Sports Illustrated: Sabres have most overrated prospect system in NHL

[Second Line Center]

Sabres Have Most Overrated Prospect System in NHL
 

Looking at their current group, this has to be the most overrated one in the NHL. Tony Ferrari of The Hockey News, DobberProspects, and The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler are all high on their system. Wheeler even ranked the Sabres number one in his 2024 prospect group rankings. 

There is talent in the Sabres’ pipeline, there’s no use denying that. Are they a top-5 prospect system in the league? Absolutely not. The reality is that they are barely top-10.

To the Sabres’ credit, they are developing several prospects well. Kulich and Devon Levi are still top prospects in the NHL. Zach Benson graduated to the NHL as many anticipated. He’s only 19, but he should be a mainstay in Buffalo for the next few seasons, so he’s no longer deserving of the prospect moniker. 

After that, the outlook is less encouraging. They have several players with NHL upside, but not with the potential of Savoie, Benson, Kulich, or Levi.

Isak Rosen and Noah Östlund are call-up candidates this season, but they project as bottom-six forwards at the NHL level. 

Maxim Strbak is the team’s top defensive prospect. He had a terrific freshman season with Michigan State University. At the NHL level, he will most likely be a bottom-pairing defender who makes a living killing penalties and blocking shots.

The Sabres have talent in their system, but looking at who is on the way, it’s hard to determine who the difference maker will be. They have pieces to be better, sure, but not the elite talent so many believe. Benson has the potential to be elite, but can he carry the Sabres to the postseason? Can Devon Levi surpass Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen as the starting netminder? Can Konsta Helenius, Jiri Kulich, or Isak Rosen force their way into the top-six? 

Unfortunately for the Sabres, contenders don’t have this many unanswered questions. The potential, talent, and reason for hope are endless in Buffalo, but that doesn’t change that their prospect group is the most overrated in the league.

 

https://www.si.com/onsi/breakaway/prospects-feed/posts/buffalo-sabres-most-overrated-prospect-system-nhl

 

My issues:

Not calling Benson a prospect isn’t fair.  Or Power.  
 

What other - give us 3 or 4 teams - that are better and why?

 

Can't argue we’ve been hearing this for years and it hasn’t led to anything tho.  

[dudacek]

The "stars" of the Sabres system are Power, Quinn, Peterka, Benson and Levi and they're already here.

The strength of the next group is not on the high end, it's the depth.

Anyone waiting for our system to save us is going to be disappointed.

[JoeSchmoe]

This article is bang on. This year's draft aside, we just traded away our only prospect that's realistically capable of playing as a contributing top 6 forward. Beyond Kulich, we don't have any legit NHL'ers. 

[LGR4GM]

2 hours ago, Second Line Center said:

Sabres Have Most Overrated Prospect System in NHL
 

Looking at their current group, this has to be the most overrated one in the NHL. Tony Ferrari of The Hockey News, DobberProspects, and The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler are all high on their system. Wheeler even ranked the Sabres number one in his 2024 prospect group rankings. 

There is talent in the Sabres’ pipeline, there’s no use denying that. Are they a top-5 prospect system in the league? Absolutely not. The reality is that they are barely top-10.

To the Sabres’ credit, they are developing several prospects well. Kulich and Devon Levi are still top prospects in the NHL. Zach Benson graduated to the NHL as many anticipated. He’s only 19, but he should be a mainstay in Buffalo for the next few seasons, so he’s no longer deserving of the prospect moniker. 

After that, the outlook is less encouraging. They have several players with NHL upside, but not with the potential of Savoie, Benson, Kulich, or Levi.

Isak Rosen and Noah Östlund are call-up candidates this season, but they project as bottom-six forwards at the NHL level. 

Maxim Strbak is the team’s top defensive prospect. He had a terrific freshman season with Michigan State University. At the NHL level, he will most likely be a bottom-pairing defender who makes a living killing penalties and blocking shots.

