The news of Jack Quinn’s Achilles’ tendon injury overshadows a solid second day for the Sabres in Nashville
NASHVILLE — One day after the Buffalo Sabres went with the super-skilled smaller forward Zach Benson, their eventful second day saw them take care of some rather obvious business. It also brought about tough news to the current roster.
Balance in all things, you see.
The bad news: Jack Quinn sustained an Achilles’ tendon injury during offseason workouts that required surgery to repair. Quinn will miss 4-6 months which could put him out of action until 2024.
A news lead to the second day of the draft isn’t what anyone had in mind and it’s one that will affect how the Sabres will approach the offseason which kicks off in earnest Saturday with the start of free agency.
“I think a lot about depth up and down your lineup and there’s going to be different times during the season where you have injuries, how do you work your way through that,” Sabres GM Kevyn Adams said. “And this is one that on the longer-term, so do you do something different? I think for us it’s trying to make sure we’re putting a team that’s deep on the ice, and fortunately we are, especially up front.
“I don’t if it changed any things, but for sure, it’s something we’ll be thinking about over the next 48 hours and evaluate.”
The possible effects Quinn’s absence will have center around the possibility of dealing Victor Olofsson, re-signing Tyson Jost, and when it gets closer to training camp, the opportunity it’ll provide rookies Matthew Savoie, Jiri Kulich, and Isak Rosén to not just crack the Sabres roster but become immediate impact players.
“If someone comes in and kicks the door open and just absolutely belongs on our team and is going to help us win hockey games, we’re going to find a way to make room,” Adams said. “So regardless of this situation or not, that’s what we will do. But I also wouldn’t say that we would now sit here and say, ‘We should fast track someone’ or we would change the timeline on any of our prospects based on this. But we’re open to it. And fortunately, we built that pipeline up where we feel that we have some exciting kids coming.”
Developing a deep and talented prospect pool helps cushion the blow when brutal injuries occur. While Quinn’s injury is a harsh blow, it’s not the end of the world, nor a reason to panic. If anything, it highlighted why drafting is vital to the future success of the Sabres and their Day 2 picks showed they intend to keep the wheels on the machine well-greased.
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Enlarge the forward group
Adams was living a case of déjà vu in pursuit of 6’3” 192-pound Malmö center Anton Wahlberg out of Sweden. For the second draft in a row, luck was on the Sabres’ side.
“I can tell you that it felt very, very similar to Jiri Kulich last year,” Adams said. “This was a guy that we had way up on our list. We were desperately trying to move up last night to get him in the first round. We did everything we could do to move up in the second round to get him and we got him where we got him, which is why it felt very similar to Jiri Kulich last year.
“This is a strong, powerful– he’s got talent, skill, he can skate. I mean, this is a guy, and there’s some rawness to him, a little bit of a late bloomer. But the people around him have raved about him. I thought at the tournament at the end of the year, the Worlds, I mean, he just really, really took a huge step. So, for us to get him in that spot, and I’m sure there’s 32 general managers saying that, that man, I can’t believe this guy, I got him in that spot, but this to us feels very similar to the Kulich pick last year in terms of how it played out and where we had him on our list.”
Like it was with Zach Benson in the first round, how everyone ranks the prospects has an impact on where things fall, but when it’s the guy you want, you believe in your heart of hearts that someone else feels the same way and that if you don’t act, you’ll miss out. Nothing motivates like fear. Fortunately for Adams, he’s been able to stare that fear in the face and get the player he wanted badly.
Wahlberg is a big player and one they imagine will play the wing when he gets to North America. He’s got a year left on his contract with Malmö so he’s not coming over right away, which is fine, it’s likely the best thing for him. Still, after some of the cries from fans to land some bigger players up front, the Sabres grabbed one that really excites them.
“He’s a kid that rises in the big moments,” Sabres director of amateur scouting Jerry Forton said. “Not a perfect player yet, some inconsistency. Talented, fast, very skilled around the net. A hard player. You need it all to come together, but it’s a special package, and I think a pretty special, soft spoken (person). Personally, (he) reminds me a little bit of Tyson Kozak. When you hear someone like Michael Peca say, ‘Be careful of the kid. That’s a quiet kid, you don’t want to screw with him.’ And this kid’s got a little bit of that same edge in and that quiet compete. And when the temperature rises, and there’s big moments in the games, he’s always at his best.”
A big forward with an edge is a description that applies to their fourth-round pick, Ethan Miedema out of Kingston in the OHL. Miedema stands 6’4” 207 pounds and of note he was part of the Shane Wright trade in January. That’s more of a footnote than a descriptor though. What he is though is a guy beyond excited to be picked by a team three hours from his Cobourg, Ontario hometown.
“I think any time you can add competitiveness, and as you get later in the draft, you’re talking about kids that they’re finding their game,” Adams said. “They have some strengths, weaknesses, but what are those strengths and is it could it turn into something that you can build around the base of their game, and he’s one of those type of kids.”
Deepen the defense pool
When the Sabres headed into the draft, one position that very specifically needed to be addressed as far as their depth was concerned was defense. They made sure to take care of that position on Day 2 and selected four blue liners.
