“The Thing We Value Most is a High Compete Level” | Sabres Assistant General Manager Jerry Forton

“The Thing We Value Most is a High Compete Level” | Sabres Assistant General Manager Jerry Forton

was the focus to add physicality and some of the Prospect and add that element to your pool some of the guys you had in last day or so it’s always one of the elements you’re looking for um it’s really tough uh to be able to identify and check all the boxes uh with the players when they’re 17 years old and I heard Kevin you know talk about the the trade and the player we added I mean what makes it so attractive something like that is that’s a player that’s already doing it at the NHL level so you’re trying to predict with which 17-year-old is going to be a player that’s willing to take that on in the future it’s not just a matter of a player having size um I think the thing we value the most is the high compete level and obviously size is important and you hope that in time those two things will uh end up um you know morphing into you know even maybe more toughness and aggressiveness than you see at the time when you’re watching them in their draft J you tell USV was a huge priority player for us we had them high in their list it seems like there’s one of these players uh each year for us that we’ve been fortunate enough to get in their early to mid second round obviously a a big kid uh skates well I think he has a good brain for the game the uh the character with this kid is uh just as much a part of the story as anything else he he left Minnesota high school hockey uh before his junior year to move out to Lincoln Nebraska played two full years in the USHL which is extremely rare uh for a kid to leave Minnesota high school at that stage uh going into Minnesota Deluth next year as a as a true young freshman uh forced his way onto the US team at the W Junior a challenge uh was the youngest D member on that team and started as the seventh dman and by the end of the tournament was their their best player uh so the package and the person are both extremely attractive to us always helps or usually helps if you have the right shot as well and I think he he’s a player where you’ll see um the what I just talked about the the compe in character that morphs into some toughness and aggressiveness as he goes up levels it really wasn’t and there were probably actually a couple picks there where it got in our brain a couple times and we were thinking should we go after forward in this spot uh to balance out the class a little bit because we were a little dehe heavy last year as well but I do think the previous couple drafts before that we were a little bit heavy on the forward side so we thought about it we weren’t really focusing on D we had a feeling in the second third round it might fall that way the twice there was a forward we were targeting in the third fourth round where the the players taken right before our pick was a forward but we were still very happy with the next player on our list I would say close to every year and you’re going to balance that out in terms of what round you take them in it it’s really difficult there tends to be a run on goalies as we all know in the second and third round and it seems like once the first one goes uh a bunch go right after we didn’t feel like we had one slotted uh in the early rounds where we were comfortable taking them we thought we had one we were going to take in the fourth uh a goalie just like a couple of forwards went right before our pick and then we had a few that we were targeting late so one worked out late but it helps to have them in your pipeline we were very happy to get you know rats laugh where we got him last year so that that piggybacks on that a little bit too we had a if we did not get zemer with that pick we were going down over 20 slots on their draft board to the next player that would have been available a captain of the US team uh moved all around their top six all season long really for two seasons is a player that just makes other players and the linemates and really drives the entire teams and programs culture there I’m very convinced we’re all very close on our staff with the University of Minnesota staff I can almost assure you he’ll be just like he was at the national program he’ll be a future captain at the University of Minnesota and he’s got a fallback game but he’s also got great hands around the net and a good shot overall and and I will add and I see some of the commentary you know cona is the same thing 511 5 11 and A2 forwards these players are 190 and 197 PBS already I I don’t know if any of you saw con’s uh brother yesterday but he plays in the same program for the junior team in uket couple years older he’s a little bit over 6 feet tall and 212 lb I I don’t know if we expect you know helenus to get to that size but I would expect he’s going to play over 200 lb and touch six feet by the time he’s playing in the NHL and zemer is same way I think he’ll be over six feet and play at probably 210 pounds you guys have a lot of connections with G through Michigan State whether be Adam and then Tim Kennedy coached him with the junior Sabers what What attracted you guys to to him great story there uh another high compete player two years in the USL uh forced his way into lineup at Michigan State this year and obviously was Stir back there and the you know the the the draft eligible player that we saw Michigan State so many times he was a player that Jason Nightingale was extremely passionate about as were others myself included uh we brought them into our own little mini combine in Buffalo I had you know Timmy Kennedy and Jason and others telling me what an elite athlete he was always uh we ran him through the same test that um our NHL players run through and that that they use at the combine he would have tested out at the combine in the top three percentile of all the athletes at the combine and probably top five percentile of our NHL players and love the path you know a couple more years at least at Michigan State and you know the Buffalo being a buffalo kid’s a bonus and we obviously know his character inside now I would consider him still a very raw player and I think by his own admission he was a little bit of um he used the term that a couple coaches used with him he was a little bit of a cowboy on the ice at times I I would say like a wild course he just wanted to rely on high compete all the time and being at Michigan State and playing college hockey and in the Big 10 he’s adapting to a little more structure scored the game-winning goal in the Big 10 championship game uh started to rain his game in a little bit but the thing we like most is athleticism skating strong frame and high compete level thanks than you

Buffalo Sabres Assistant General Manager Jerry Forton speaks to the media following the end of the 2024 NHL Draft. He discusses the acquisition of forward Beck Malenstyn at the draft and the need for more physicality next season. Forton also talks about the team’s mindset of each pick selection throughout the draft process.

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