An early look at the Sabres biggest needs for the 2024 NHL Draft
With the best prospects pool in the game, it’s hard to believe the Sabres lack organizational depth, but the reality is, every team does.
Possessing the best prospects pool in the game doesn’t always mean it’s without flaws, and even the Buffalo Sabres have a few positions they can add to their elite organizational depth chart. As a franchise that should no longer find themselves in rebuilding mode thanks to the limited amount of space on the big club and the deep depth at most positions, this won’t be as intensive of a task surrounding general manager Kevyn Adams.
Still, you can never add too much talent to a prospects pool, and since this should be the year Adams moves some prospects, it means he must continue to strike gold at positions of need. So, which three positions should he key on in the 2024 NHL Draft, and which players would make good selections in late June?
The Sabres currently lack a pure right wing forward
There are a few high-end prospects in Buffalo who can play right wing, like Matt Savoie and Jiri Kulich. But both can shift between center and wing, so we’re talking about someone who can purely play wing, like what they have in left wingers Zach Benson (kind of hard to call him a prospect) and Isak Rosen.
What’s even more interesting is that if you look at Scott Wheeler of The Athletic’s most recent ranking of the Sabres pipeline, he doesn’t list a single right winger unless you count the versatile Kulich and Savoie. For a team projected to pick 11th in the NHL Draft unless the lottery says otherwise, the Sabres could find one of those players this year.
Tankathon currently lists players like Liam Greentree, Michael Brandsegg-Nydgard, and Beckett Sennecke solely as right wingers, and they should all be there when the Sabres pick either at or around 11th overall.
No, Kevyn Adams doesn’t need to take one of the aforementioned names if there is a player ranked higher on his board in the first round. He should still abide by the ‘take the best available’ road, but with one of his earlier picks, it would be wise to invest in someone who mainly sees ice time at right wing.
There is no high-end right-hand defenseman on the current depth chart
Is it just me, or are we having this conversation about landing quality right-handed defensemen every year? This isn’t just an issue in the prospects pool; the only viable right-handed blueliners in the Sabres lineup this season were Connor Clifton and Henri Jokiharju.
Shift gears to the prospects pool, and Scott Wheeler’s top-rated RHD is Maxim Strbak, who is 19 and not likely to make the NHL anytime soon. Vsevolod Komarov is another one, but he should have a ticket to the AHL next season following a year when he put up 69 points and 14 goals in 60 regular season games for the Quebec Remparts and Drummondville Voltigeurs, along with an incredible plus-47.
Komarov has a lot of playmaking potential, and no doubt, he will be fun to watch with the Amerks in 2024-25, as his overall productivity has more than just sailed north since 2021-22. He has a lot of upside, but if Kevyn Adams finds an RHD early in the 2024 draft, there is a good chance they will bring even more to the table.
Should Adams land a better draft spot than 11th overall, Zayne Perekh (96 points and 33 goals in 66 games with Saginaw) would be a logical choice. But if he rolls with a pure right winger, prospects like Ben Danford and Anthony Cristoforo should be there in the second round.
Give the Sabres one more goaltender beyond Scott Ratzlaff
Okay, I can hear some fans shouting, “Topias Leinonen!” But the 41st-overall pick in 2022 doesn’t even look worthy of signing an entry-level deal following a pair of disappointing seasons in Sarja, Liiga, and Mestis, depending on where his current club placed him.
Assuming Devon Levi ends up playing in the NHL full-time - basically a foregone conclusion - it leaves Scott Ratzlaff as the only competent young goaltender on the organizational depth chart. And considering his up-and-down 52-game tenure as the main guy with the WHL’s Seattle Thunderbirds, the Sabres will need some help at the position.
Unfortunately, there may not be anyone worth taking in the first two rounds or even in the first half of Round 3 this summer, so if Kevyn Adams is interested in snagging a goaltender, he’ll be taking a flier on them. But you never know, with any of these players entering the draft in any given year, and maybe Adams will end up unearthing a hidden gem.
Right now, he just needs to get people into the system and oversee their growth. It was unfortunate that Leinonen looks like a miss, but given his stellar drafting since his first year on the job, Adams will eventually strike gold at the position.
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(Statistics provided by Elite Prospects)