Which 2025 NHL Draft prospects can help Buffalo Sabres find more toughness?

New York Times

2 days ago

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Everybody wants what the Florida Panthers have.
In Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final against the Edmonton Oilers, Sam Bennett made two effective body checks in the defensive zone before springing loose for a breakaway, which he finished with a goal. His career high regular season point total came this season with 51, but in the playoffs, Bennett is a difference-maker. This year, he leads all players with 14 playoff goals and has recorded a point per game. But it's his tenacity, physicality and abrasive nature that have made him one of the Panthers' most valuable players while they try to repeat as Stanley Cup champions.
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And yet, 11 years ago, Bennett couldn't do a single pull-up during the physical testing portion of the NHL Scouting Combine before the draft.
Two things are true: 1) Most NHL teams would love to have more players who have competitiveness and toughness. 2) Drafting and developing those players organically is tricky.
That's the problem NHL teams are trying to solve. Even as the game has become faster and more skilled than ever, the physical element of the sport hasn't gone away. If anything, the Panthers' run has amplified the value of that playing style. Bennett, Matthew Tkachuk and Aleksander Barkov set the tone for a lineup full of gnarly competitors.
The night before media and testing day at the 2025 NHL Scouting Combine, the Panthers and Oilers played a double-overtime classic in Game 2 of the final. Connor McDavid's show-stopping move on his assist was a highlight, but Bennett, Tkachuk and Brad Marchand, players who combine skill with truculence, also made a big difference in the game. The Panthers don't get to the Stanley Cup Final three years in a row without a few players who are miserable for opponents to play against.
Not only are other teams around the league starting to recognize that, but the prospects themselves are gravitating to that style of play. Maybe it's just the particular batch of prospects available in the draft this year, but these players are modeling their game after different types of players. When players fielded questions about who they try to emulate, the Tkachuk brothers came up often. So did Bennett, Capitals forward Tom Wilson, Jets captain Adam Lowry, Flyers forward Travis Konecny and Lightning forward Brandon Hagel. In their own way, each of those players brings a nastiness to the game. What those players all have in common is that they aren't bottom-of-the-lineup players. They are tough but skilled enough to play in the top six.
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'I think it's how hockey should be played,' said Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds center Brady Martin, a projected top-10 pick. 'Nowadays, that's what wins championships. It's not always the most skilled players. It's the guys that want it the most. That style of play is coming back.'
Martin is one of the heaviest hitters available in the 2025 NHL Draft. That he can combine that with scoring ability is why he's likely getting picked in the top 10. You don't have to watch Martin for long to recognize his toughness. But it's not always easiest to spot which 17- and 18-year-olds will bring a hard-nosed playing style when they get to the NHL.
'You can get tendencies on players in terms of their ability to play a tough or aggressive style of hockey,' Sabres associate general manager Jason Karmanos said. 'Of course, we look for players with those elements. Depending on what level they're playing at, it's not as easily detectable. Some players that are physically underdeveloped may have it come a little later in that regard. Especially if they're playing in a league against men but they have a boy's body.'
The Sabres are a team that has lacked the hard edge the Panthers have in their game. They tried to address that by adding Beck Malenstyn, Sam Lafferty and Nicolas Aube-Kubel to their roster last summer. But it helps to have some of these players coming through the prospect pipeline, too. These 17- and 18-year-olds won't make the Sabres a harder team to play against tomorrow. Still, the process needs to start somewhere. The players who are capable of playing high up in a lineup and have toughness aren't easy to acquire in trades and free agency, either. That's why the draft can be a useful mechanism for finding these types of players.
Since Kevyn Adams became the Sabres' general manager, there has been some criticism that they've been drafting too many smaller skill players, particularly at forward. Of the forwards the Sabres have drafted in the top two rounds under Adams, only Anton Wahlberg was bigger than 6-feet tall. Prokhor Poltapov, Zach Benson and Konsta Helenius all have a competitive playing style, but until the Sabres are playing in bigger games and those players physically mature, it will be tough to gauge what type of jam they really have.
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'If people think that it's easy to detect who is going to be a tough or physical player at the NHL level when they're 17 or 18, they haven't been too involved in the NHL Draft,' Karmanos said. 'We try to project all kinds of attributes. Sometimes in the draft, you're just trying to find NHL players. I think the success rates will tell you that's what you should focus on, and not focus on player types, especially when it takes so long to develop them. If we have too many of a certain type, I hope they all play, and then we can trade them for other assets that maybe look a little different.'
The problem is that if too many players project for similar roles, there won't be enough room to develop them all. Only so many players can get the valuable development minutes on the top line and power play in the AHL. Balancing out the prospect pool with different skill sets is part of building a pipeline. Of course, if you overcompensate for physicality at the expense of skill, you end up with a prospect pool full of bottom-six players. The rare find is a player who can play high up the lineup and has the 'hardness' to his game.
This class has a few candidates. Martin is one such player in the top 10, but he's not the only one. Brampton winger Porter Marton plays a rugged style but has the hands and goal-scoring touch to be a top-line player. He's already been forced to learn the balance that the Tkachuk brothers deal with regularly when it comes to being an agitator.
'It's on my time,' Martone said. 'I don't let other people take me off my game. I don't need to be doing that every single time. You see Tkachuk in the playoffs. He chooses when he does create that stuff. For myself, I'm a very offensive player and like to create plays, so I can't spend all of my time in the penalty box.'
Further down the board, you have a player like Windsor's Jack Nesbitt, a 6-foot-4 forward who likes to model his game after Lowry, Winnipeg's captain. He doesn't have the offensive upside of Martin or Martone, but he's a strong net-front player. He also fought seven times in the OHL last season, taking after his uncle, Brandon Biggers, who had a productive junior career. Nesbitt also took boxing lessons last summer.
'He would always show me videos of him fighting on YouTube and stuff like that, and it got me hyped up,' Nesbitt said. 'I'd always want to be like that a little bit and be a bit like him.
'Every team loves a good goal scorer and playmaker and stuff like that, but I feel like I have that asset to my game, and I also have the gritty part of my game,' Nesbitt said. 'I'm always trying to hit guys, I'll fight if I have to, and I can put the puck in the net.'
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Everett's Carter Bear would also fall into the category of a competitive player, even if he's not as physically imposing as Martin and Nesbitt. He's recovering from a partial Achilles tear but is already back on the ice. He might be the best forechecker in the draft and has the offensive ability to match. Without the injury, would Bear be a top-10 pick?
Then there's Justin Carbonneau, a winger who played in the QMJHL last season. At 6-foot-1 and just over 200 pounds, he has the look of a power forward. But will he be able to raise his level of physicality to match the higher levels?
Among the defensemen, Barrie's Kashawn Aitcheson, who is 6-foot-1 and right around 200 pounds, looks like the toughest of the bunch. He racked up over 200 penalty minutes over the last two seasons in the OHL.
'You see a guy with his head down, and you want to make a big play on him,' Aitcheson said of his style of play. 'It's obviously more of an energy boost for your team. Give your team some juice, get them fired up.'
What will be worth watching is how much these players get boosted by the way the Panthers have dominated the last few years. The way every player on that roster is committed to playing a competitive style of game all over the ice is the biggest thing separating them from the rest of the league. And there's no question the Sabres need more of that if they're going to become a team that is consistently playing in the postseason. Nobody in this draft is necessarily going to help the Sabres end the drought next season, but building that attitude has to start somewhere.
(Photo of Michael Misa and Brady Martin at 2025 NHL Scouting Combine: Bill Wippert / NHLI via Getty Images)