Sabres Edge

Live from Ottawa -- sometimes

OTTAWA -- To no writer's surprise, we walked into Scotiabank Place and the Internet still wasn't working. Still gotta love the NHL.

Well, the Sabres went for size with their second-round pick, taking 6-foot-2, 203-pound forward Luke Adam of St. John's of the Quebec league. He's a Newfoundlander, and he's a friendly kid.

"I’m a big guy, I use my size to my advantage, try to create my offense from down low, using my size and my reach," Adam said. "That’s how I create my offense, and I have a passion to score goals, and that’s how I do it."

The Sabres traded down in the third round and picked up two selections, getting rid of No. 74 and picking up Nos. 81 and 101 from Los Angeles. They picked a high school kid at 81, defenseman Cory Fienhage, who was born in Kansas and schooled in Minnesota. He is 6-2, 190 and is expected to attend the University of North Dakota in 2009.

Will get more updates as the Internet allows. This is the first time today (and maybe the only) I've had it.

11:55 a.m.: There are timeouts in the draft. Who knew? The Sabres just took one at the 101st pick.

The next pick is another high schooler, Justin Jokinen. The Minnesota winger is 6-2, 165. He's athletic but needs to fill out, obviously. A short while later, at 104, the Sabres selected 6-2, 185-pound defenseman Jordon Southorn from the Quebec league.

12:41 p.m.: The Sabres select Jacob Lagace in the fifth round. He's here, and his family is hugging away.

"I’m happy for them because they are happy to see me get drafted," Lagace said.

1:20 p.m.: The Sabres pick Nick Crawford of the OHL's Saginaw Spirit in the sixth round. He's a little off the board -- literally. The league doesn't have a name plate for him to put on the draft board. He had four goals and 16 assists in 68 games this season.

Unless they make a trade, that's it for the Sabres in the 2008 entry draft.

2:51 p.m.: The floor is clear, the interviews are over, and so is the draft for another year. The Sabres ended up with four defenseman and four forwards. From the Sabres' standpoint, the draft was a success.

"I'm excited about this group," Sabres GM Darcy Regier said.

---John Vogl

Second pick: Tyler II

With their second pick in the first round (No. 26 overall from San Jose in the Brian Campbell trade), the Sabres went for Medicine Hat forward Tyler Ennis, who is 5-8 and says he patterns his game after Daniel Briere and Martin St. Louis. Here's a good note: His favorite food to cook is chicken wings. Here's his draft profile.

Goaltender Thomas McCollum, the Sanborn native, was still on the board when the Sabres picked. But with Jhonas Enroth signed, it didn't seem to be too logical a choice to go with a goaltender. And what kind of message would a choice like that have sent about upcoming negotiations with Ryan Miller?

10:55 p.m. update: McCollum just got chosen by Detroit with the final pick of the first round. The Wings are grooming hot prospect Jimmy Howard to play with Chris Osgood so McCollum will have plenty of time to develop in junior and the minors.

Here's Ennis' draft video.

---Mike Harrington

Sabres move up, pick 6-7 Myers

The Sabres moved up one spot in the first round, flipping with Los Angeles. The Sabres thus get the No. 12 pick while the Kings get No. 13 -- and the Sabres' third-round pick in 2009.

The Sabres have taken 6-foot-7 defenseman Tyler Myers of Kelowna in the Western Hockey League, the tallest of the 305 players rated by NHL Central Scouting. Myers is a Houston native who lists the Dallas Stars as his favorite team even though he moved to Calgary at age 10.

Here's Myers' official NHL Entry Draft bio and another story from last fall looking ahead to the draft.

And here's his scouting video.

---Mike Harrington

Live from Ottawa -- the Draft

OTTAWA --- Gotta love the NHL. Nothing ever goes smooth. Internet isn't working in Scotiabank Place, so live blogging is out for now. This is only time I've ever been able to get on.

Follow the first round here at the TSN draft tracker.

---John Vogl

Pictures with Lord Stanley

OTTAWA -- OK, so the folks at the Ottawa Tourism department hosted a draft welcome party Thursday night at the legendary Heart & Crown, where the beer flowed like wine. Which, of course, led to a few interesting moments.

One of the party favors was a chance to get your picture taken with "Lord Stanley." It was a big painting of the Stanley Cup next to a guy's body with his face cut out. Three girls would walk around with the picture and ask the writers if they wanted to put their face in the hole. They'd take a photo and people would laugh. Ha, ha, look at the goofy dudes.

