Orchard Park, N.Y. (WGR Sports Radio 550) - The 2025 NHL Draft is this weekend in Los Angeles, with Round 1 taking place Friday night.
The Buffalo Sabres own the ninth overall pick, and were interested in trading their first-round pick last season at 11th overall. However, the only trade Buffalo made was moving back three spots on the board, where they selected Konsta Helenius with the 14th overall pick.
The Sabres have a whole stable of young prospects, so trading this year’s pick is certainly on the table again. General manager Kevyn Adams says he’s had all sorts of trade talks since the season ended.
"Jerry [Forton] and his staff do a great job of being prepared for everything," said Adams on Tuesday in the lead-up to the draft. "I would say I’ve had conversations from teams that are all the way up to the top of the draft right to teams behind us, preparing for every possible scenario moving up or down, and also be willing to move the pick all together.
"If there’s a way to make our team better and it involves Pick 9, we’ll have zero hesitation. But in saying that, we also believe we’ll get a good player if we make Pick 9. To me, that’s the exciting part of the draft."
When Adams first took over as general manager, the Sabres were in a true rebuild. In his first three drafts, he had six first-round picks and four second-round picks. Now, he says the cupboard has prospects and his philosophy has changed about trading his first round pick.
"I’m more open to it than maybe I’ve been in past years, [that] would be fair," Adams said. "We had to really try to build this organization up the appropriate way, and I do believe in building through the draft and developing players, and making sure you have depth within your organization, which I think we’ve done a real solid job of. We have a good group of prospects, so does it give you the comfort that if we move Pick 9, we still have a lot of young, good assets? Absolutely, but I don’t think you want to go into it saying, 'I’m just moving this pick no matter what,' but these are valuable picks. Yet, you’re open and everyone in the league knows I’m open to moving Pick 9, if it’s the right deal for us."
It’s hard to remember that in the NHL, you’re drafting 18-year-olds, which means you have to project what they might be like three years later.
"When you’re talking about ordering your lists, especially in the top couple of rounds, you’re taking the best player available. As you get later in the draft, do you maybe get off your list a little because you’ve maybe drafted some forwards and you want to take a D, then that’s something you look at," Adams noted.
The Sabres have good depth at center, as Jiri Kulich has just arrived in Buffalo. Still in development include Helenius, Noah Ostlund and Tyson Kozak. Anton Wahlberg is a natural center, but has played mostly wing with the Rochester Americans.
In the system at right defense are Vsevolod Komarov, Maxim Strbak, Gavin McCarthy and Adam Kleber.
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Assistant general manager Jerry Forton usually has a pretty good sense of where the top end of the draft splits with the next level of players.
"We see this as maybe 5-to-7 players at the top, and then maybe a little bit of a drop off, and then a big cluster of players after that," said Forton on Tuesday.
Forton looks at those top 5-to-7 players and then hopes to see one of them available to them at No. 9 overall.
This is the first season the draft isn’t going to be held in a central location. The players will be introduced in Los Angeles, but the teams will be working from home, similar to how the National Football League conducts its draft every year.
The Sabres won’t even be down at the arena this year, and Adams loves where they’re going to be come Friday night.
"The advantage is we’re at One Bills Drive, so we’re pretty fortunate that [the Bills] offered this up," Adams said. "When they called and asked me, I jumped at it. So we’ll have the ability to have a big space in a room that Brandon [Beane] uses, that’s built for this exact type of draft. For us, that’s a huge win and huge benefit.
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"The down side [of staying home] is maybe just the running into people on the draft floor at that moment. But it’s not like I can’t call or text, so you’re not going to not do a deal just because you’re together. But there is something about the draft, everybody sitting together where you make eye contact and you give them a nod and say, 'Let’s chat real quick.'"
The Sabres still need to add more size to their lineup. Other than Komarov and Wahlberg, there really isn’t any in Rochester to come up.
The two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers are not only skilled, they’re big and strong. Forton says they realize the organization can use that.
"There’s always a recency bias, so we try to look at our entire prospect pool. If there are players that are close in certain pockets of the draft and we’re lacking something in our prospect pool that we think is ideal for down the road, we might lean one way or another," he said.
If you’re talking about size and nastiness from the blue line in this draft, you’re looking at Kashawn Aitcheson or Radim Mrtka. Matthew Schaefer is the best defenseman in the draft and is expected to go first overall to the New York Islanders. However, the next best defenders available are, arguably, Mrtka and Aitcheson.
"Two great defensemen that I think will have long time NHL careers," Forton Said.
"Aitcheson brings very much an old school approach to the game. I could certainly see him be one of those players that might get the recency bias bump. There’s very few players in junior hockey, college hockey or in Europe that play the way he plays, and he brings some offense, especially off his heavy shot.
"Mrtka is a very unique package to be able to move the way that he does at 6-foot-6. Almost more agile with the puck, if that’s possible. A smart player at both ends, but he comes from a background where he has very little in the way of resources for hockey or anything else. Uprooted, high character kid, huge ceiling I think. Two guys I would expect to be in the top-three, four, five defensemen off the board."
The other defensemen Forton could be talking about at the top of this class are Jackson Smith, Logan Hensler and Cameron Reid.
I’ll be down at the stadium on Friday and Saturday, but Brian Koziol and Brayton Wilson will host our Round 1 draft coverage on Friday night starting at 7 p.m.