Let’s Meet the Sabres Draft Picks…

     The Sabres 2010 Draft included 8 total selections and it appears they aimed to address the lack of size and blue line authority. The Sabres Director of scouting Kevin Devine believes other then Pysyk the player with in which they have high hopes for is D Jeromem Gauthier-Leduc. Many teams had him on their radar in the second round but Buffalo was able to pull the trigger and get him. Leduc netted 20 goals and 26 assists from the blue line last season, a main concern for the Sabres to improve quickly on. Leduc is not staggering in size, much like the other Sabre picks but he is considered to be a scoring defenseman with good skating ability.

     With the 83rd pick the Sabres took D Matt MacKenzie. The tag on MacKenzie is he does everything well but nothing “great”. Wow, sounds like he’ll fit right in on this team of low expectations. With that being said MacKenzie played for Memorial Cup winning Calgary Hitmen and according to their team site he was possibly their best Defenseman with a good shot at being their team Captain this year. I think that shows great maturity only being 17, maybe a striking resemblence to Tyler Myers in that aspect.

      Buffalo then snagged C Steven Shipley. It appears there is nothing huge to brag about with Shipley. The line on him so far is hes a physical center at 6″0 197lbs but needs to work on skating, a sentiment Sabre scout Kevin Devine didn’t agree with. “That surprised me that somebody said that,” remarked Devine. “He has to be more consistent physically. He’s got the physical package, he’s got the offensive package, he just needs to crank it up every game. I think his skating is okay.”

     The Sabres then went big again by selecting RW Gregg Sutch. Sutch is a 6’2″ 190lb forward that has been nicknamed “the wrecking ball” by the Toronto Junior Hockey media. Sutch’s biggest stat was he had 55 penalty minutes in 43 games…my question is how the heck is this guy a RW?
    The Sabres biggest draft pick was LW Cedrick Henley. Henley is a 6’5″, 195 pound forward. Last season he achieved 5 goals, 12 points and 43 penalty minutes in 44 total games. It’s been written that Henley uses his size and strength to play a physical power game and will pay the price to get to the net. If Henley can grow his game into his size he could be the distraction lacking from opposing nets for the Sabres.

     Perhaps the most flagrant pick of the Sabres draft was their last pick of LW Riley Boychuck. Here are his stats and no the last one is not wrong, its very accurate. He accrued 14 goals, 30 points and a Rob Ray like 157 penalty minutes in just 66 games. Can you imagine if he gets a chance to get on the ice with Pat Kaleta?,  the Sabres will be playing a lot of penalty kills but hopefully may soon serve to be the physical prowess this team hasn’t had since Matt Barnaby and Rob Ray.

3rd Round
68) D Jerome Gauthier-Leduc
75) C Kevin Sundher
83) D Matt MacKenzie
4th Round
98) C Steven Shipley
5th Round
143) RW Gregg Sutch
6th Round
173) LW Cedrick Henley
7th Round
203) RW Christian Isackson
208) LW Riley Boychuk