So, two writers whose names you would recognize but shall remain nameless at the moment because the NHL is in a foul mood (see League versus New York Rangers owners), had a Eureka! moment. Standing 5 feet away was Commissioner Gary Bettman, and the writers' faces lit up at the exact same time.

"Hey ladies. See that guy over there? Ask him to pose with Lord Stanley."

"Really?" one of the women said. "He looks kind of important."

"Nah, he loves that sort of thing. Just go ask him if he wants to stick his face in that hole."

The lovely, lager-sipping ladies tapped Bettman on the shoulder. "Would you like your picture taken with Lord Stanley?"

The Commish politely declined, after giving an incredulous "Are you kidding me?! Don't you know who I am?!" look. Rumor has it he was none too pleased with the exchange.

But the writers and tourism gals sure were. Or so I hear.

---John Vogl

Rating the Sabres' draft classes

We're two days away from the Sabres taking the podium in Ottawa and making two first-round selections in the annual NHL Entry Draft (barring any trades of course).

Go to this link to see the Sabres' past draft classes. You can really see how this franchise was built with great drafts in the '70s and how it fell apart with plenty of lousy ones in the '80s and '90s. Some of the best ones I see:

1971: (Rick Martin, Craig Ramsay, Bill Hajt)

1972: (Jim Schoenfeld, Larry Carriere, Peter McNab)

1974: (Lee Fogolin, Danny Gare, Derek Smith and the unforgettable Taro Tsujimoto)

1975: (Bob Sauve, Ken Breitenbach, Terry Martin, Gary McAdam, Don Edwards)

1979: (Mike Ramsey, Lindy Ruff, Jacques Cloutier, Gilles Hamel, Alan Haworth)

1982: (Phil Housley, Paul Cyr, Dave Andreychuk)

1983: (Tom Barrasso, Adam Creighton, John Tucker, Daren Puppa, Christian Ruuttu, Uwe Krupp)

1997: (Mika Noronen, Henrik Tallinder, Maxim Afinogenov, Brian Campbell),

You see the potential from drafts in this decade like 2006 (including Dennis Persson, Jhonas Enroth, Mike Weber and Felix Schutz), 2005 (Phillippe Gogulla, Chris Butler, Nathan Gerbe) and 2004 (Drew Stafford, Michael Funk, Andrej Sekera, Patrick Kaleta). So there's certainly hope for this weekend with the Sabres owning three of the top 44 picks.

What classes do you like? In the name of Morris Titanic and Jiri Dudacek, what years on the list make you cringe?

---Mike Harrington

Welcome to draft week

The Sabres officially kicked off draft week Monday in HSBC Arena with GM Darcy Regier and amateur scouting director Kevin Devine staying pretty generic about the team's thoughts on the NHL draft Friday night and Saturday in Ottawa.

The Sabres have a chance to get three pretty decent players with the 13th, 26th and 44th picks (No. 26 is San Jose's in the Brian Campbell trade). Recent choices at No. 13 include Toronto's Jiri Tlusty (2006), Buffalo's own Drew Stafford (2004), Los Angeles' Dustin Brown (2003) and Washington's Alexander Semin (2002).

In addition to 13-26-44, the Sabres are also choosing at No. 74 in the third round, 104 (4th round), 134 (5) and  164 (6). San Jose has Buffalo's seventh-rounder in the Campbell deal. Here's the first-round order:

     1. Tampa Bay
     2. Los Angeles
     3. Atlanta
     4.  St. Louis
     5.  NY Islanders
     6.  Columbus
     7.  Toronto
     8.  Phoenix
    9.  Nashville (from Florida)
    10. Vancouver
     11. Chicago
     12. Anaheim (from Edmonton)
     13. Buffalo
     14. Carolina
     15. Nashville
     16. Boston
     17. Calgary
     18. Ottawa
     19. Columbus (from Colorado)
     20. NY Rangers
     21. New Jersey
     22. Edmonton (from Anaheim)
     23. Washington
     24. Minnesota
     25. Montreal
     26. Buffalo (from San Jose)
     27. Philadelphia
     28. Los Angeles (from Dallas)
     29. Atlanta (from Pittsburgh)
     30. Detroit

---Mike Harrington