Checking in on the Sabres prospect pool with Kris Baker of sabresprospects.com, Part II

Published by hockeybuzz.com, 11-5-2019


This is the second of a two part series looking at the Sabres prospect pool with Kris Baker of sabresprospects.com. Part I can be found by clicking here. 



As laid out in the previous blog, what Buffalo Sabres general manager Jason Botterill has been able to do on the blueline for his team the last three years has been pretty impressive and that's without landing a franchise-type defenseman in Rasmus Dahlin with the first overall pick in the 2018 NHL Draft. Botterill fortified and modernized his D-corps through some savvy trades while he and his scouting staff focused on the blueline at the draft using eight of their 18 picks on defensemen.

That's the good part of the prospect pool. The not so good part comes into play when we take a look at the forwards and goalie situation.

There's a two-fold reason for the not so good part when it comes to the forwards in the system. Botterill inherited a pool bereft of forward talent because a.) they were still recovering from the scorched-earth rebuild of his predecessor and b.) the Sabres top prospects were picked high in the draft and quickly made their way into the NHL lineup. Second-overall picks Sam Reinhart and Jack Eichel were playing for the Sabres as teenagers, while 2017 eighth-overall pick, Casey Mittelstadt also started out his rookie season as a teenager. Which is fine as those top picks are expected to be on a fast-track to the NHL.

Checking in on the prospect pool with Kris Baker of sabresprospects.com, Part I

Published by hockeybuzz.com, 11-4-2019

This is the first of a two-part series looking at the Sabres prospect pool as of today with Kris Baker of sabresprospects.com.

After chatting about the Sabres prospect pool with Kris Baker of sabresprospects.com, one is left with the sense that the organization has come a long way in the last three years but that there is also still plenty of work to do.

Right now there's a symmetrical dividing line between the Tim Murray regime and that of present general manager Jason Botterill as each was in charge of three NHL Drafts. The difference between Murray's picks from 4-6 years ago and Botterill's from the last three years can't be fully compared as not enough time has elapsed for the players selected to reach their ultimate hockey potential, but what we do know is that Botterill took over as general manager with a thin prospect pool and that he pretty much had to rebuild a rebuild.

"It took some time to reset some things when Botterill came in," said Baker via a phone interview yesterday. "The previous regime didn't really draft and develop all that well. Murray's group had a couple of guys out of [those drafts] but you're not really gonna screw up when you're picking at the top of the draft with players like [Sam] Reinhart and [Jack] Eichel. They go through the prospect ranks fairly quickly. When that happens you don't have a lot of depth behind them."

On the 2nd annual Prospects Challenge, Cody Franson and Jack Eichel

With Labor Day weekend close at hand bid adieu to a rather uneventful summer of 2016 and gear up for the beginning of hockey season. The National Hockey League is staging their World Cup of Hockey slated for September 17th to October 1st as two divisions comprised of four teams each will battle it out for "world" supremacy in the game of hockey.

While the biggest and brightest stars will be on display at the WCOH, including a North American team featuring Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel and Auston Matthews anchoring a 23-and-under squad, various prospect tournaments will be taking place to highlight younger talent not quite at the WCOH-level. Among them is the Traverse City Tournament celebrating its 17th year, a tournament in Coral Springs, Florida and the 2nd annual Buffalo Sabres Prospect Challenge.

The Sabres attended Traverse City from 2011, the off season after Terry Pegula bought the team until 2014. They won the tournament in 2011 and after the NHL lockout scrapped the 2012 tourney, the Sabres found themselves back in the finals dropping the championship game to the host Detroit Red Wings. The 2014 tournament was a disaster for the Sabres featuring this quote from former Buffalo d-man Nikita Zadorov, "Maybe it wasn't our tournament." after the team finished 0-3-1, were outscored a combined 17-6 and scored more than one goal only one time.

Sabres host Cats. Of the 2016 draft, Sabres' prospects, and ESPN

Reprinted with permission from hockeybuzz.com


The Buffalo Sabres return to the ice tonight against the division-leading Florida Panthers tonight for their the fourth and final meeting between the two clubs. The Cats lead the season series 2-1 and smoked the Sabres 5-1 early in January. It was one of the few outright clunkers that Buffalo has played this year.

