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There’s a lot of luck involved when it comes to successful drafts in the NHL. Even after all the money you invest in scouting and analytics, there are so many different variables involved that the best you can hope for is an edge over your competitors. There have been many different draft pick value models over the years, and yes, some draft classes are certainly stronger than others, but once you get past around pick 25, you’re basically wearing a blindfold trying to hit the target.
Still, that doesn’t mean there aren’t things a team can do to improve their chances. Gaining even a small advantage over your rivals in the sports world is worth every penny. In this article I’ll take a look at exactly that, how the Buffalo Sabres can give themselves an edge at the upcoming draft in rounds 2-7.
Forwards over defensemen
This isn’t a unique thought by any means but still tends to be a bit of a controversial one. The idea of going with forwards over defensemen in the later rounds of the draft isn’t to suggest that one position matters more than the other, but is more of a response to the market. Goals and scoring are still king in terms of value in the NHL. Finding consistent shooting talent or play driving/making ability via trade or free agency is still very difficult in today’s NHL, which is why drafting anyone you may think has that upside is well worth whatever risk may come with it.
Defense on the other hand, is still a gray area in terms of value. Many defenders who are good at limiting total shot attempts or quality shots against still go for pennies on the dollar in trades or free agency. So, if that’s the case, it may not be the best course of action to invest your draft picks into talent that you would have an easier time finding through other avenues.
For a Sabres related example, someone like Jake McCabe helps illustrate the point I’m trying to make. McCabe is solid defensively, but doesn’t provide much in terms of offense either directly or indirectly. It’s not that what McCabe provides isn’t useful, but how difficult would it have been for the Sabres to find someone who can do what he does between the 2012 entry draft and the time he became a regular? Probably not long at all. So while he was certainly the safer choice, it wasn’t the best investment for the Sabres to make in terms of a pick and entry level contract.
Europe over North America
Again, not a unique idea by any means, and one that seems to be gaining more popularity league wide but is still an inefficiency, one that the Sabres have actually taken advantage of. Over the last three drafts, no team has selected more players from Scandinavia than the Buffalo Sabres. An article on the Hockeygraphs website,
which you can find here by Prashanth Iyer (with help from Namita Nandakumar, now a senior quantitative analyst for Seattle’s NHL team) shows us the potential inefficiency that is the Nordic draft market. Their work shows us that from rounds 1-3, skaters from Sweden and Finland’s top leagues tend to make the NHL faster and more often than their north American counterparts and the gap gets wider as we get into the later rounds.
It’s great to see a team like the Sabres spend more draft picks, particularly in the later rounds, on players from Sweden and Finland’s pro leagues, however that’s only half the battle. It’s not enough to draft from these countries while still using an outdated methodology for finding players. In order to actually gain a competitive advantage, they’ll need to use some forward thinking to scout players who can have a big impact in today’s NHL.
Goaltending? Don’t risk it
I’ll start by saying that the Sabres should absolutely select a goaltender, but this is probably a position that is better suited for the later or even last round(s). For every Carter Hart, there are several goalies who are taken early and never see NHL action. It’s not that you can’t find a high-end goalie in the early rounds, but overall the position is so unpredictable that passing on a goal scoring forward to select a goalie early and putting a ton of pressure on him to perform probably isn’t in your teams’ best interest.
The Sabres took Ukko Pekka Luukkonen in the 2nd round of the 2017 draft and while he showed a lot of promise early on, he did stumble a bit in his first pro season in the ECHL and AHL (although advanced data is very limited in both leagues). We won’t know for quite a while if this was the right move but by taking a goaltender that early the Sabres may have missed out on a scorer with NHL upside.
Thanks for reading!
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