NHL Draft: Worst 1st round draft pick in franchise history: Buffalo Sabres, Marek Zagrapan 2005 NHL Draft
There are a lot of players currently on the Buffalo Sabres that are a little too soon to call the worst bust in the history of the team. Rasmus Ristolainen is likely getting traded. Jack Eichel is on his way out. Casey Middlestadt never lived up to the hype. Alex Nylander has his issues. They took Sam Reinhart the pick before Leon Draisaitl. When a team misses the playoffs for a decade, there will always be bad draft picks that contribute to the issues at hand.
We go back to the 2005 NHL Draft to see where the problems really started. Marek Zagrapan was a player who the Sabres spent a lot of time and effort trying to get him acclimated to the North American style of play. They drafted him out of the QMJHL as he was trying to lose the habits that come with playing in Slovakia. A year after the draft, he went to play in the AHL.
That’s where things went wrong. No, Zagrapan didn’t struggle too much in the minors. He actually scored 38 points including 17 goals in his first season for the Rochester Americans. He did a little bit better in his second year (18 goals and 40 points). Then, in his third year in the AHL, he set his career high with 49 points and 21 goals.
Right before the offseason in 2009, Zagrapan surprisingly signed a deal with the KHL’s Severstal Cherepovets. They gave him a three-year deal, and his agent said it didn’t matter what the Sabres did, he was staying in Russia. The Sabres ended up getting zero NHL games from Zagrapan and were blind-sighted by his departure.
There weren’t a ton of talented players in the 2005 first round, but they did leave Tuukka Rask, T.J. Oshie, and Martin Hanzal on the board to take the Slovak center. He is still playing overseas, but he’s had to go from country to country as he never really lives up to his hype. He’s now playing in his native Slovakia, so it seems to work out how it was supposed to.