NHL Draft: Revisiting the 2006 Selections, Nine Years Later

By Melissa Kania |

The NHL Draft is now just over a month away, and we continue our series in reflecting back on past drafts and seeing how some of those players have panned out for their respective teams, particularly the Buffalo Sabres.

Today, we go back nine years, to the 2006 NHL Entry Draft.

The 2006 NHL Entry Draft was held at General Motors Place in Vancouver, hosted by the Vancouver Canucks. It was back in the day when all seven rounds of the draft took place on the same day – in this case, June 24, 2006.

With the first overall selection, the St. Louis Blues picked up defenseman Erik Johnson from the USNTDP. Jordan Staal went to the Pittsburgh Penguins with the second pick, while the Chicago Blackhawks selected Jonathan Toews third overall.

The Buffalo Sabres held six selections in the 2006 NHL Entry Draft, with two picks in the second round and no picks in either the third or sixth rounds of the draft.

Today, fast-forwarding nine years, just one of those players is still with the Buffalo Sabres organization. Three have played in the NHL.

The Sabres’ first pick came 24th overall, when they chose defenseman Dennis Persson from VIK Vasteras HK. Strangely enough, Persson was the first of two consecutive players from VIK Vasteras HK to be selected, as the St. Louis Blues chose his teammate Patrik Berglund with the next pick.

Persson, now 26, never made it to the NHL, but is playing overseas with the Swedish Hockey League. After his draft, he continued to play overseas for several seasons with Nykoping Hockey, Djurgardens IF Stockholm and Timra IK. He eventually came to North America in 2009, joining the Portland Pirates.

He’d stay in the AHL – first with the Pirates, then the Rochester Americans – until 2012. His last season in North America saw him appear in just 39 games with Rochester before he went back to Sweden.

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Persson then joined Brynas IF Gavle for two seasons. He spent this past season with MODO Hockey Ornskoldsvik of the Swedish Hockey League, where he had five points in 48 games and played with Sabres 2013 pick Gustav Possler and 2012 pick Linus Ullmark.

The Buffalo Sabres then picked 46th overall, selecting goaltender Jhonas Enroth of Sodertalje SK.

Enroth, of course, spent time with the Portland Pirates and eventually reached the NHL, playing for the Sabres between 2010 and 2015. He was traded to the Dallas Stars, where he spent the last bit of the season with a 2.38 GAA and .906 save percentage.

The Sabres then used their second pick in the second round for defenseman Mike Weber, the lone 2006 draft pick who is still with the Buffalo Sabres organization.

To date, he’s played 313 NHL games between 2007 and the present day. Weber also spent time with the Rochester Americans and Portland Pirates between 2007 and 2010.

After no third round pick, the Sabres chose 117th overall, picking up center Felix Schutz.

Schutz, now 27, spent two seasons with the Pirates from 2008-2010 but has mostly been playing overseas since his draft. He played for four years in the DEL with Ingolstadt ERC and the Cologne Sharks. Schutz has spent the last two seasons in the KHL, playing with Vladivostok Admiral and Omsk Avangard.

The Sabres then used their next NHL Draft pick for Harvard University defenseman Alex Biega (147).

Biega spent three seasons in the AHL for the Sabres; since 2013, he’s been with the Vancouver Canucks organization. Biega finally made his NHL debut this season, appearing in seven games with the Canucks and scoring his first NHL game. The 27-year-old had spent the prior two seasons with the Utica Comets.

Finally, after no sixth-rounder, the Sabres picked up center Benjamin Breault with the 207th overall selection.

After his draft, Breault continued his career with the QMJHL’s Baie-Comeau Drakkar and Quebec Remparts until 2009. He joined the ECHL’s Florida Everblades for seven games, then spent four years at Dalhousie University. As far as I can tell, the 27-year-old hasn’t played hockey since 2013.

There you have it – your 2006 Buffalo Sabres NHL Draft class. Four of the six picks never played an NHL game for Buffalo; three have never made it to the NHL at all, and only one – Mike Weber – remains with the organization to date.

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