Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - For the first time in 10 years, one of the more premiere events on the National Hockey League calendar makes its return to Western New York.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman joined Sabres owner Terry Pegula on Monday to announce the return of the NHL Draft to Buffalo this summer at KeyBank Center.
This year's annual entry-level draft will start on Friday, June 26 with Round 1 beginning at 7 p.m. and being broadcasted on ESPN. Then on Saturday, June 27, Rounds 2-7 will take place and be broadcast on NHL Network.
It marks the fourth time the City of Buffalo has hosted the draft, with the other events taking place in 2016, 1998 and 1991. The city also plays host annually to the NHL Scouting Combine, which has been hosted at KeyBank Center and Harborcenter since 2015.
Bettman feels it was important to bring the NHL Draft back to Buffalo this time around, despite interest from a number of other cities around the league.
"This is a place where hockey really matters. Great fans, great history and tradition of hockey at all levels of the game, grassroots on up," said Bettman during Monday's announcement. "People have always supported and been enthusiastic about hockey, particularly when the team is as competitive as this one looks. So it's an exciting opportunity to bring it back.
"It also is a testament to everything that Terry Pegula has done in Buffalo. His commitment to this city, this region - whether it's for the Sabres, the area around the arena, or the new football stadium - you've got great ownership here, and I hope everybody in Buffalo appreciates that."
For Pegula, he appreciates the NHL's decision to return to Buffalo for the NHL Draft, an event he admired when he first hosted it as owner in 2016.
"The last draft we held in '16 was, to me, an eye-opener," Pegula said on Monday. "My daughter's a professional tennis player, and I look at the hopes and dreams in every set of eyes that was in the crowd, and sometimes you see smiles, sometimes you'd see sadness, because it wasn't that person. But it really opens your eyes to see these young kids.
"To add to the Scouting Combine, the referee clinic and the World Juniors we've had here and the support and the enthusiasm, it's a great place to hold a hockey event."
Sabres Chief Operating Officer Pete Guelli says the team has been in constant dialog with the league, and they know the organization wants Buffalo to be the center of the hockey universe.
"When events come up like this, we'll do everything we can to be in the mix. And candidly, the conversations came together really quickly," Guelli said on Monday. "I think the NHL felt the same way, they know Buffalo is an important market to the National Hockey League, and thought that this would be a great place to have the event."
Guelli feels having the draft back at KeyBank Center will be an opportunity to further showcase Downtown Buffalo and the waterfront. He also adds a venue like the new Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park would not be quite ready to host an event like this.
"We want events in this town. We know they're important to Buffalo, whether it's at Highmark Stadium or whether it's here at the arena, if there's an event out there, we're going to be in the mix," Guelli reiterated.
The NHL is expected to invite several top prospects in this year's draft class, with somewhere between 90 and 100 young players to be in attendance in Buffalo.
One of the top prospects in the draft this year is forward Gavin McKenna, who currently plays at Penn State University, which happens to be Pegula's alma mater. Pegula admits it's nice to see some great prospects starting to come out of Central Pennsylvania.
"When we opened [Pegula Ice Arena] in 2014, I remember part of my speech was maybe someday, the next Sidney Crosby will come out of this arena. I don't know where Gavin's going to get drafted, I'm not making any predictions, but he's a great young player," Pegula said.
This year's draft format will, once again, be decentralized, meaning teams will set up their headquarters in their home city instead of traveling to one central location as in years past. Bettman says that format will continue in 2026, but this time, he's looking for the event to be more streamlined.
"It was the first time we were decentralizing and we wanted to try some things out that would be new and different than you see, perhaps, in other drafts. I think the first round may have been a bit overproduced, so we learned some things worked and some things didn't work," Bettman acknowledged. "I think we're going to look to streamline it, but at the same time, we'll try some new things to be innovative and creative. But we want to be conscious of how long it's taking."
Meanwhile, Guelli feels with the region also looking to host the NFL Draft at some point in the next few years, he says hosting an even like NHL Draft certainly doesn't hurt Buffalo's case.
"If you can show you can handle events like this, high profile events that put you in a better position when you're going on trying to recruit any event, let alone the NFL Draft - that is something we're seriously interested in as well - we're going to continue to pursue that," Guelli noted.