Unfortunate Draft Lottery Result

It was another difficult year in Buffalo, with only the Calgary Flames finishing below the Sabres in the standings. With the playoffs out of the picture, the management and scouting teams were hard at work looking over the crop of eligible draftees for this summer’s draft. Along with that, the draft lottery was a date which was circled in Roberto’s calendar. After all, with a season so poor, the only thing to look forward to now was bringing in more top talent into the organization.

The day rolled around, and the draft lottery took place. Everything was moving along smoothly, and the Sabres were inching closer to getting their name called out when something all too familiar occurred:

“The 4^th overall selection belongs to… THE BUFFALO SABRES! The Buffalo Sabres fell, AGAIN!” exclaimed commissioner Kevin Lacey. Just like the commissioner, Roberto was in complete shock. Flashbacks of 2016 when they had the best odds of landing the #1 selection, and also fell to the 4^th overall selection. In the past 3 seasons, the Buffalo Sabres have finished in the bottom 3 two times, and in both of those seasons they have fallen out of the top 3 and selected 4^th at the draft. GM Roberto Martucci addressed the media a few days following the reveal of the draft order, where he had this to say:

“Good afternoon everyone, thank you for taking the time to be here. This was another difficult season for the organization and we are extremely grateful for the continued support from our fans and sticking by us through these tough times. We promise things are going to get better. We ran into another hiccup this season, when we were unfortunately dropped out of the top 3 for the upcoming draft. However, I would like to assure the Sabres faithful that we are going to be bringing in a young man of incredible talent come draft day to help further build the young core of players currently in Buffalo. The draft has tons of promising players which can come in and make an impact for a long time. I have said it in the past that this was going to be a process, and this is just another step forward to get us to our ultimate goal of being a perennial Stanley Cup contender. Once again, thank you to everyone in Buffalo and to Sabres fans around the world, we will use this to be better and make you proud.”

The Buffalo Sabres have built a strong young core of players and will look to add to that core at the draft this summer. Although it may take some time, I believe what is happening in Buffalo will set this team up for a very bright future.