I typically try to avoid the post-draft analysis when it comes to the NHL draft. The main reason is that it’s impossible to grade an NHL draft for at least three years, and it’s really until the players turn 24 that you get the full picture of how successful a draft class was. However, I do think it’s important to talk about the philosophies that surrounded a team’s draft and also to educate people on some of the players who may not have been on people’s radars going into the draft.

Sabres Draft Grade

I’m going to give it a B+ in terms of executing a blend of team needs, diversifying skillsets across the draft, and bringing in potential high-impact players. The Sabres have done a great job under Kevyn Adams and the scouting/analytics team in drafting the best player available in the first round in my opinion. The rest of this draft fell into a mix of upside swings coupled with organizational needs within the prospect pool. When I wrote the realistic scenarios for the Sabres after the first round I kept a mindset of what the Sabres might look at given what was lacking in their prospect pool. At forward they are very deep at high-end talent and also high-upside offensive swings. I thought after the first round they may look to add some size and some players who have floors that could project down in the lineup or fill specific roles as the passenger on a line.

At defense, they’re pretty thin in the prospect pool, but at the NHL level, they have their top two power play quarterbacks for a while in Dahlin and Power as well as a deep and young LHD pool of players that it’s not necessarily a dire need to draft a LHD high. That’s why there were a few RHD options given throughout the 2nd-6th round in the Draft Guide as looking for complimentary RHD players to play alongside the LHD they currently have could be an organizational goal.

The only reason it’s not an A is that I would’ve liked to have seen one of Cristall/Perron/Sawchyn/Augustine/Fowler/Mukhanov selected. I know size is the talk of the town right now, but all of those players were steals at times for the Sabres to even select just of them in their remaining 7 picks.

The Draft Picks

Zach Benson was one of the most impactful players in the draft this past year given all of his microstats and his skill level, but he also comes with the warning that he doesn’t have the prototypical north/south speed that comes with taking a smaller player in this range of the draft.

I don’t think a player played a better 200ft game in North America this year than Zach Benson. He drove play on the top line of one of the best teams in the CHL this past year, facilitated dangerous opportunities off his stick, and was the most responsible defensive player I watched his past year. I would’ve sprinted to the podium myself to take Benson if I were in charge of the Sabres and it was an amazing feeling to see the Sabres take him at the 13th overall selection.

Anton Wahlberg, Maxim Strbak, and Gavin McCarthy’s writeups are also in the Sabres Draft Guide as possible selections for the 2nd and 3rd round picks for the Sabres. The reason they fell under “Realistic Scenarios” is because I felt they had skillsets the Sabres could covet as well as filled organizational needs when looking at the depth of the prospect pool.

Wahlberg is a project. He has tremendous size at 6’3 and, in my viewings, flashed puck skill of that of a much smaller player that could project beyond the typical power forward that those types of players usually get labeled as. His skating isn’t all there yet, and I think with some work with his lateral mobility and small-area agility the Sabres could end up with a very impactful player. He was hard on pucks on the forecheck and responsible defensively and thus giving him a bit of a floor as a bottom-six player. However, I believe Adams and his staff have earned the credibility that there could be a real player here in Wahlberg.

Maxim Strbak is a bet on the upside in my opinion. He was great in his international showings, but as someone who watched much of his USHL tape, I had trouble combining the two iterations of Strbak’s season. For Slovakia, Strbak showed an offensive game that wasn’t there in the USHL. He was more aggressive activating from the blue line and more confident in his puck-handling skills to take on oncoming defenders to make a play.

In the USHL, Strbak played a far more conservative brand of offensive hockey and looked to be a player who would look to utilize space that was given to him rather than create space himself. I think he’s a good bet to play NHL games and that his game will translate to playing with some of the more offensive-leaning defensemen the Sabres currently have.

Gavin McCarthy’s microstat profile was a very clear archetype when looking at his style of play at the USHL level. In a three-game sample size, he never took less than 4 shots in a game and had a game with 8 shots as well. He was one of the more prolific dangerous-area shooters as a defenseman as well as he took about 25% of his shots from medium-danger areas. This means that McCarthy was looking to push up into the zone to take a shot rather than just shooting low-danger shots. He also completed just over 63% of his passes, which for a defenseman playing in a junior league is below average. He can opt to make the more dangerous play in transition instead of facilitating the play to an open forward or fail to utilize his defensive partner to reset a transition when the neutral zone is clogged and there isn’t a passing lane for him to make the play himself. He has plenty of puck skill and when he had the puck in the neutral zone he was very confident and successful at gaining the offensive zone with the puck on his stick.

