Sabres set to pick 6 times when 2020 NHL Draft begins Tuesday night

The 2020 NHL Draft, originally scheduled for June 26-27 in Montreal, will be held virtually this week.
Round 1 will kick off Tuesday night at 7 p.m. on NBCSN and Rounds 2-7 will take place on Wednesday starting at 11:30 a.m. on NHL Network. The Buffalo Sabres currently have six picks in the draft:

1. Round 1, Pick 8 (8th overall)
   2. Round 2, Pick 7 (38th overall)
   3. Round 4, Pick 7 (100th overall)
   4. Round 5, Pick 7 (131st overall)
   5. Round 7, Pick 7 (193rd overall)
   6. Round 7, Pick 30 (216th overall), From Dallas
      Rimouski center Alexis Lafrenière of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League is expected to be the first player selected. The New York Rangers
      hold the No. 1 pick
      by virtue of winning the second phase of the NHL Draft Lottery.

Options at 8

As Mike G. Morreale of NHL.com
writes
, the Sabres "should target a few more creative forwards to complement Jack] Eichel, [Dylan
, Morreale has the Sabres picking Holtz, while Adam Kimmelman sees Raymond going to Buffalo and Guillaume Lepage predicts Perfetti falling to 8.
TSN's Craig Button sees
Buffalo taking Perfetti
as well. The Athetic's Corey Pronman, meanwhile, has Buffalo
ending up with Rossi
in his latest mock draft. Sam Cosentino of Sportsnet has Perfetti
ranked eighth
.

The two top-ranked defensemen could also be available. Scott Wheeler of The Athletic ranks Erie Otters defenseman Jamie Drysdale as
the eighth-best player available
, while TSN's Bob McKenzie puts American defenseman Jake Sanderson
in that slot
. Sanderson, who will likely be the first U.S. player off the board, is the son of former Sabres forward Geoff Sanderson.
Yaroslav Askarov of Russia is the top ranked goaltender and some draft experts, like Kimmelman and Pronman, see him as a viable Top 10 pick.
"The main question going into the draft is where does the top-ranked goaltender Yaroslav Askarov go?"
Pronman writes
. "Depending on that move, it could shift the dominoes around a lot."

Sabres scouting department is ready

The 2020 NHL Draft will be Kevyn Adams' first as general manager of the Buffalo Sabres. He's been putting in the work along with new director of scouting Jeremiah Crowe, assistant director of scouting/director of analytics Jason Nightingale and their entire staff.
Adams spoke Monday afternoon with the media and you can
read all about it here
.
Also,
as detailed here on Sabres.com
, Crowe and Nightingale re-visited the player pool this past summer with an emphasis on merging traditional scouting techniques, video analysis, and analytics:
Once the initial viewings were complete, detailed meetings were held with Crowe, Nightingale, and scouts to weigh takeaways from games, projections for a what a player could become, and data-driven insights on a player's impact. Scouts were then asked to conduct a second wave of analysis to answer why their findings may or may not be true.
The idea was to build a system of checks and balances to explain the "why" behind a player's performance.
"We're not really asking anymore if they control the game, because we can measure that," Nightingale said. "We're not asking, 'What is their offensive impact?' because we can measure that.
"It's, how are they doing that? And the way that they do it, how will that translate to the next level? I think that's how the two interact, the scout and the information."

Nightingale, who has been with the organization since 2013, said the amount of data available is better than ever before. That is true league-wide, though in this case the timing coincides with a mandate both from Adams and ownership to implement analytics into the team's scouting strategy.
"We rely on our scouts to make sense of data and vice-versa," Crowe said. "Figuring out if there's some variable that might be misrepresenting either side has been good. I think our guys are getting a grasp of it more and more as we go."
Given the timeline that typically exists between a player being drafted and turning pro - which often takes up to three years or longer - questions of positional fit are less pressing.
"What we're trying to figure out is how to acquire the best assets," Nightingale said. "So, I think that's why our priority is trying to find players who project to the NHL level."
Read the full feature here.
We'll hear from Adams and Crowe on Monday afternoon when they virtually meet with the media for their pre-draft press conferences.

Stick with Sabres.com all week

Stay tuned to Sabres.com and the team's official social media channels this week for exclusive 2020 NHL Draft coverage presented by Geico. We'll also be updating this post with fresh content until the draft begins.
In addition to 1-on-1 interviews, written features and behind-the-scenes coverage, Sabres broadcasters Brian Duff and Martin Biron will be live on social after the eighth overall pick to share their thoughts on the selection and the draft so far.
The Sabres are also asking fans to help welcome any new players to Buffalo. Fans can give their recommendations of Buffalo's best offerings that will be included in a new "Welcome to Buffalo" guide: