Sabres Daily: First Round Failures #7; Samsonov Gets Arb Award

The Buffalo Sabres have had some major successes in the NHL Draft, starting with their first franchise selection of Gilbert Perreault, to Hall-of-Famers Tom Barrasso and Pierre Turgeon, to their most recent top overall picks of Rasmus Dahlin and Owen Power, but where there is success, there is inevitably failure. For the next entry on the list of Sabres first-round failures, we look at a winger that never played a game in the Buffalo organization.

#7 Joel Savage

In the 1988 Draft where Mike Modano was selected first overall and Jeremy Roenick, Rod Brind’Amour, and Teemu Selanne went just ahead of the Sabres selection, Buffalo at unlucky #13 chose winger Joel Savage. The Surrey, BC native scored 37 goals for the WHL’s Victoria Cougars in his draft year but followed that up with a disappointing 17 goals as a 19-year-old before turning pro in 1989.

After struggling in his first professional season, Savage scored 25 goals with AHL Rochester and earned a three-game stint in Buffalo, but that was the extent of his NHL career. He played five seasons at various levels of the Sabres organization before playing internationally for Canada in 1995 and spending the rest of his career playing in Germany and Switzerland before retiring in 2004.

Sabres In Case You Missed It

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• Are The Sabres Still Shopping In The Free Agent Market?
• Amerks Add Assistants Paetsch, Prospal To Replace Peca, Weber
• Miller Bridge Deal May Provide Roadmap For Power
• Sabres Lock Up Jacksonville As ECHL Affiliate
• Sabres Sign Wahlberg To ELC, Murray Re-signed
• How Much Rope Will The Sabres Goaltending Get?
• Sabres Sign Weissbach, Jacksonville Is ECHL Affiliate
• How Krueger Almost Ruined The Sabres – Part I
• How Krueger Almost Ruined The Sabres – Part II
• Levi Ranked Third Among Goalie Prospects 

Toronto Maple Leafs goalie Ilya Samsonov received an arbitration award of $3.55 million on Sunday. The one-year deal will walk the 26-year-0ld Samsonov to unrestricted free agency next summer and also kicks in a 72-hour buyout window for Leafs GM Brad Treliving to play with. That window may be utilized to buy out the final year of goalie Matt Murray’s contract.

HIS NAME IS ILYA SAMSONOV pic.twitter.com/nH9a6SkMSZ

— Omar (@TicTacTOmar) December 14, 2022

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