Ranking the Sabres 1st rounders of the past 30 years:

[GASabresIUFAN]

32 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Yay, somebody finally bit. 😀

My list is not relative to where players were picked, or who else the Sabres could have picked. It's simply comparing their careers

Brad May played 1,000 NHL games, something that only about 350 people have ever done. Line Stafford up against May in a seven-game playoff series and I guarantee May wins that battle every time.

No.  May played a 1000 games but much as a 4th line player. From age 31-38, comprising 330 gms, May had 15g and 28a.  Terrible.  Essentially May had a 670 game career as a productive or semi-productive player.    May played 88 playoff games in his career averaging less them 8 minutes a night outside his time in Buffalo and added 4 g 9a all but 2 pts coming in his 36 playoff games in Buffalo. 

Stafford had a similar over 30 fall off that May had, but not nearly as bad and like May he transformed his game (became a good PKer) to keep his career alive.  In the playoffs Stafford averaged almost 15 minutes a night and scored 11 pts in only 32 playoff games (20 in buffalo 3g 4a).    

Yes May was the more physical player and that kept him in a 4th line role for years, but he wasn't the better player or the better pick.  May was never more then a 3rd line player while Stafford was a legit scoring threat who often played 2nd line minutes.  May's great playoff goal for us not withstanding.  

 

 

28 minutes ago, Marvin, Sabres Fan said:

IMHO, May was also a victim of how John Muckler evaluated players.  Dudley saw himself in May and often played him with Hawerchuk.  Muckler exiled him to the bottom of the line-up.

Where he belonged.

Edited November 18, 2020 by GASabresIUFAN

[PerreaultForever]

6 hours ago, Curt said:

The pick could just have easily been Sam Bennett too.  Something to think about before labeling the drafting of Reinhart a fail.

I don't think so. I mean obviously most drafts could be worse. We don't pick the worst player every time but every time you miss the best player it's a fail, just a question of degree. 

Every draft has ups and downs. The first one, we got Perreault, but the rest of that inaugural draft wasn't all that great. Now 1971, talk about hitting on all levels:

1. Rick Martin, 2. Craig Ramsey 3. Bill Hajt. Now that's a hell of a draft!!!!!!!

1973 was our first bad draft with Morris Titanic living up to his name. Bounced back in 74 though with Danny Gare as a 2nd rounder, another great hit. '79 was a good year with Ramsey and Ruff and more. Jiri Dudacek in 1981, well, somebody was smoking crack that year....... but we did pretty good with the 3 firsts in '82. '83 was a pretty good year too.(I know this is all older, but I thought what the hell, it was our 50th anniversary after all and I got nothing better to do). 

Totally shocked to see Christian Ruuttu was a 7th rounder and then Uwe Krupp in the 11th. That beats Olofsson as great late picks I think. 

The next stretch was a bit dodgy up to Pierre Turgeon who was what he was. Mogilny we got late (5th) but that was a gamble with the whole Soviet defection thing so I suppose that's reasonable. Worked out for us obviously, even with his oddities about flying and whatnot. 

lots of forgotten names in the next stretch aside from the obvious ones like \McKee, Biron and so forth. 

Brian Campbell 6th round in 1997. I guess he was considered too small. great pick. '99 Ryan Miller as a 5th, another good one. probably helped foster my idea of always picking a goalie every draft in a later round. They develop differently. 

then we get to Vanek, but followed by Mr. Lazy Drew Stafford. Not great after that, 2010 might be worst ever with Pysyk being the only NHLer in the bunch. 

and that pretty much takes us up to the modern era. 

Looking it all over there are some definite bad runs and that explains a lot about our success or failure. A lot of success we had was built on trades rather than draft picks (Briere, Drury, Hasek, LaFontaine, Peca. etc.) especially after the very early era. 

No idea how this all would measure up against other teams but likely the better drafters did better. Likely a direct correlation. 

 

[Eleven]

8 minutes ago, PerreaultForever said:

I don't think so. I mean obviously most drafts could be worse. We don't pick the worst player every time but every time you miss the best player it's a fail, just a question of degree. 

Every draft has ups and downs. The first one, we got Perreault, but the rest of that inaugural draft wasn't all that great. Now 1971, talk about hitting on all levels:

1. Rick Martin, 2. Craig Ramsey 3. Bill Hajt. Now that's a hell of a draft!!!!!!!

1973 was our first bad draft with Morris Titanic living up to his name. Bounced back in 74 though with Danny Gare as a 2nd rounder, another great hit. '79 was a good year with Ramsey and Ruff and more. Jiri Dudacek in 1981, well, somebody was smoking crack that year....... but we did pretty good with the 3 firsts in '82. '83 was a pretty good year too.(I know this is all older, but I thought what the hell, it was our 50th anniversary after all and I got nothing better to do). 

Totally shocked to see Christian Ruuttu was a 7th rounder and then Uwe Krupp in the 11th. That beats Olofsson as great late picks I think. 

The next stretch was a bit dodgy up to Pierre Turgeon who was what he was. Mogilny we got late (5th) but that was a gamble with the whole Soviet defection thing so I suppose that's reasonable. Worked out for us obviously, even with his oddities about flying and whatnot. 

lots of forgotten names in the next stretch aside from the obvious ones like \McKee, Biron and so forth. 

Brian Campbell 6th round in 1997. I guess he was considered too small. great pick. '99 Ryan Miller as a 5th, another good one. probably helped foster my idea of always picking a goalie every draft in a later round. They develop differently. 

then we get to Vanek, but followed by Mr. Lazy Drew Stafford. Not great after that, 2010 might be worst ever with Pysyk being the only NHLer in the bunch. 

and that pretty much takes us up to the modern era. 

Looking it all over there are some definite bad runs and that explains a lot about our success or failure. A lot of success we had was built on trades rather than draft picks (Briere, Drury, Hasek, LaFontaine, Peca. etc.) especially after the very early era. 

No idea how this all would measure up against other teams but likely the better drafters did better. Likely a direct correlation. 

 

Other than the Paul Cyr reference, I like everything in this post.

[Weave]

5 hours ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

The bottomline is that it seems that guys drafted in the middle of the 1st rd, even if they make the NHL are more often then not depth players.  They can have long careers, like May (1000 gms) but is you get a top 6 forward out of the mix, you've hit a home run.  Of our guys Stafford and Ennis are the only guys that ever play top 6 roles, but mostly they like May and Primeau are depth players from a career standpoint.

 

 

I say this every time someone talks about disappointing 2nd rounders or mid to late 1st rounders.  Statistically, these guys are bottom half of the lineup.  We should never be expecting more than that.  Getting a top half of the lineup player after about 10-12 is bonus territory.

[Weave]

3 hours ago, Marvin, Sabres Fan said:

IMHO, May was also a victim of how John Muckler evaluated players.  Dudley saw himself in May and often played him with Hawerchuk.  Muckler exiled him to the bottom of the line-up.

May was a victim of himself too.  He was never going to live up to the billing of being the player Buffalo preferred over Keith Tkachuk, but he had skills.  May simply loved the violent part of the game and that took over the skill part.  I think it was Don Cherry, talking about Eric Lindros being on a short leash for fighting, that said you can't make pretty passes and score pretty goals when your hands hurt so bad you can't feel your stick.

I think if May would have stayed away from the rough stuff we would have seen more plays like the May Day goal.  But we'll never know....

[PerreaultForever]

4 hours ago, Eleven said:

Other than the Paul Cyr reference, I like everything in this post.

True, he wasn't all that, but the other 2 were stars so pretty good year all the same.