years to come.
The Sabres won’t have the chance to draft Matthew Schaefer unless something completely bonkers happens trade-wise, but they might have the chance to take either Radim Mrtka or Kashawn Aitcheson at nine.
Mrtka is a 6’6” righthanded shot defenseman and if your eyes are already glimmering with the hope of making him a partner for Dahlin or Power, take a number. Mrtka’s size is impressive, especially for someone at 18 years old, and he views Victor Hedman and Moritz Seider as someone he wants to model his game after. Wouldn’t you in his shoes?
Sabres are in need of righthanded defense help for the future. The glut of lefty shots is manageable when you have a Dahlin who thrives on either side of the blue line, but for guys like Power, Mattias Samuelsson and RFA Bo Byram, they’re all clearly better on their strong sides. Mrtka addresses that issue well, although his desire to possess and move the puck as a strength of his game (which it very much is) is necessary among modern defense… but if he’s in Buffalo, his physical game will need to match up and it’s something he’s working on with the Seattle Thunderbirds of the Western Hockey League.
“It’s getting better all the time,” Mrtka said. “When I was young, I was always big so when I hit somebody, I make it to the penalty box. So I kind of play without body to play up on the ice. So now when everyone is getting bigger and stronger I can be more physical.”
Mrtka having to go through the same thing Power did growing up makes sense because, yeah, young guys getting hit by guys their age that are bigger will lead to penalties. At nearly 6’6” and over 200 pounds, it would be stunning not to see him not use his body more, but it can happen. It can also take time.
Sometimes there are extenuating circumstances in which handedness can be foregone for a defenseman. Barrie Colts defenseman Kashawn Aitcheson with his aggressive and hard-hitting natural way of playing defense as well as a mean streak on the ice does just that. He has a lefthanded shot, yes, but one of the biggest compliments of combine day was handed out by likely top two pick Michael Misa when he said Aitcheson hit him the hardest this season.
A crushing physical defenseman in junior hockey tends to be a busy one.
“Picking my spots better, I think,” Aitcheson said when asked about what he wants to work on the most. “I want to make an impact every shift, but sometimes that can kind of hurt me.”
There’s no doubt the Sabres need more physical play on the team overall. If the plan is to run with so many skilled guys up front, they need support from guys that won’t allow them to get leveled all over the ice. Aitcheson would be someone to do that and play at a high level defensively. We’re not talking about adding tough guys to the coffers, just guys who will help set or change the tone.
Jackson Smith is a name to watch for a few reasons. One, he’s a big defenseman (6’3” and nearly 200 pounds) and he had a great season with Tri-City in the WHL with 54 points in 68 games. He’s one of a handful of players in the draft who played Canadian junior hockey this season but are headed to the NCAA next.
Smith is headed off to Penn State in the fall and that kind of connection with this team and ownership cannot be ignored. Smith said he met with the Sabres and Penn State was discussed quite a bit. If this surprises you, give your head a shake. He’s a lefty shot defenseman that’s quick with the puck and has good speed, something the Sabres have in surplus. Still, the Penn State connection stands out and is something to keep in the back of the mind.
These are just a handful of the players that caught my eye most in a situation where you’re not seeing them play games or doing physical things other than very organized testing. There are other players who will be of interest as well.
Swedish forward Victor Eklund is supremely skilled, and his brother William is breaking out with the San Jose Sharks at last. Eklund, however, matches the build for so many of their other young forwards. He’s not physically imposing but he cited Travis Konecny as a guy he looks to for inspiration to his own game. He’ll chirp, he’ll be a pain in the ass, and he’ll do a lot of dogged work along the boards and in scrums. He’s feisty and that’s a good thing. That’s also how you’d describe Zach Benson.
Eklund’s teammate at Djurgården, Anton Frondell, isn’t likely to be available when the Sabres pick but if he somehow is, he’d be worth knocking someone over to get to the podium to make the pick…if they were still doing the NHL Draft that way this year. He’s a big, skilled forward and compares his game to that of Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov. He also tossed in Anze Kopitar and said he shoots it like Leon Draisaitl, too. Yes, that’s a lot of self-confidence, but his all-around ability and the confidence he carries himself with screams that he should be taken early. If he slipped out of the top five it would be shocking.
We’re getting ahead of ourselves here though because it’s just as possible the Sabres trade the No. 9 pick as they do make it. Past sins of not doing enough or not making the right moves to meet the moment came due last season and if nothing is done about it again this summer, I think we all know the way this story will continue. It won’t end, just the cast members will change, and the results will vary. You know how that goes.
The Sabres quartet of restricted free agents (J-J Peterka, Jack Quinn, Ryan McLeod, Bo Byram) provide opportunities to swing deals for help elsewhere. The need for a veteran right-handed partner for Power again sits at the top of the list, but veteran forward depth help would be wise. Signing Jason Zucker a year ago was a good move, they just needed more like them.
They’ve also got prospects in the AHL that they need to decide if they’re in or they’re out. If a future for them in the organization at the NHL level is in doubt, then hard decisions have to be made, and maybe should’ve been made a year ago, because we’re approaching the Ted Nolan Line where the prospects become suspects as to whether or not they’re NHL guys. They’re good players, yes, but will they make an impact in Buffalo?
It’s one thing to claim there is a lot of depth in the organization but if there are questions about their viability at the NHL level, that’s a problem. If anything, that’s an argument for keeping the ninth pick and ensuring there is more high-end talent on the way up. And there are more talented players below the AHL level.
Their 2024 fourth-round pick Luke Osburn was named the USHL defenseman of the year. Fellow 2024 picks defenseman Adam Kleber (Minnesota Duluth) and forward Brodie Ziemer (Minnesota) had strong freshman seasons. Defenseman Max Strbak, one of their two second-round picks in 2023, had 19 points (up 10 from his freshman season) for Michigan State. Goalie Scott Ratzlaff, a fifth-round pick in ’23, had his best season since his draft year with WHL Seattle and will be in Rochester next season dueling with 2022 second rounder Topias Leinonen for starts there.
Having many guys on the way up is what’s good about having a properly functional draft and scouting system. There are players and while you can’t sign all of them. Considering they didn’t sign Viljami Marjala (2021 fifth; signed with Edmonton on Saturday) or Ethan Miedema (2023 fourth), sometimes lines are drawn, or deadlines are missed, or other kinds of slipups or decisions are made.
However, if Adams and management feel good about the array of picks they have this year and what they have within the system, trading the ninth pick for immediate NHL help, even if included with a player, makes all the sense in the world to do if the plan is to make the playoffs in 2026. They could even swap firsts with whoever they’d be trading with are in position to do so, but negotiations are tricky and pick value is what it is in the eye of the beholder.
If there’s fear about the pipeline getting low if they did trade the ninth pick, that would open up a lot of discussion on more than a few past trades. Same would apply to drafting for a need given where the organization is right now. It’s messy if it’s allowed to be so, but like we’ve said over the past few years, it doesn’t have to be that way. The draft will signal how this offseason will play out for the Sabres and it all doesn’t hinge on whether they make that pick or not, but a tepid approach would ratchet up anxiety for any of the fans still paying this close attention to what’s going on.