First the draft and then free agency

The draft is a mere three weeks away and while many are dreaming of the Sabres moving up into the top 5 for a player like Matt Duchene, Evander Kane, or Brayden Schenn, I don't believe that is likely to happen.

Since the lockout, no team has traded out of the top 5 and into the teens. And with younger players being value guys, I can't see that trend changing. Especially since Darcy Regier is unlikely to really blow a team away with a trade offer.

The only time in recent memory where Regier even tried to make a splashy move like that was when he had a trade asset he HAD to move in Michael Peca. But, when he failed to land Rick Nash, he had to settle for the Connolly-Pyatt combo from the Islanders.

If you are looking for some new school ideas on the draft, Puck Prospectus is the place to go. Sure, articles about how impact offensive defensemen are most likely to be drafted in the 1st round and impact goalies largely come from the top 3 rounds isn't earth shattering, but they do seem to cut through some of the traditional thinking (like overvaluing size in players) and go for some of the "Moneyball" type undervalued gems that have been adopted by pretty much everyone in Major League Baseball.

I think a couple of guys that PP will fall in love in this draft will be Windsor defenseman Ryan Ellis and Finnish forward Toni Rajala. Ellis was a PP specialist for Team Canada at the World Jrs and helped lead Windsor to a Memorial Cup title this season. And Rajala was just named the best forward at the U-18 World Championships after bagging 10 goals and 9 assists in 6 games for Finland.

Both seem to have a lack of size as the biggest negative attached to them going into the draft. And Puck Prospectus doesn't seem to buy into that rationalization for decreasing their draft stock.

It will be interesting to see how things work out.

Now about free agency.........

WGR is going topic radio with throwing a name of an UFA to be out there and seeing whom their listeners would like the Sabres to add this off season.

I'm going to go the other way and say that the Sabres #1 priority this off season should be to clear cap space.

CapGeek.com spells out why this should be a priority. The Sabres currently have the 7th worst cap situation in the NHL.

The toughest part of that is that they six teams in worst shape all made the playoffs this season.

Add in the uncertainty of of where the cap will go in 2010-11 and I'm worried that the Sabres will make their cap situation even worse if they dip into the UFA market this off season.

But with Regier and Ruff likely under the gun, my guess is that the long term status of their roster versus the cap won't be their #1 concern heading into UFA...........