Paper trail led Sabres to Myers
Towering blue-liner key to team’s draft
OTTAWA — Two pieces of paper with names scribbled on them are the highlight of Darcy Regier’s 2008 NHL draft.
The Buffalo Sabres general manager coveted defenseman Tyler Myers, the 6-foot-7 defenseman who could fill several needs with one large appearance. But the Los Angeles Kings wanted a defenseman, too, and before they would swap spots with the Sabres, the teams had to make sure they didn’t desire the same prospect.
So Regier and the Kings’ draft head hastily wrote down their top prospects’ names. They made an agreement to show their papers at the same time. If the names were the same, the Kings were keeping the 12th overall pick. If the names were different, L. A. was canceling its deal with another team and would move down one spot to allow the Sabres to pick 12th.
The Kings wanted Colten Teubert. The Sabres wanted Myers. They got him, and the two-day draft was a success from the start.
“It’s fun when you feel that things work out,” Regier said Saturday after the Sabres picked the last of their eight prospects. “It’s important for us to pay to get Myers [giving up a 2009 third-round pick to move up from No. 13], just because of the drop we thought [there was]. There’s still very good players after Myers, but we just felt there was a pretty good drop there, and he was somebody that we identified that would fit very well with our hockey club. We saw a lot of upside in his game. We wanted to pay the price to get him.”
Myers leads a group of four defensive selections by the Sabres, while fellow first-rounder Tyler Ennis and second-round pick Luke Adam head the four forwards chosen. The Sabres entered the weekend with seven picks, but they moved down seven spots in the third round Saturday to acquire an extra fourth-round selection.
“It went pretty good,” Kevin Devine, the Sabres’ director of amateur scouting, said in Scotiabank Place. “Hopefully, some of these kids in the last part of the rounds, one of them will turn out. But I really like what we got with the first three guys. We got our defenseman. It was a real kind of nervous, nerve-racking day there to go get that guy.”
Two of the Sabres’ six picks Saturday were American high school players, while the other four just completed their first or second seasons in the Canadian Hockey League. The Sabres wanted to add size to their organization, and they did. The picks averaged 6-1b and 183 pounds.
“We’ve got a number of smaller players, and we’ve got to make sure we get enough quality and quantity of bigger players to surround those guys,” Regier said.
The Sabres stayed in North America for all their picks because of the uncertainty throughout the hockey world. Russian teams are offering wealthy contracts to Europeans, and many are taking the deals to stay home or close to it.
“You have to be willing to risk losing the pick if you take them because of the money they can make over there. It’s not just the money, it’s the tax-free money,” Regier said. “Most of those kids are not going to be available to play in the minors or get any development time. If you’re not ready to put them in the lineup, they’re in all likelihood going to go home for the money.”
The Sabres made only the two trades, and neither involved players on the roster. Regier said he will talk soon with Don Meehan, the agent for Maxim Afinogenov, to discuss the right winger’s future.
The highest-rated players among Saturday’s selections were Adam (ranked 42nd among North American skaters) and defenseman Cory Fienhage (36th). Fienhage, taken in the third round, was the first of two straight Minnesota high school players. The Sabres picked right wing Justin Jokinen (ranked 54th) with the first of their two fourth-round selections.
They were followed by defenseman Jordon Southorn (122nd) and left wing Jacob Lagace (55th) of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. The Sabres’ final selection, in the sixth round, was unranked defenseman Nick Crawford of Saginaw in the Ontario Hockey League.
“We kept saying, ‘What’s wrong? What’s wrong with this guy? Why isn’t he on the list?’ ” Devine said. “I guess the knock that would be against him is he doesn’t try to do enough. He can probably do more than what he does.”
The Sabres hope most of the picks work out as well as that paper transaction Friday night.
“I’m excited about this group,” Regier said. “I say that with limited understanding of some of the later picks. My focus is really on the early picks, the first-and second-round picks, then it becomes very scattered.”
