The Buffalo Sabres have signed first-round pick Jack Quinn to a three-year, entry-level contract, the team announced Monday.
The Sabres have signed forward Jack Quinn to a three-year, entry-level contract. pic.twitter.com/3ogpclb9Xa
— Sabres PR (@SabresPR) November 16, 2020
The Sabres selected Quinn with the eighth overall pick in the 2020 NHL Draft. The forward is coming off a 52-goal, 89-point campaign in 62 games with the Ontario Hockey League’s Ottawa 67s in 2019-20.
“Jack’s a Sabre,” Sabres general manager Kevyn Adams said after selecting Quinn. “I mean, I just felt like the work that our staff did in preparing was really important to understand his game.
“… You see the ability for him to keep getting better. His athleticism is high. Just a lot of the metrics that we look at when we’re scouting, he met and some. This was just a player that, the more work we did, the more excited we got.”
Quinn’s selection marked the culmination of a unique career arc that began with the winger being cut from AAA teams as a 14-year-old in his hometown Ottawa. The multisport athlete condensed his focus to hockey from that point on, rising to AAA and then, after a season in the Central Canada Hockey League, to the OHL with the 67s.
Quinn’s 52 goals ranked second in the OHL last season and made him the league’s fourth player of the past decade to reach 50 goals in their draft year. Buffalo’s selection was as much inspired by Quinn’s developmental approach as his scoring prowess.
“He has what I would say is a really good self-awareness of who he is as a player and he also has a determination that I see him getting better and better,” Adams said. “He has that growth mindset kind of mentality where you could just see it, he wants to get better.
Kyle leads sports coverage and hosts the Concrete Jungle podcast. Have a lead or question? Send it to [email protected].