The first thought I had when I opened my browser to write this was, “I can’t believe it’s been six years since the start of COVID.” With all sports seasons coming to abrupt ends in March that year, it was the first of two NHL drafts held amid incomplete evaluations due to league closures, while trying to navigate real life in a remote world.

Every year, I plan on writing a post-mortem of the draft of five years ago. I believe you can fully judge a draft class at seven years, but you really get an idea of what went right, what went wrong, and where players are trending by the end of year five post-draft.

The goal is to look back, share my thought processes at the time, and what I learned about my own process, and examine the Sabres players from 5 years ago to see what they’re doing now.

Lesson of the 8th Overall Pick: Sometimes injuries (or illness) derail your plans

Buffalo: Jack Quinn
My Pick: Marco Rossi
Redraft: Lucas Raymond

At the time, I viewed Rossi as the third-best prospect in the draft class behind Lafreniere and Byfield. Rossi was undersized and didn’t have blazing speed, but he was a monster in transition, competed for pucks, and had skill for days. Unfortunately, Rossi had a terrible case of COVID that saw him have heart problems that nixed his D+1 development.

The Sabres went off the consensus board and picked Rossi’s teammate, Jack Quinn, instead. Quinn was a prolific goal scorer who lacked elite speed and transition skill but was a menace in the offensive zone and had a cannon of a shot. His rise from AA player to NHL draft pick over just a few years was the story in scouting circles, with some pointing to a long and fruitful development curve, given that he was still relatively new to elite-level hockey for his age. Unfortunately, a slew of injuries kept hitting Quinn, resetting any momentum he was building towards hitting his ceiling as an NHL player. Unexpected injury road bumps, especially from relatively healthy prospects, are a hurdle you never plan for when making your player development plans.

Lucas Raymond has become exactly the type of player that should have gone near the top of the draft. His skating, processing speed and ability to create offense at NHL pace translated far better than I appreciated in 2020. At the time, I valued the ability to read plays and always make the right decision, but I valued puckhandling and playmaking skill way more.

The biggest lesson? I learned that what a player does with his on-ice decisions and how they read and play the game matters just as much (if not more) than skating, playmaking, and shooting prowess. I’m sure that both myself and the Sabres both wish we could visit an alternate reality to see where Rossi and Quinn would be right now if they didn’t have to deal with COVID or injuries and had the 2021-22 season COVID-free in the OHL to develop.

Lesson of the Second Round: Trust what you see on the ice right now, and don’t confuse projecting with wishful thinking

Buffalo: JJ Peterka
My Pick: Marat Khusnutdinov
Redraft: Brock Faber

This might be the biggest lesson of the draft.

I loved Khusnutdinov’s pace and start/stop acceleration, his high-end transition ability in the MHL, and his competitiveness and defensive habits. Should he have been ranked inside my top 15? No, definitely not. His offensive game was raw and was a lot of facilitating play but not driving scoring chances for himself or funneling pucks to dangerous areas of the ice. I leaned heavily toward what I perceived as his offensive upside based not on what he did in the offensive zone, but what he did in transition.

Buffalo took Peterka, who was a prolific scorer and had great international showings throughout his draft year. He was an offensive dynamo who exceled as a shooter and was a functional playmaker, but really didn’t demonstrate any defensive game.

Unfortunately, I think we both got it wrong. Brock Faber was a defensive star on the NTDP team and showed an amazing ability to transition the puck with his high-end mobility. For me, I was chasing point production back then from defensemen and Faber was a player who I ranked in the late second round.

The lesson: don’t project what you wish a player would do, and instead evaluate the habits and skills they have right now. I wanted Marat Khusnutdinov to dominate the MHL and thought he had the skill to do it. I just assumed that something would click and then I’d be sitting with the steal of the draft with a top-six, 200 foot center. The Sabres learned their lesson the hard way with Peterka, eventually trading him as he showed a lack of defensive compete level to positively impact games.

Late Rounds: Stop Chasing Skill Alone

This is where my philosophy has probably changed the most.

I selected Zion Nybeck and Alexander Pashin because I believed above-average skill would eventually overcome size and physical limitations. Nybeck dominated the J20 that year but was 5’8 and was an average paced player at best. His game was never going to translate to the bottom six and he was a lottery ticket with little-to-no chance of success. Pashin was a bit more refined in his game but, still, was severely undersized and didn’t have the skill or pace to make up for it. I figured that one of those two would see AHL games and maybe crack a lineup.

