Buffalo Sabres History: Who Wore It, Number 32
We continue our series about Buffalo Sabres history, with each day’s post highlighting a player to have worn the subsequent jersey number with the Buffalo Sabres. This series is not designed to say that any player is the ‘best’ to have worn that jersey number, but rather to allow fans to get a taste of the team’s history and learn more about some of the players in it. Here we are at #32.
Today, we focus on one of nine players in Sabres history to wear jersey number 32, right winger Rob Ray. He’s perhaps the most well-known of the 32s in Sabres history and spent most of his NHL career with Buffalo.
Rob Ray was originally drafted by the Sabres in 1998, 97th overall. He was drafted out of the OHL’s Cornwall Royals, a team that he had 590 penalty minutes with in three seasons.
After being drafted by the Sabres, he spent his first full season with the Rochester Americans organization, racking up 446 penalty minutes in 74 games — that’s an average of six penalty minutes per game. The next two seasons saw Ray move back and forth between the Amerks and the Sabres before he made it full-time to the NHL in 1991.
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In the end, he’d spend fourteen and a half seasons with the Sabres organization, until 2002-03.
After his time with the Sabres ended, Ray playing 16 games with the Ottawa Senators organization between 2002 and 2004.
He ended his playing career with 900 NHL games, 91 points and 3,207 penalty minutes under his belt. His NHL career also saw him win one King Clancy Memorial Trophy for the 1998-99 season.
Now, of course, he can occasionally be seen on the Sabres broadcasts on MSG.
Other players to wear #32 in Sabres history: John Scott, Mikael Tellqvist, Scott Metcalfe, Don McSween, Norm Lacombe, Bob Mongrain, Gary McAdam, Wayne Ramsey