Defensively, he has the double edge sword of being very aggressive. He’ll throw his body around and separate players from the puck, but also he won’t keep moving his feet and lunge for a poke check and miss and give up an entry into his own zone. McCarthy has a lot of tools to work with, and I’ll be excited to see him develop at Boston University.

Ethan Miedema is an upside swing. The 6’4 left wing finished the OHL season strong, and his shot is a threat at the NHL level. I watched him play six times in total with three of those viewings watching Quinton Burns. Miedema showed enough in those games that I did my own three-game tracking of him.

My overall conclusion was that I saw flashes of what Miedema could be. He has creative passing instincts and his shot catches your eye. However, tracking three games there are a lot of holes in his game that have to develop for him to be a top point producer in the OHL, let alone a successful offensive winger in the NHL. I think there’s a lot of runway given his physical size and traits, and as a fourth-round pick, it’s the perfect spot to pick a player with the flashes of upside that he has.

I don’t know much about scouting goalies, but Ratzlaff had moments where he was super athletic and looked to be unbeatable this year. He also had times when his angles gave up easy goals when I was watching teams play against him. Given the goalie depth and his athleticism, I think it was a great pick.

Sean Keohane was the draft pick that I was most intrigued with if I’m being honest. I typically watch the high school and prep draft eligibles last, and Keohane was close to making my Trey Fix-Wolansky list. He’s so mobile for a 6’4 defenseman. He rarely steps off the ice for his school team, and his endurance never wavers throughout the game. There are a lot of projectable tools with Keohane, however, his puck skill at the high school prep level was just not where I’d want it to be to have put him ahead of Larry Keenan and Francesco Dell’Elce as my favorite prep school/HS defenders. He’s going to the USHL next year and then is committed to Harvard. I’ll be interested to see if he can make a splash next year, but I’d say the hope is that maybe one day he can fill a role in the bottom six on an NHL team.

I wish I could go to Development Camp this year because I had no idea who Norwin Panocha was when he was drafted.

Who I Would’ve Taken

Every year I do this as a way to hold myself accountable for who I would’ve taken. This year I find myself extremely excited with who fell to me, but also know that my own philosophy regarding the draft is way different than NHL teams or NHL fans. I don’t care about filling organizational needs, or even having a blend of size (or having anyone with size in general). My belief is simple: the NHL draft is where I go to try to find the players who are going to be my top point producers. Free agency is where is build my depth. Any extra depth I build I trade to maximize my roster. That simple.

If I were a GM I’d just tell my scouting director to go get me assets and I’ll go figure out how to turn those into a Stanley Cup contender. So while my first four picks are severely undersized, if a couple of them hit I figure I can just flip them for an organizational need at a later date.

Without further adieu, my 2023 Sabres Picks.

13.) Zach Benson, LW, WHL

39.) Andrew Cristall, LW, WHL

45.) Gracyn Sawchyn, C/RW, WHL

86.) Jayden Perron, RW, USHL

109.) Aram Minnetian, RHD, USNTDP

141.) Timur Mukhanov, C/RW, VHL

173.) Adam Dybal, G, Czechia U20 (undrafted)

205.) Francesco Dell’Elce, LHD, CAHS

In the first three rounds, I get four players who were inside my top 20. I couldn’t say no to those four. I had to have all of them. I passed on Perron the first time because I had just taken Benson and Cristall who were my top two playmakers in North America this past year and I wasn’t going to take the third overall in Perron who was also under 5’9. Then he fell to me in the third round and I said “I’m going to regret not doing this.” He’s now on Austin’s faux Buffalo Sabres team.

In the fourth round, Mukhanov was the last in my top 48 who I desperately wanted on my roster, but I needed a defenseman at that spot. There was only one left that I liked and that was Minnetian who I felt rapidly improved the last month and a half of the season. Mukhanov was there in the 5th round so I had to take him there, but I sincerely thought about drafting Ratzlaff at the same spot the Sabres took him. My goalie depth is currently UPL/Levi/Dustin Wolf so I figured I could wait a round.

Adam Dybal was a goalie that performed well in his home league and struggled internationally. I was hoping one of Yegor Zavragin or Hampton Slukynski was going to fall to me in the 5th round but neither did, so I decided to wait until the 6th to try to take Ratzlaff or Dybal.

Francesco Dell’Elce has a long, long runway ahead of him to the NHL that’s very similar to Sean Keohane. He’s playing in the BCHL next year before going to UMass. His offensive game was fun to watch, and he’s a bet that I land a player who pops in a junior league next year and earns a mid-round selection while I was able to get him as a 7th rounder. Last year this worked for Cole Knuble for me, so hoping he has a similar trajectory.

Thanks for following along this draft season with me and Expected Buffalo! See you all in 2024!

Photo Credit: Bruce Bennett Getty Images