NHL Combine in Buffalo brings general managers to Buffalo/

Buffalo, New York (WGR 550) – The most important part of the NHL Scouting Combine being held in Buffalo this week are the interviews that have been taking place since Monday.

Each team has a suite in the arena and this gives teams the opportunity to sit down with a prospect and really get to know them. Yes, there are the tests you all hear about on Saturday, but they are geared more toward strength and conditioning coaches. Many general managers will have already returned home.

The Buffalo Sabers have 11^th overall choice, but it is an asset that must be offered to the trade and what better time to talk trade than when the general managers are all in one place for a week.

Kevyn Adams has kept his word and made many choices since becoming general manager and he now has a stable of players who give him the currency to make the deals necessary to take this team over the top. bump.

When I talk about age here, I’m talking about the age of the players by November. I also talk about players already with the Sabers as well as players in development.

Buffalo has 26 players aged 25 or younger and only three are 25 years old. They have 21 players aged 23 or younger.

They have 16 players 22 and under, 13 21 and under, eight 20 and under and three 19 and under.

Adams can’t sign or play them all in Buffalo. He wanted a lot of good young players and he got it. There is no reason not to try to trade the 11^th overall choice.

Now, none of that should stop him from interviewing the players at the combine. If he doesn’t receive decent trade offers, he will have to make a choice. Every draft has a player or two who drop out. That’s how the Sabers got Dylan Cozens and Zach Benson. Could this year’s player be Cayden Lidstrom?

Lidstrom was injured playing for Medicine Hat in the WHL, but he has what Buffalo needs: size. He is 6’4, 215 and due to back problems he could fall. He’s big and he’s physical.

Another player who could be on Buffalo’s radar is Tij, the son of Jarome Iginla. If he has his father’s determination and courage, he will be a tremendous player.

If he’s still around at 11, Oshawa Generals forward Beckett Sennecke could be the pick. I read that in one year he went from 5’10 to 6’3. He’s only 18, so there’s more to come in terms of size.

I think you get the picture here. Adams’ fascination with the small and fast needs to end like it did last year after taking Benson. He has lots of quick little advances, with a lot of skill. As far as guys who have size and skill go, he has very few.

A good choice is 19-year-old Anton Walberg, last year’s second-round pick. The 6’3, 194 pound winger played big and showed skill in his 14 games with the Rochester Americans.

The other second round pick in this draft was 6’2, 205 pound defenseman Maxim Strbak from Michigan State.

Third-round pick Gavin McCarthy of the Clarence Center is 6’2, 185, so once they took Benson, they took five bigger players in a row. The defensemen who will be in Rochester next season, Vsevolod Komarov and Nikita Novikov, are also bigger and tougher. This is a trend that must continue.