Buffalo Sabers expected to trade No. 11 overall pick in NHL draft

Macklin Celebrini, the Boston University franchise’s transformational center, is the consensus top prospect and learned Tuesday night during the draft that the San Jose Sharks held the No. 1 overall selection.

He would bring excitement to a market that added two big talents in last year’s draft — including Hamburg’s Quentin Musty — and he already has fans in the Bay Area because his father, Rick, is vice president of player health and performance for the NBA’s Golden State Warriors.

Chicago, Anaheim, Columbus and Montreal round out the top five, giving them the opportunity to choose among top draft-eligible prospects Ivan Demidov, Anton Silayev, Artyom Levshunov, Cayden Lindstrom, Sam Dickinson, Zayne Parekh and Zeev Buium.

The Buffalo Sabers own the 11th pick — they had the 11th best chance to win the lottery — but general manager Kevyn Adams is not expected to take the stage to make the selection next month. In a “win-now” situation, according to new coach Lindy Ruff, the Sabers should trade the pick before the June 28 draft to bolster an NHL roster in need of a center six, infusion courage and skill in the game. the bottom six and potentially some adjustments to the defense depth chart.

Winning the lottery or choosing among the top 5 would require a different strategy. After all, a player in this range would have the potential to help the Sabers next season. How likely is it, though, that the player they would select at 11th overall could help the NHL roster soon? And how many prospects does this organization need after a 13-year playoff drought?

The Sabers have used seven first-round picks in five drafts since Adams took over the franchise’s hockey operations in 2020: Jack Quinn, Owen Power, Isak Rosen, Matt Savoie, Noah Ostlund, Jiri Kulich and Zach Benson. They also picked six players in the second round, giving Buffalo a prospect pipeline that is arguably one of the strongest in the league.

Quinn and Benson will be on the NHL roster again next season, and Power signed a seven-year contract in October 2023 that ties the 2021 first-round draft pick to Buffalo through 2030-31. Kulich and Rosen spent two seasons with the Rochester Americans, while Savoie and Ostlund will likely be in the American Hockey League next season.

The Sabers also signed Rasmus Dahlin, Tage Thompson, Dylan Cozens and Mattias Samuelsson long-term. JJ Peterka, Alex Tuch, Bowen Byram, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen and Devon Levi aren’t going anywhere. The prospect pipeline also includes Russian forward Prokhor Poltapov, who Buffalo can sign to an entry-level contract as soon as next spring, and 2023 second-round pick Anton Walhlberg. There’s also Ryan Johnson, a 2019 first-round pick who has played in 41 NHL games this season.

Free agency is an option for the Sabers to improve their NHL roster. They have a salary cap hit of $23.2 million for next season, according to CapFriendly.com, but they won’t want to overpay free agents on multi-year contracts and will have difficulty recruiting experienced players to come over. in Buffalo once the club finishes with 84 points this season. Even the bottom six futures contracts can be expensive on the open market.

Adams, like his predecessors, will attempt to improve the NHL roster through trades. They can choose to do this by dealing from their lead pipeline. Teams will be interested in forwards like Savoie, Rosen and Kulich if Adams is willing to move one to bolster Buffalo’s roster margins. Why deal a player who could be poised to help the Sabers, when you have a high pick in the first round?

The Sabres’ amateur scouting team, led by Jason Karmanos and Jerry Forton, has proven over the past few years that it can unearth talent in the mid-to-late rounds. They may have hit a home run at pick 39 last year with Wahlberg, a 6-foot-3 power forward that Adams traded up to be selected late in the first round. Buffalo owns at least one pick in rounds two, three, four, six and seven, so they would still have draft capital to add to the prospect pipeline if they decide to move their top pick.

Several contenders will need to clear cap space this summer and will need draft picks to replenish their prospect depth chart after several years of a win-now strategy at the trade deadline. Would the Vegas Golden Knights move center Nicolas Roy with three years remaining on his contract? They might need it to re-sign Jonathan Marchessault and Chandler Stephenson.

Could Adams package the first-round pick with a Winnipeg Jets prospect or two for Nikolaj Ehlers and Alex Iafallo? Is a first round enough to encourage the St. Louis Blues to move on from Pavel Buchnevich? Will the next Columbus Blue Jackets GM trade captain Boone Jenner? He would be perfect to center the Sabres’ third line. No-trade clauses may be an obstacle for Buffalo in trying to make a deal, but these are the kind of playoff-tested players Adams should be considering between now and June 28 before going in the first round.

Win-now moves were on Adams’ mind in the days leading up to the March trade deadline. He has expressed a desire to finally part with the draft picks and/or prospects he has stockpiled. Turning another first-rounder into an impactful NHL player could be one of the few long-term wins resulting from another disappointing season in Buffalo.