From Sabres PR we come to find out that the Sabres have not had a lot of success against Florida as of late as they're a paltry 2-8-0 in their last 10 overall, 3-6-1 at the First Niagara Center.

The Panthers could be ripe for picking tonight as they've cooled down considerably. They're 5-4-1 in in their last 10 games but have dropped two in a row since a five-game winning streak which included wins over Chicago (4-0,) Tampa Bay (5-2,) Toronto (5-1,) Washington (5-2) and Detroit (6-3.) That 23-goal outburst represents about 17% of their output in less than 10 % of their games. Surrounding that five-game streak, however is a 0-4-1 record where they were shut out twice and scored a total of five goals.

Buffalo Sabres 2015 Draft Preview--Of Timo Meier and Denis Guryanov

Reprinted with permission from hockeybuzz.com


"I think there's a consensus of what players will be available No. 3 through No. 10, but in what order is the big question. From that No. 11 pick on, that's where we'll do our homework and make our money."
--Greg Royce, Buffalo Sabres director of amateur scouting



Greg Royce has 18 seasons under his belt as a scout for NHL clubs having spent six seasons in Ottawa as an amateur scout under Tim Murray. After Murray got settled in as the new Sabres GM one of his first front office moves was to bring Royce in to head his amateur scouting department. "Greg has a good eye for young talent and I have full confidence in his ability to identify amateur talent," Murray told NHL.com's Mike Morreale last week. "He had tremendous success working in the trenches as a scout when we were together with the Ottawa Senators and I know that success will now translate to the Sabres."

The tandem will sit down in Sunrise, FL this Friday with four of the first 51 picks (Nos. 2, 21, 31, 51) in the draft barring any trades beforehand. Murray had sat down last week in a pre-draft press gathering saying pick-21 was in play. His desired return is high and probably unattainable but he's in a situation where all of his options are favorable. "[If] a team calls and they offer us a 23- or 24-year-old top-six forward or top-three defenseman or No. 1 goalie, and they'd be willing to take [the 21st pick] for that," he said at the pre-draft presser. "[it] would be optimal for us, [yet]the chance of either scenario happening, right now for me, is slim-to-none."

If there is a trade to be consummated involving the 21st-overall pick, chances are it will be something Murray does to move up in the draft.

Buffalo Sabres 2015 Draft Preview--A move into the top-10?

Reprinted with permission from hockeybuzz.com


Dependent upon a team's needs, there's quite the array of players to choose from in the next tier of prospects after Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel are taken with the first two picks in the 2015 NHL Draft. "When we sat down, we started our list at No. 3," said Dan Marr director of NHL Central Scouting on WGR's Howard Simon Show earlier this month. "And from 3-10," he continued, "you're getting some pretty special players."

The general consensus is that atop Marr's group of "pretty special players" are (in no particular order) Noah Hanifin, Dylan Strome and Mitch Marner who are almost certain to be taken with the 3rd through 5th-overall picks. Although Marr places them with the rest of his group those three constitute a valuable sub-tier of highly-skilled, very talented players who could conceivably hit the NHL as teenagers. They're building blocks that neither Arizona, Toronto or Carolina will part with easily.

After the projected top-5 in the draft, the next five invariably include powerful winger Lawson Crouse, big, two-way winger Mikko Rantanen, centers Pavel Zacha and Matthew Barzal and defenseman Ivan Provorov. And if you wanted to stretch Marr's group to 11, there's Michigan Wolverine defenseman Zach Werenski who's been weaving in and out of the top-10.

Some, like Kris Baker of sabresprospects.com/sabres.com and Phil Myre, of International Scouting Services, have even stretched this group down to the 13th/14th slot. But if you're a team looking to trade up to fill a need, and this may be the year to do so, it's probably in your best interest to get into the top-10.

News and notes

Terry Pegula bought the Buffalo Sabres from Tom Golisano for roughly $180m back in February, 2011.

Every year Forbes magazine comes out with it's NHL franchise valuations.

Last year the Buffalo Sabres franchise was #22 on Forbes list with an estimated value of  $175m or basically what the new owner had paid for them. Interesting to note that the Toronto Maple Leaves became the first NHL franchise to be valued at $1B that year. (for more info and a link to the 2012 Forbes piece, click here.)

Well, the boys and girls at Forbes are at it again and this year the Sabres came in...22nd once again.

But...