The Sabres have talent in their system, but looking at who is on the way, it’s hard to determine who the difference maker will be. They have pieces to be better, sure, but not the elite talent so many believe. Benson has the potential to be elite, but can he carry the Sabres to the postseason? Can Devon Levi surpass Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen as the starting netminder? Can Konsta Helenius, Jiri Kulich, or Isak Rosen force their way into the top-six? 

Unfortunately for the Sabres, contenders don’t have this many unanswered questions. The potential, talent, and reason for hope are endless in Buffalo, but that doesn’t change that their prospect group is the most overrated in the league.

 

https://www.si.com/onsi/breakaway/prospects-feed/posts/buffalo-sabres-most-overrated-prospect-system-nhl

 

My issues:

Not calling Benson a prospect isn’t fair.  Or Power.  
 

What other - give us 3 or 4 teams - that are better and why?

 

Can't argue we’ve been hearing this for years and it hasn’t led to anything tho.  

I don't think Buffalo has the best prospect pool even with Savoie. I would say we are top 5 though. Is our pool overrated? Not really, especially when other teams don't have their Benson's and Power's already graduated. Really instead of talking prospect pool, these places should talk u22 players and go from there because that is what matters. Either way, Buffalo has a good pool but not the best one IMPO. 

[JoeSchmoe]

11 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

I don't think Buffalo has the best prospect pool even with Savoie. I would say we are top 5 though. Is our pool overrated? Not really, especially when other teams don't have their Benson's and Power's already graduated. Really instead of talking prospect pool, these places should talk u22 players and go from there because that is what matters. Either way, Buffalo has a good pool but not the best one IMPO. 

A lot of this depends on what you make of the sliding definition of a prospect.

I put it as someone who hasn't dressed regularly in the NHL yet. For that I don't consider Benson and Power to be prospects anymore. In my post above, I didn't consider Levi to be one either... but a case could be made to say he is.

I know some people are still high on Östlund, but my research a few weeks back showed that of 8 guys who played SHL in their U20 year with a similar scoring pace as him, only 2 are top 6 NHL'ers. The 2 were William Karlsson and Joel Ericksen Ek who are both bigger. Larsson and Eller are/were both NHL players too but I'm guessing the better Swedes may be coming over here earlier nowadays.

19-20: Filip Hallender 0.52ppg U20 SHL.  

 

18-19: Emil Bemstrom 0.74ppg U20 SHL. 

 

18-19: Samuel Fagemo 0.60ppg U20 SHL.

 

16-17: Joel Eriksen Ek 0.62ppg U20 SHL.

 

15-16: Oskar Lindblom 0.52ppg U20 SHL.

 

12-13: William Karlsson 0.58ppg U20 SHL.

 

11-12: Johan Larsson 0.73ppg U20 SHL.

 

08-09: Lars Eller 0.60ppg U20 SHL.

[Flashsabre]

What a ridiculous article. He has no reasons for it being overrated other than that is his opinion.

There is no such thing as a guaranteed prospect pool. It is a collection of young players who no one is sure how they will turn out.

Google top prospect pools from prior years and you see most of these prospect projections don’t pan out.

To say one prospect pool is overrated and others are not is ludicrous.

Id trade Savoie for McLeod again. You are getting a young guaranteed NHLer in McLeod who still has upside.

[GASabresIUFAN]

Benson and Levi are still prospects.  Both players are waivers exempt.  Levi played in the A last season and may again this season.  Benson just turned 19 and can be sent down at any time.  As I just illustrated, in another thread, with other 18 years who recently played in the NHL, they commonly get sent down in year 2.  Kotkaniemi and Cole Sillinger are recent examples.  We also saw Mitts and TNT sent down after playing 100+ NHL games before they established themselves as NHL players.  

The strength of the Sabres pipeline is numbers.  We have depth at all positions and some players with significant upside.  However, the biggest issue with the pipeline, outside of Benson and Levi and now maybe Helenius, there are no elite prospects.  Most our best forward project as middle six players and our D look like interesting players, but most again project toward 4-6 type players.  

I don't think we have a top 4 pipeline, but we certainly, given our depth alone, at in the top 7.  

 

Edited July 12 by GASabresIUFAN

[JoeSchmoe]

10 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

However, the biggest issue with the pipeline, outside of Benson and Levi and now maybe Helenius, there are no elite prospects. 

