As it stands right now, Jason Botterill will be running his fourth NHL Draft as general manager of the Buffalo Sabres. In preparation for the draft this year, I decided to take a look back on the past three drafts under Botterill.

Not only am I going to look at the early results from his selections, but the usage of the picks as well. By usage, I’m referring to how he used the assets in trades as opposed to making the selections.

Negative Balance

Let’s start at a high level and work our way down to focusing on the draft picks themselves. In the past three years, the Sabres have made 18 total selections. In each year under Botterill, the team made six picks.

As you can see above, they’ve been near the bottom of the league in total picks made over the last three years. For a team that has finished at the bottom of the standings every year under Botterill, you’d probably like to have more selections. However, the Sabres have sent a handful of draft picks out in this general manager’s tenure.

Since 2017, the Sabres have traded 16 picks out of the organization when you include picks that were used to move up in drafts. They managed to bring in eight picks over that same time, which leaves them with a net negative of -8. Here are the picks by round that have been traded out of the organization:

• First – 1
• Second – 2
• Third – 3
• Fourth – 3
• Fifth – 5
• Sixth – 3
• Seventh – 1

And the picks that were brought in via trade:

• First – 2
• Second – 1
• Third – 1
• Fourth – 2
• Sixth – 1
• Seventh – 1

The interesting part here is that three of the four picks that were brought into the organization in the first three rounds were sent back out in trades. Overall, the Sabres were in the middle of the league in selections made in the first three rounds over the last three years with nine.

Beyond the first round of the draft, the likelihood of picking an impact player drops significantly. Therefore using draft picks to acquire talent that can help the team now is a fine approach. However, you probably don’t want to be a -8 in draft compensation. It wouldn’t hurt to have a few more darts to throw at the board to hope you find something of value.

My bigger concern is the players that were acquired using those assets. Only three of 10 players that were brought in using draft picks provided the Sabres with an impact beyond replacement level during their career in Evolving Hockey’s standing points above replacement model (SPAR). Those three players are Jeff Skinner (6.2), Conor Sheary (2.5), and believe it or not Jimmy Vesey (2.2). The only real player of value here at the end of the day is Skinner.

A perfect example of mismanagement of assets is the situation with Michael Frolik. The Sabres acquired a fourth-round pick for Marco Scandella but immediately sent that pick out for Frolik. In return, Frolik gave the Sabres -1.1 SPAR during his time with the club and also contributed to the cap overage that will hurt the team in the offseason.

First Three Rounds

Of the actual picks made from 2017 to 2019, the Sabres have only walked out with two true impact players out of those nine selections. We all know of Rasmus Dahlin’s potential and Dylan Cozens looks promising to this point as well. We haven’t seen Cozens play in any NHL games, so we can’t get too ahead of ourselves and the same goes for other picks as well. It’s still relatively early in development stages, but we can evaluate current trends.

The other seven players picked by the Sabres in the first three rounds over the last three years were Casey Mittelstadt, Marcus Davidsson, Mattias Samuelsson, Ryan Johnson, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, Erik Portillo, and Oskari Laaksonen.

Portillo and Luukkonen you set to the side because trying to evaluate the development of a goaltender is difficult. For what it’s worth, both have shown promise early on.

Mittelstadt had a ton of promise a few years ago, similar to Cozens, but is trending in the wrong direction. He’s a question mark in the organization at this point and next season will be big for him. It’s also worth noting that the 2017 first-round class looks like it may be a weak one. Not many of the other first-round picks around Mittelstadt are giving their organizations much to this point.

Laaksonen was an unknown third-round pick in 2017 that raised the eyebrows of many across the league. He was the player that wasn’t even listed in the registry system at the time. The good news is that he was looking like a huge find for the Sabres until this season. His potential was skyrocketing and he was a key member of Finland’s 2019 World Junior Gold Medal team. This season he battled with a lot of injuries and regressed playing for Ilves in Liiga. He’ll likely spend one more year in Finland before coming over to North America.