This time the estimated value of the Buffalo Sabres has grown to $250m, or a 43% year-over-year increase in valuation. (for a breakdown click here.)

Said the magazine about the Sabres, "The Sabres failure to make the playoffs for the second consecutive season did not stop owner Terrence Pegula—who bought the team in early 2011—from jacking up ticket prices. Following the 2011-12 season, the Sabres increased non-premium seat prices by 26% and instituted a 4% price hike before the 2013-14 season. To be fair, the Sabres are still in the bottom half of the NHL in average ticket price. Pegula is also financing a multimillion dollar renovation to all 80 suites at First Niagara Center."

Good for Pegula. 

The old adage is "you need to spend money to make money," and there's no question he's spent some money.

Let's hope that he takes heart to another old adage, "it's not what you spend, but how you spend it." (See Leino contract.)


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Mikail Grigorenko approaches Nolan and LaFontaine

Director of Hockey Ops Pat LaFontaine and his interim head coach Ted Nolan have been in charge for five games and the team's record is 1-4. After winning the first one against Toronto, they're back to their losing ways having scored a grand total of five goals during their four-game losing streak.

As shown above, the financial side of the organization is doing well as they've just added 43% to the team's valuation but getting the on-ice product up to snuff is a monumental task for LaFontaine having just been handed a shit sandwich.

Nolan is in charge of evaluating the players and soon the chaff will be separated from the wheat.

This process just went full gear as the team sent three youngin's to their respective leagues:  Nikita Zadorov went to his junior team while Rasmus Ristoalinen and Johan Larsson were sent to Rochester.

A fourth, Mikhail Grigorenko, was slated for a "conditioning assignment" to Rochester but the NHL rejected it.

Grigorenko is too good for junior and has had trouble adjusting to the NHL game. Unfortunately because of an agreement between the NHL and Canadian Juniors, at 19 years of age, Grigorenko is not allowed to be on an AHL team.

So he was stuck.

Grigorenko had fallen out of favor with the previous regime and had seen spotty ice-time hovering around the 10 mins/game mark. He had a two goal game in Anaheim, then played 9:33 in the Sabres SO win in Los Angeles.

When the new regime took over, he was parked on the bench, then designated for the "conditioning assignment" then found himself on the bench once again when the NHL nixed that.

Finally he'd had enough and approached LaFontaine and Nolan saying, "You never saw me play."

And he was right.

He was rewarded with a regular shift with two young players, Zemgus Girgensons and Luke Adam.

Although they haven't hit the scoresheet, Nolan likes what he's seen of Grigorenko during those two games, "So I like what I saw," said the interim coach, "and we’ll continue to evaluate.”

"Since we put him with Girgensons and Adam, they seem to be age group where they feel comfortable with one another. So I like what I saw, and we’ll continue to evaluate.”

“He’s competing. He’s trying,” Nolan said. “As long as you compete and you try, you got to like it.”

From this layman's eyes, "Grigo" seems to be improving and his confidence is growing. Although his skating needs a lot of work, one cannot deny his skill-level.


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Sabres prospects are doing quite well thus far

WGR is sporadic in it's coverage of the youngins, but Howard Simon came up with a pretty good article about a pretty good draft class--2013--that's off to a rukus start this season.

Rightfully so, Simon credits Kris Baker and sabresprospects.com when the GR jock goes "Inside the numbers" for a look into the 2013 draft class.

He points to JT Compher, a freshman at Michigan, as having a real good start to his college career:  2g, 6a in 10 games including a shorty.

Compher's compete-level is way up there and he has the skills to go along with it. He was taken 35th overall with the pick that Carolina gave up in the Andrej Sekera trade.

But there are two picks who are of to flying starts.

One of them, seventh rounder Eric Locke has eight goals and 22 points in 15 games. Locke was mentioned by Baker as someone to watch.

The other is Nicholas Baptise, picked 69th overall.

Baptiste is on a tear with 17 goals and 13 assists in 23 games.

Baker, who does a weekly prospect report for sabres.com, just did a piece on Baptiste and his drive to make Canada's World Junior team, and put together a video of all Baptiste's shifts during a tilt with Russia in the Subway Super Series.

Both Locke and Baptiste lead all the Sabres prospects in points/game (for a full list of stats, visit Baker's prospect stat page.)


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And finally...

The Sabres wore their third jersey's for the first time this season and they didn't look bad.