I think this is the main problem. Especially by some definitions, they're not really prospect pool players anyone.

It's too bad Kulich didn't have a Quinn / Peterka like 2nd season in Rochester. It looked like he was heading in that direction after year 1. Hopefully he'll bump up this year.

[PASabreFan]

AI is working well at SI.

AI probably doesn't know about Sabres fans and clickbait yet.

You can call me Betty. @Doohickie

[DarthEbriate]

Does the article provide any definition of what it counts as a prospect, or what criteria it is measuring for comparison with other teams? Is Connor Bedard still a prospect?

It's easy to be overrated when you're consistency ranked in the top 5 because that's where you've drafted.

[Doohickie]

19 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

AI is working well at SI.

AI probably doesn't know about Sabres fans and clickbait yet.

You can call me Betty. @Doohickie

You can call me Al.

[PASabreFan]

11 minutes ago, Doohickie said:

You can call me Al.

OK there ya go. We have made such progress.

[PerreaultForever]

I think it is totally fair regarding Benson. He came straight into the NHL. You can say we drafted well there, really well, but he's not a product of the prospect system as he didn't spend any time in it. Neither did Power. 

When you consider how many top picks we've had we should be one of the top prospect systems right? But the author is right, not that many guys look like sure NHL players at the moment. We definitely do not have bodies to plug into every role should the injury bug hit. We have some players but we don't have similar players to fit all the needed roles. 

idk, I saw on twitter yesterday a list that had us as the youngest team in the NHL again this coming season. Accomplishment? Not really. 

Oddly, I also saw the Bruins (who we have all talked about here several times as ready to fall, window closing, going to drop, getting old, etc.) have managed to become the 5th youngest team with their projected roster which caught me totally by surprise and I thought how'd they pull that off and stay at the top? Their prospect pool is always ranked near the bottom after all. By contrast to the Sabres they could use 1 guy of Poitras/Lysell/Merkulov to take the next step and make the line up and if just one of them does, they are all set - again. Now maybe none of them will be ready (or ever ready) and they'll have to find a DeBrusk replacement at the deadline or via trade (for prospects) but the real point is, as always, the prospects don't matter, the NHL roster does. 

[LTS]

Prompt: Pretend you are a hack sports writer on the Internet. Write a Sports Illustrated article on the quality of the Buffalo Sabres prospect pool. Use these articles at The Hockey News and The Athletic for reference.  Use "The Contrarian" by A Perfect Circle as motivation.

 

 

[PerreaultForever]

Sure, but one could also argue an AI sports writer is the only one who can be truly objective. 

[Thorny]

lol. 

what is this, politics? The prospect people eventually turn on their own anointed selections?

the pool is only “overrated” if you are in the business of incorrectly hyping up prospects unreflective of actual league wide success rates before moving on to the next slew of drafts you need to sell 

No more overrated than prospects and picks as assets league wide

[ddaryl]

56 minutes ago, Doohickie said:

You can call me Al.

Artificial Intelligence

AI

or are you saying we should call you Al

like Paul Simon




For me  all my cards are in the Ruff basket to make the difference the teams needs. Hopefully He is the answer but until we see the product 

Edited July 12 by ddaryl

[Weave]

33 minutes ago, Thorny said:

lol. 

what is this, politics? The prospect people eventually turn on their own anointed selections?

the pool is only “overrated” if you are in the business of incorrectly hyping up prospects unreflective of actual league wide success rates before moving on to the next slew of drafts you need to sell 

No more overrated than prospects and picks as assets league wide

All prospects are overrated.  And when you need to sell your fanbase on hope you overrate them even more.

 

[kas23]

This is sort of a pa-tato/pat-ato argument. It really doesn’t matter who is a “prospect’” vs who is just very young. They are essentially equal. It doesn’t matter where they are playing. On a lot of team, Quinn and JJP would still be the AHL, Benson would still be in Juniors. As for Power, you take a player who played exactly like Power did and he would still be in the AHL. The reason why he’s on our roster because (1) were the Sabres and we don’t block and (2) he was 1OA. 
 