Then we get into the “questionable picks” with the last three players. Davidsson was the 37th overall pick in 2017. After a strong D+1 season, he has been an underwhelming prospect. He went to Vaxjo this season in the SHL to get a new opportunity with a bigger role. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out for him thus far. At this point, the Swedish forward projects out as a bottom-six forward as a ceiling.

Some other players selected around Davidsson that year include Aleski Heponiemi (40th), Alexandre Texier (45th), and Alex Formenton (47th). All three of those players are currently in North America and have shown more promise to this point.

For me, Heponiemi has been the one that I’ve watched the closest since 2017. He was one of my sleepers of the draft and his first two years after his draft were good in Finland. He did have some struggles this season adjusting in the AHL, but I still believe his ceiling is higher than Davidsson.

The Samuelsson pick in 2018 was another one that appears questionable at this moment in time. The Sabres needed a forward and a handful was on the board. Yet, the Sabres went with the big defender after selecting a defenseman with the first overall pick.

Samuelsson is a low-ceiling pick that projects out as a defensive defenseman in the NHL. There’s nothing wrong with taking those players, but selecting that type of player at 32 overall when high ceiling forwards were on the board is questionable. Players like Jonatan Berggren (33), Serron Noel (34), Jesse Ylonen (35), and Jack Drury (42) were selected after Samuelsson. All four of them would be top offensive prospects in the Sabres system right now.

Then Botterill doubled down on low-ceiling defenders by selecting Ryan Johnson with the final pick of the first round last year. Meanwhile high potential forwards like Arthur Kaliyev (33), Bobby Brink (34), and Nils Hoglander (40) went off the board a few picks later. The Sabres system was screaming for a high-end forward and again Botterill ignored the value, as well as the organizational need.

Of the nine picks in the first three rounds over the last three years, Botterill has only used three of those picks on forwards. Meanwhile, his team continues to drown from the inability to generate offense consistently.

Late Round Picks

The part where this takes a twist is looking at the early returns on some picks in the later rounds. Some of those selected in the fourth-round and beyond have shown early signs of promise.

Matej Pekar, selected in the fourth round in 2018, is an interesting forward to keep an eye on. His D+1 year was better than his D+2 year, but he has bottom-six forward potential. Another fourth-round (2017) pick in Jacob Bryson may be the top defense prospect in the system. He finished his career strong at Providence and had a good rookie season in the AHL.

The success with fourth rounders continues with defenseman Linus Cronholm. He was picked 117th overall in 2018. The Swede has played well overseas and finished this season strong before the season was canceled. He played 10 games to end the year as a 19-year-old in the SHL for Malmo.

Another player to watch is 2018 fifth-round pick Miska Kukkonen. The Finnish defender is still a longshot to be an NHL player, but he had another decent season in Finland. He played 19 games for Lukko in the Finnish pro league this season registering two assists and was invited to Finland’s 2020 World Junior camp.

Conclusion

There’s a lot to unpack with the draft over the last few years under Botterill. His mismanagement of draft picks in regards to trading assets for little value in return isn’t ideal.

The early returns on later round picks can’t be overlooked as positive for Botterill’s scouting staff. There is some real potential there, but we have to wait to see what it amounts to.

At the end of the day, the Sabres have a bottom-tier prospect pool compared to the rest of the league. They only have one true player that has high-end talent in Cozens. The remainder of the pool is made up of players that are likely bottom of the roster type talents.

Again, the Sabres will be walking into the 2020 NHL Draft with six picks in their pocket. They don’t have a pick in the third or sixth round at this point. I’m curious to see what Botterill does with that pick in the second round because that is the area where he has had the most difficulty finding value.

In the NHL you don’t want to draft based on need because some of these players take a while to make it to the league. Having said that, I don’t see any reason that they should not be focusing on forwards with their top two picks this year.

Data via Evolving Hockey, Hockey Reference, and Hockey Prospecting