The NHL continued it's annual "30 Teams in 30 Days" series yesterday with their take on the Buffalo Sabres. The Sabres, who once again drafted second in the 2015 NHL Draft, were second on their list behind the Edmonton Oilers, who had the first overall pick at the draft.
It's a good read for hockey fans outside of Sabreland, but there's really not much there that we Sabres fans don't already know, like the top two prospects being second-overall picks C, Jack Eichel (2015) and C, Sam Reinhart (2014) both of whom were the "rewards" of Buffalo finishing last in the league (while losing both lotteries.) What is supremely evident in the articles that compose Buffalo's portion of the NHL series, is the tremendous positivity surrounding a club moving forward. The Sabres have a young and talented new core rising and a once-battered team looks to be on the fast track to respectability and beyond.
With the dog days of summer upon us and long stretches of hockey inactivity being the norm, we have the opportunity to further explore how a team that had gone to consecutive Eastern Conference Finals some 10 years ago would enter a dismantling phase five years later and completely blow it to pieces over the course of the last two seasons.
All Sabres fans know the story of the 2007 off-season and what followed. We'll have the words "two of the top-20 centers in the league" stuck in our craws for years to come. And there's the previous owner's dictate of "just break even" for us to shake our heads at as well. But probably the most damning indictment of a front office that couldn't get it done on a long-term basis was their performance at the NHL draft.
The ineptitude of those drafts, with the end result being very few homegrown players having an impact for the team, can be traced, at least partially, to major changes in the scouting department. The Sabres went from a bevy of scouts prior to the 2004-05 lockout to the reliance upon the "VideoScout3000" as dubbed by former hockey buzzard, the late, jtswinehart.
In a cost-cutting move the powers that be at that time decided that they would have only a handful of scouts in the field after the 2004-05 lockout and would rely mainly upon video to make their amateur and pro scouting decisions. The demise of the team leading to it's eventual dismantling is in large part due to the effects of that philosophy and their results which was a razor thin pool of homegrown to work with.
Picking 18 yr. olds outside the top two or three of any draft is usually a hazardous proposition to begin with, one that can either make or break a franchise. But doing so on a shoe-string budget--basically watching them play on TV like all of us arm-chair GM's--makes it virtually impossible to move the franchise forward through the draft.
Unlike the previous regime, the organization now lead by owner Terry Pegula fully recognized that scouting, drafting and player development are essentially the three pinnacles of a successful NHL franchise. While all stand alone in their importance, a weakness in any one area can lead to years of mediocrity and struggle as teams try to fill roster gaps via free agency and trades. If there's a top-notch scouting department and a golden opportunity arises for a team draft "their guy," without proper player development, even the most talented player can reach a ceiling well below his potential as said player languishes in an inept system. Big-money has a way of correcting those short-comings, but the 2004-05 lockout brought cost-certainty to the league and a level playing field for the haves and have-not franchises.
With the introduction of the hard salary cap in 2005, the days of the NY Rangers, Toronto Maple Leafs, Philadelphia Flyers and other big-market teams eschewing the draft and loading up on expensive free agents to rectify weaknesses in their system is gone. Where once multiple free agents were simply brought in for their prime years to be the focal point of a team, the cap has limited that to one, maybe two being signed (see Minnesota with Ryan Suter and Zach Parise.) But drafting and developing homegrown talent and augmenting that group with a select free agent and/or trading for a big name is still the predominant way to build a Cup-contender.
Generally, a player's prime is considered somewhere between 24 and 30 years old, but for the ensuing exercise players from 24-28 yrs. old will be used as a starting point, and we'll take a look at the Buffalo Sabres drafts from the years where those picks would now be in that prime range.
We begin with 2005 as those drafted then are now right around the high-end of our defined prime years.
The end of the lockout and the beginning of the cap-era started with the 2005 draft and every team in the lottery for the chance to land a franchise player in Sidney Crosby. Because there was no season prior the league designed a system where teams were assigned a number of Ping-Pong balls based upon the number of playoff appearances and first-overall picks from the previous three years. The Sabres, Columbus Blue Jackets, NY Rangers and Pittsburgh Penguins all had the most Ping-Pong balls with three. Pittsburgh won the draft lottery.
The Sabres ended up with the 13th-overall pick that year and as Buffaluck would have it, they ended up just outside a third tier of players that would see Anze Kopitar go 11th to the LA Kings and the NY Rangers take Marc Staal at No. 12. The Buffalo Sabres followed those two selections by picking Slovenian center, Marek Zagrapan, who was playing junior hockey for the Chicoutimi Saguenéens of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.