Brian Stubits of cbssportsline, uses "Turd" jersey to open his piece on the debut of the Sabres rather confusing jersey.

There's way too much going on with different colors on the front and back as well as an introduction of gray to the color scheme.

But one thing I did come away with was the Buffalo in the crest. With it being white, it glowed.

A little light in the midst of a pretty dark season thus far.

Six more picks for the Sabres in Rounds 3-7, and a quick overview

The Buffalo Sabres entered the 2013 with 10 draft picks. They left with 11 prospects.

In the first two rounds, they chose five players--two defensmen in the first round and three forwards in the second round. They followed that with a third-rounder, three fifth rounders a sixth and a seventh.

The rest of the picks:

• 69th --Nicholas Baptiste, RW, 6'1" 201 lbs.
• 129th-Cal Peterson, G, 6'1" 175 lbs.
• 130th-Gustav Possler RW, 6' 0" 183 lbs.
• 143th-Anthony Florentino, RD 6'1" 227 lbs.
• 159th-Sean Malone, C 5'11" 183 lbs.
• 189th-Eric Locke, C 5'10, 183 lbs.

Kris Baker of sabresprospects.com recaps the draft succintly and for more info on the picks, click here.

Bakes was also on WGR's Howard Simon Show recapping the draft. Most of the segment was dedicated to the upper picks but he did have the chance to touch upon some of lower picks.

Defenseman Anthony Florentino topped his list of most intriguing late round prospects.

Of Florentino, Baker said, "Very underated in this draft class. Can do a little bit of everything, doesn't have too many flaws to his game, a nice kid off the ice but a mean kid on it. "

"I gotta tell ya," Baker continued sequeing to his next most intriguing prospect, "this Cal Peterson kid he is old school."

Here's how Bakes described the goalie, "He's scrappy, he's a battler, he'll poke-check. He'll stop the puck, but sometimes he'll come out and want to stop the shooter. He's very aggressive."

Baker points out that Peterson will be going to Notre Dame. He's one of five players drafted this year that will be taking the college route:  second round picks JT Compher (Michigan) and Connor Hurley, (Notre Dame); Florentino (Providence); Malone (Harvard.)

Nearly half of the Sabres draft haul this year will be headed to college and will have much longer to develop, up to four years, before they'll turn pro. Having five from one draft class really projects out well for the organization.

Via Bill Hoppe, Olean Times Herald, 'With so many picks and our contract situation, you don’t want to waste those picks because their contracts all come up at the same time,' amateur scouting director Kevin Devine explained Sunday on the Prudential Center floor after the Sabres finished picking. 'We wouldn’t be able to sign three or four of them. So that was a plan. We looked at the college route and Europeans for the new CBA, which now gives us four years for those guys over there.'

The odds for any player taken outside the top-five making it to the NHL, much less making an impact, aren't all that great. As you move down the draft it becomes slim to none.

But you never know what can happen with a particluar player. They obviously have enough skill to play, and something about them says there's a possibility. Having four years to allow for the player to develop is a nice cushion.

Having five picks like that, while also having six picks going the junior route where the projection is one to three years, really sets the team up nicely down the road.


The Sabres had themselves quite a haul at the 2013 NHL Draft.

In what's said to be the deepest draft in years they picked five players within the first 52 picks.

One (Rasmus Ristolainen) might be able to jump right to the NHL this season. Another (Nikital Zadorov) is only a year or two away.

They went with size and they went with character. And they looked to pick players with two-way game.

With 11 total picks the Sabres had the luxury of picking two hometown boys in Justin Bailey and Malone with the former being a legitimate power forward prospect.

After focusing upon centers last year they grabbed defense in the first round. Wingers were slightly predominant within positional balance:  four wingers, three centers, three defensemen, one goalie.

A post-draft wrap with GM Darcy Regier and Assistant GM/Head Amateur Scout Kevin Devine can be seen here.

Every year, teams are very happy with their draft and this year is no different for the Sabres.

An overall grade here would be a B+. They did some great things, but the only area that they didn't seem to address was top-line scoring, which they wanted in the top-four but couldn't attain.

Other than that, it'll be three or four years before we get a full take on what Devine and his merry band of scouts accomplished at the 2013 draft.

For a list of (very positive) draft grades from various media outlets provided by sabres.com click here.