Sabres Young Talent

Center is one of the most important positions in hockey. In recent years, the Sabres have been one of the weakest teams in the NHL up the middle.

Ever since star players Chris Drury and Daniel Briere left on that dreadful day in 2007, the Sabres have been lackluster at center. The Sabres were left with much weaker talent up the middle with the likes of Derek Roy, Paul Gaustad, Jochen Hecht, Matt Ellis, Luke Adam and Cody McCormick.

So what do the Sabres do? Darcy Regier starts drafting centers, and big centers at that. Something Buffalo hasn’t done in years and years. Before 2008, Buffalo was abysmal at drafting young talent, thankfully it changed.

Since 2008, Buffalo has drafted centers Luke Adam, Kevin Sundher, Colin Jacobs, Joel Armia, Justin Kea, Zemgus Girgensons and the biggest name, Mikhail Grigorenko. All of these pivots are six feet or taller, making Buffalo much bigger for the near future.

Another way Regier helped out up the middle was signing former Philadelphia Flyers center Ville Leino. Leino who has bounced between wing and center, had a disappointing first season in Buffalo, however this is an improvement over Matt Ellis playing center.

In the biggest trade of last year’s NHL trade deadline, Regier traded away Buffalo’s most intriguing prospect, Zack Kassian to Vancouver for up and coming scoring center Cody Hodgson. Kassian was by far Buffalo’s best prospect, who added scoring and much needed toughness, but as they say, you need to give up talent, to get talent. With Cody Hodgson, Buffalo now has a young, skilled centermen who can play on Buffalo’s top line between two perennial snipers in Thomas Vanek and Jason Pominville.

Leino and Hodgson have already helped the Sabres, as well as Tyler Ennis moving in to play center on the second line, but the biggest name to play center for Buffalo may be 18 year old, Russian phenom, Mikhail Girgorenko.

The young gun was drafted 12^th overall in last year’s NHL Entry Draft. The 6’3 200 pound forward was a man amongst boys playing for his junior team, the Quebec Ramparts in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. In 91 total games, spanning over a year and a half, Girgorenko had 69 goals and 66 assists, for a total of 135 points. That averages to a point and a half per game in his first season and a half in the league.

Because of Girgorenko’s age, he was not old enough to play for Buffalo’s farm team in the American Hockey League, so Buffalo had to make a choice. Is Girgorenko good enough as an 18 year old to stay in Buffalo and use the first year of his NHL entry level contract worth $1,775,000 or should he be sent back to juniors to continue to develop? Well the Sabres had five games to figure out what to do.

After Girgorenko’s fifth game, Buffalo decided to keep him. It wasn’t a bad decision seeing that in Girgorenko’s sixth game, he scored his first NHL goal against Buffalo’s longtime rivals, the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Losing two former all-star centermen such as Drury and Briere, the Buffalo Sabres and its staff needed to find guys that could play up the middle, and in a hurry. With the likes of young studs such as Ennis, Hodgson, Armia, Girgensons and Girgorenko, Buffalo seems to be loaded on size and skill at center for years to come.