They chose Sioux Falls (USHL) righthanded defenseman Maxim Strbak (6’1” 198) in the second round, Muskegon (USHL) righthanded defenseman Gavin McCarthy (6’2” 186) in the third round, prep school defenseman Sean Keohane (6’4” 182) in the sixth, and German defender Norwin Panocha (6’1” 178) in the seventh.
Strbak stands out in a big way. Originally from Slovakia, he’s played in the USHL and is headed to Michigan State in the fall where he’ll play for coach Adam Nightingale, brother of Sabres assistant director of amateur scouting Jason Nightingale. The scouting reports were probably really clear given who was recruiting him, and they’ll be able to keep tabs on him even better once he’s in East Lansing.
What Strbak is, however, is a player who’ll either wind up on the Sabres blue line in years to come or an international diplomat.
“When you meet this kid that speaks five languages, has lived all over the world, the father was a pro player, Russia, Finland, Sweden, the maturity level, he’s wise and way mature beyond his years,” Forton said. “I’m just very confident he’s going to become a little more polished. It’s not always going to be about the high compete and the meanness. I think he’ll round out his game over the next two or three years and I have no doubt he’s a second, third-pair NHL defenseman.”
Forton raved about Strbak’s meanness and his heavy, hard shot from the blue line. He also gushed about how he’s a team captain and a leader. That all reads like a guy who could become a fan favorite really fast if/when he joins the Sabres in the future. For the first time in a dog’s age, it looks like I’ll be watching Michigan State hockey.
Buffalo picking McCarthy in the third round might’ve been one of the easiest gimmie picks in the draft. McCarthy grew up in suburbs of Buffalo and was virtually neighbors with Adams. He played in the Junior Sabres program and, of course, was a Sabres fan growing up. A tough knee injury took away a bit from him this season, but he’s a solidly talented player from the area. You couldn’t ask for a better setup and a nicer story.
“He’s about as high character of a person and player on and off the ice that you can get,” Forton said. “I was there in Cornwall when he had the knee injury. He was begging USA Hockey to let him continue to play and practice in the tournament and thank goodness they had to kind of hold him off and it ended up being a pretty serious knee injury. I think if he didn’t lose those six to eight weeks this year, there’s zero chance he would have been available in the third round.
“He’s an athletic kid and I think he’s got a really versatile game. I mean, his nature is to be hard to play against and mean, but I actually think he’s got some sneaky puck-moving abilities.”
When it comes to Keohane and Panocha, I confess to ignorance. From what PuckLuck.com’s Jason Moser and The Hockey News’ Ryan Kennedy said about Keohane on Twitter, it feels like a take-a-chance kind of pick. There are tools and ability that haven’t all come together yet. As a sixth-round pick he’ll have a lot of time to work on it. He’s headed to Harvard down the road and playing for Ted Donato will do him well.
Panocha came very highly recommended by Sabres European scout Frank Musil. Adams said Musil was “pounding the table” to grab him in the seventh round and when one of your scouts goes that hard to take a player, you listen. The last time I recall such a table-pounding from Musil was 2019 when he made the case to then GM Jason Botterill to take Lukas Rousek. Frank’s got a good eye.
Skill and snarl apply to Strbak and McCarthy and a bit to Miedema too. Size is also important to note. Size isn’t everything, but you can’t go entirely average-sized and skilled throughout the organization. I mean, you can, but that can get taken advantage of as well. Still, these were areas that needed to be addressed in some fashion and they were.
Draft a goalie every year
The Sabres also added another goalie to the mix with Scott Ratzlaff from Seattle (WHL). At 6’, 174 pounds, Ratzlaff breaks the mold of modern NHL goaltenders in that he’s not bigger than 6’3” but considering Devon Levi is at the top of the charts for Buffalo now, his stature doesn’t faze them. Instead, it’s the way he plays the position as well as how he thinks it. They also like the possibility he still might grow a little more.
“He’s played over some other very prominent goalies in his birth year in Canada when it’s on the line for Hockey Canada,” Forton said. “I don’t know if Kevyn referenced this, the father’s 6-3, the mother’s 5-10, (Carson) Soucy out in Seattle is his first cousin. A great hockey family. Hockey Canada and Seattle rave about the kid. Seamus (Kotyk) has done some good work with the kid just to get to know him a little bit. We know the character good. And yes, that desire to continue to build on his game and then have the tools. And, like a lot of these kids I’m talking about, erratic at times. When he’s at his high level like the people talk about him at Hockey Canada and Seattle, he’s not beatable. Now, do we see bad games out of him? Yes. But when those start to go away and you see the high side, that’s exciting, and if he grows another inch or two that’s really exciting.”
No one is thinking about the goaltending pipeline right now with Levi having just arrived and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen showing spurts where he’s done great in the NHL, but with 2022 second round pick Topias Leinonen being the next one down on the list beyond Levi, grabbing a goalie was a good idea and Ratzlaff has a lot of qualities that check boxes for interest.
Ratzlaff said he plays a stand-up style in goal and uses his ability to read situations and plays to better stop pucks. This and his current size are what bring about the comparisons to Levi. Being a Team Canada goalie who’s had international success (he led Canada to a gold medal at the 2022 Hlinka Gretzky Cup) helps that as well. He also helped Seattle win the WHL Championship as he split starts with Winnipeg Jets prospect Thomas Milic. He’ll likely be the No. 1 in Seattle next season and watching his growth will be interesting.