Zagrapan was a perfect pick for the new NHL but one that would end up being a categorized as a classic example of a "soft-but-skilled" player. He was an excellent, smooth skater with tremendous hands who racked up 169 points in 118 QMJHL games. At 6'1" 198 lbs. he had NHL size and also possessed great vision, but the mental aspect of the game kept him from making it to the NHL. He played three seasons in the Sabres system (two for Rochester, one for their new affiliate, the Portland Pirates) before taking his skills to KHL. Although some would say he deserved a shot with the big club, especially during the 2008-09 season where he would end up with 49 points (21+28) in 80 AHL games, he never played a game in the NHL.
Was he a bust because of his own short-comings? Or was it a because of poor player development? One would have to say a little bit of both. You could also add in that the soon be changing style of play in the NHL derailed the Sabres team-building plan, which included Zagrapan, as the league was reverting back to the impedance and intimidation years of the 90's, a style that didn't really fit Zagrapan's European style of play.
In the second round, the Sabres picked big left winger Philip Gogulla. The 6'2" 200 lb. German played one season with the Portland Pirates in 2009-10 scoring 15 goals in 76 AHL games. He went back to Germany the following year and never returned to North America.
After missing on their first two picks of the draft, the Sabres finally had a modicum of success with D, Marc-Andre Gragnani.
Buffalo was having visions of another Brian Campbell when they plucked the offensive defenseman with the 87th overall pick. At 6'2" 205 lbs. he was much bigger than Campbell, but he skated extremely well and he would finish his final junior season with the P.E.I. Rocket tallying 22 goals and 68 points in 65 games.
In his first professional season in Portland he scored a team record 51 points, although an asterisk might be in order as he played a number of games on the wing. Unlike Buffalo's first two picks this draft, "Grags" did make it to the NHL and has 74 games to his credit. As of now, however, Buffalo fans might know him more for him being a minor part of the Zack Kassian for Cody Hogson trade with the Vancouver Canucks at the 2012 trade deadline.
Gragnani spent the last two seasons overseas and on July 3rd was signed by the New Jersey Devils as a free agent to a one-year contract.
The most successful NHL player taken by the Buffalo Sabres in the 2005 draft is D, Chris Butler.
Butler was selected in the fourth round with the 96th pick and is carving out an NHL career as a bottom-pairing/depth defenseman that's right in line with what a mid-round pick should do. The 6'1" 203 lb. Butler is a defensively sound puck mover who will be entering his eighth NHL season when he laces them up for the St. Louis Blues, the team he played 33 games for last season. With his style of play and his relative value, it wouldn't be surprising to see "Butts" carve out a long NHL career as a journeyman defenseman.
Just behind Butler on the "success-meter" is the little engine that could, Nathan Gerbe. Although he's only 5'5" he packs 178 lbs. on that frame and plays the game like a bulldog. Gerbe was taken in the fifth round with the 142nd pick and there were very few who thought he'd do much at the NHL-level. He's now totaled 347 games scoring 55 goals and adding 76 assists in an energy role.
Before Gerbe was placed on waivers with the intention of buying him out (a rather curious move) on July 3, 2013, his career in the Sabres organization had some remarkable highlights. He was the 2009 Dudley "Red" Garrett Award winner for Rookie of the Year in the AHL, the first of three consecutive winners for the Sabres organization.
Probably his biggest contributions to the Sabres came in the Sabres playoff push just after Terry Pegula bought the team on February 22, 2011.
A quick primer. In the prior month Gerbe would go into the Buffalo Sabres record book as scoring the fastest two goals in Sabres history. In a game against the NY Islanders he would pot two in five seconds:
Legend has it that Gerbe buried a part of a puck at center ice of the First Niagara Center the day of Pegula's initial press conference as new owner, to rid the arena of the "evil spirits" that were haunting the club at home. In March he scored the only two goals in the Sabres win over Montreal during their playoff drive and against Philadelphia at the FNC, Gerbe potted a no-look back-hander top-shelf in the third to tie the game at three-all. The Sabres would win that game and secure a spot in the playoffs before a raucous home crowd.
He signed a one-year/two-way deal with the Carolina Hurricanes for the 2013-14 season and after scoring 31 points (16+15) in 81 games the 'Canes re-signed him to a two-year/one-way deal.
Sixth-round pick Adam Dennis managed to play three seasons in goal for the Amerk/Pirates in a reserve role. He's spent the last four seasons playing overseas.
Russian defenseman Vyacheslav Buravchikov was picked 191st overall but never came to North America, while another defenseman, Matt Generous (208th overall) managed 65 games for the Portland Pirates over two seasons. He ended up in the ECHL, played one more season in the AHL with the Lake Erie Monsters before heading overseas.
Amherst, NY native Andrew Orpik, brother of the Pittsburgh Penguins Brook Orpik, was the final pick for the Sabres in the 2005 NHL draft. He bounced between the ECHL and AHL before moving on from hockey following the 2010-11 season.
At roughly 28 years of age today, the players in this group would now be taking leadership roles on the Sabres. Unfortunately none of those picks had an impact and it set the franchise back a few years. One draft like that is one thing as nearly every organization lays an egg, but to follow that up with another one the following year really hurt.
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