It didn’t happen.

The Sabres took overager Swedish defenseman Albert Lyckasen, Czech forward Jakub Konecny, and Matteo Costantini out of the BCHL. Costantini has floated between the ECHL/AHL after a middling NCAA career. Neither Lyckasen nor Konecny ever sniffed a chance of playing in the NHL.

I did get one player right: Victor Mancini. In a seventh round devoid of any skaters who’ve played meaningful minutes, I took Victor Mancini, who wouldn’t get drafted until 2022 after his freshman year in the NCAA at Nebraska-Omaha. He was a big defenseman with good defensive transition numbers and a good first pass. I wanted to take a defenseman after taking only forwards for my other picks, he was the best one available on my board.

Today, a redraft of the late round picks would include Jakub Dobes in the 5th round, and Victor Mancini and Devon Levi in the 7th round without hesitation.

Goaltenders remain volatile enigmas to evaluate for the NHL draft, and there’s still probably no way I’d have ever taken Dobes or Levi. Dobes played in the NAHL before having a middling season in the USHL. Levi was drafted from the CCHL, a league that I have never watched. Goalies, man, they’ll drive you insane.

I’ve always leaned into the draft philosophy of “draft the players you like to watch”, but late in the draft, I’d now rather gamble on a player who has a realistic NHL pathway than hope a highly skilled winger suddenly develops NHL pace, strength, and defensive habits. You see that in my own draft rankings this year, as many of my late-round picks are players who tracked well both offensively and defensively and have translatable NHL skill and habits. Trust me, I want so bad to put the Trey Fix-Wolansky tier ahead of a lot of players I have in my late round tier just based on how much fun I had watching them. However, you have to lean into what the data shows has been successful for prospects to become NHL players, instead of praying for miracles that the player with too many flaws will magically correct them over the next three years.

The Biggest Lessons I Learned Summary

To sum up the lessons I’ve learned:

Skating and mental processing translates. Not just straight-line speed, but the ability to process the game while moving at NHL pace.

Defensive-Defensemen who can move the puck are more valuable than I once thought. I used to chase points in the first two rounds and then try to grab defensive-defensemen in the mid- to late rounds. While I still chase the power play in the first round, I’ve now moved a lot of defenders up my boards in recent years to the 2nd-3rd round.

Late-round skill bets rarely hit. If a player has one elite offensive tool but several significant flaws, you can’t just throw your hands up in the air and say “it’s a fun lottery ticket!”

NHL translatability matters more than junior dominance. Production is important, but how that production is created matters far more.

**Bonus: Thoughts on the Trade up from 27th to 20th in the 2026 NHL Draft**

I’m not going to spoil the draft guide and give you a full breakdown of the players that I believe are now options for the Sabres. However, I will give you my three initial reactions:

1. Jarmo doesn’t believe in my draft rules

The Discord server has been cracking jokes that I must be throwing my computer against a wall because now I have to rewrite the first round. Spoiler alert: my dream scenarios haven’t changed at all. My realistic ones have, though. While we didn’t give up draft assets to trade up, no NHL draft pick is guaranteed success. I’d much rather have gotten a 2nd-round pick in any draft than moved up to give the scouting staff another swing at landing a player. Also, I believe the second round always has 5-10 players I’m pining for, but the Sabres seem to devalue their 2nd-round draft picks in recent years.

2. I’m most happy that it’s eliminated some of my biggest fears in terms of players that are in that range for 27th overall that I’ve ranked much lower

I feel like people love to post and comment on the mock drafts that are coming out, and the major outlets that have been posting them have had a few players tied to us that I would’ve been disappointed to take in lieu of what would be available. Most of those options are now obsolete, as the 20th overall pick will see a few players slip as the draft takes shape, and some players I thought were good organizational fits are now available as well. We may not take the player I’d take at 20th, but I’m much more confident that we won’t draft a player I’d be disappointed in selecting.

3. The 20th pick is a much more attractive trade asset

If Jarmo is going to swing big before/during the draft, the 2026 first-round pick just became a lot more attractive to put in an offer. I didn’t think we’d be making a trade during draft weekend because the assets we have in the 2026 draft aren’t enticing enough to include in a trade package. However unlikely it may be, the possibility of acquiring an impact player just increased, as we now have a draft asset with desirable prospects available at that spot.

Photo Credit: Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images