Buffalo, N.Y. (WGR Sports Radio 550) – The most important part of the NHL Scouting Combine, which is being held in Buffalo once again this week, is the interview process, which started Monday.
Each team has a suite at the arena, and it gives the teams a chance to sit down with a prospect and really get to know him. Yes, there’s the testing that you will hear about on Saturday, but that’s more for the strength and conditioning coaches. Many of the general managers will have already gone home.
The Buffalo Sabres have the 11th overall pick in the 2024 NHL Draft, but it’s an asset that needs to be offered for trade. And what better time to be talking trades than when the general managers are all in one place for a week?
Kevyn Adams has held true to his word, and has made a lot of picks since he’s become general manager of the team. He now has a stable of players that give him the currency to make the deals necessary to get this team over the hump.
When I talk here about age, I’m talking about what players' ages will be by November. I’m also talking about players already with the Sabres, as well as the players being developed.
Buffalo has 26 players 25-years-old and younger and only three that are 25. They have 21 players 23 years of age or younger.
The Sabres have 16 players at the age of 22 or under, 13 that are 21 and under, eight that are 20 and under, and three that are 19 and under.
Adams can’t sign them all or play them all in Buffalo. He wanted a high volume of good young players and he has it. There is no reason what-so-ever not to be trying to trade the 11th overall pick.
Now none of this should take away from him interviewing players at the combine. If he doesn’t get any decent trade offers, he will have to make the pick.
Every draft has a player or two that drops from where they were expected to originally go. That’s how the Sabres got the likes of Dylan Cozens and Zach Benson.
Could this year's player be Cayden Lindstrom?
Lindstrom got injured while playing with the Medicine Hat Tigers of the Western Hockey League, but has what Buffalo needs: Size and physicality. He’s 6-foot-4 and 215 pounds, and plays a tough on and off the puck. Because of some back issues, he could drop in the draft order.
Another player that could be on Buffalo's radar is Jarome Iginla’s son, Tij. If he has the determination and grit his father had, he’ll be a terrific player.
If he’s still there at 11, Oshawa Generals forward Beckett Sennecke could be the pick. I’m reading that in one year, he went from 5-foot-10 to 6-foot-3. He’s only 18-years-old, so there’s more to come when it comes to size.
I think you’re getting the picture here. The fascination that Adams has had with small and fast has to end like it did last year after he took Benson. He has plenty of small fast forwards with a lot of skill. As far as guys that have size and skill, he has very few.
One good player with size and skill is last year’s second-round pick Anton Walberg. At just 19, the 6-foot-3, 194-pound winger played big and showed some skill in his 14 games with the Rochester Americans this past year.
The other second-round pick of that draft was 6-foot-2, 205-pound defenseman Maxim Strbak from Michigan State University.
Third-round pick Gavin McCarthy from Clarence Center is 6-foot-2 and 185 pounds, so once they took Benson, they took five larger players in-a-row.
Defensemen who will be in Rochester next season include Vsevolod Komarov and Nikita Novikov, who are also bigger and tougher.
That’s a trend that needs to continue.