Edit: Or, this was written by a team trying to obtain these “prospects” and they exchanged this “story” for future leaks. 

Edited July 12 by kas23

[Doohickie]

2 hours ago, PASabreFan said:

OK there ya go. We have made such progress.

[Ctaeth]

Kind of funny to hear someone calling strbak our best defensive prospect with komarov, novikov, and Ryan Johnson in the group

[LGR4GM]

Just now, Ctaeth said:

Kind of funny to hear someone calling strbak our best defensive prospect with komarov, novikov, and Ryan Johnson in the group

Johnson is probably first but Novikov and Komarov can supplant him this year. Also, when you have Powe, Byram, and Dahlin, does it matter?

[PerreaultForever]

3 hours ago, Thorny said:

lol. 

what is this, politics? The prospect people eventually turn on their own anointed selections?

the pool is only “overrated” if you are in the business of incorrectly hyping up prospects unreflective of actual league wide success rates before moving on to the next slew of drafts you need to sell 

No more overrated than prospects and picks as assets league wide

Honestly I don't think most of them pay much attention to Buffalo. We draft a lot of high end prospects so they go "oh look at them, put them at the top"  then a few years go by and they look and go "oh what? Buffalo still sucks? Guess their prospects suck too. " I don't think they dig deep and analyze them the way the fanbase does. Their "expert" opinions flip on a dime and go whichever way the wind blows. 

If we ever start winning they will all go "look at them, that prospect pool is paying off. Buffalo proves you win by building through the draft". That's IF we start winning and make the playoffs. But again, the only thing that matters is who is on the NHL roster. 

[PromoTheRobot]

Who is Jacob Punutri?

[B-U-F-F-A-L-O]

17 hours ago, Second Line Center said:

Sabres Have Most Overrated Prospect System in NHL
 

Looking at their current group, this has to be the most overrated one in the NHL. Tony Ferrari of The Hockey News, DobberProspects, and The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler are all high on their system. Wheeler even ranked the Sabres number one in his 2024 prospect group rankings. 

There is talent in the Sabres’ pipeline, there’s no use denying that. Are they a top-5 prospect system in the league? Absolutely not. The reality is that they are barely top-10.

To the Sabres’ credit, they are developing several prospects well. Kulich and Devon Levi are still top prospects in the NHL. Zach Benson graduated to the NHL as many anticipated. He’s only 19, but he should be a mainstay in Buffalo for the next few seasons, so he’s no longer deserving of the prospect moniker. 

After that, the outlook is less encouraging. They have several players with NHL upside, but not with the potential of Savoie, Benson, Kulich, or Levi.

Isak Rosen and Noah Östlund are call-up candidates this season, but they project as bottom-six forwards at the NHL level. 

Maxim Strbak is the team’s top defensive prospect. He had a terrific freshman season with Michigan State University. At the NHL level, he will most likely be a bottom-pairing defender who makes a living killing penalties and blocking shots.

The Sabres have talent in their system, but looking at who is on the way, it’s hard to determine who the difference maker will be. They have pieces to be better, sure, but not the elite talent so many believe. Benson has the potential to be elite, but can he carry the Sabres to the postseason? Can Devon Levi surpass Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen as the starting netminder? Can Konsta Helenius, Jiri Kulich, or Isak Rosen force their way into the top-six? 

Unfortunately for the Sabres, contenders don’t have this many unanswered questions. The potential, talent, and reason for hope are endless in Buffalo, but that doesn’t change that their prospect group is the most overrated in the league.

 

https://www.si.com/onsi/breakaway/prospects-feed/posts/buffalo-sabres-most-overrated-prospect-system-nhl

 

My issues:

Not calling Benson a prospect isn’t fair.  Or Power.  
 

What other - give us 3 or 4 teams - that are better and why?

 

Can't argue we’ve been hearing this for years and it hasn’t led to anything tho.  

I think it is just as dumb to call prospects Rosen, Östlund and Nyberg bottom slicers as it is to say they are absolutely top sixers. We just don’t know yet. Any one of those three could turn out to be the best player since LaFontaine….