Now Starring for the Buffalo Sabres... Tyler Ennis?!

"Dude, where's my comb?"

Apparently, a half-decent first 10 games in the NHL buys you instant cred. At least that seems to be the case for Tyler Ennis of the Buffalo Sabres, who, no offense to him, looks more like he belongs in juvie as a 15-year-old crack addict guilty of trying – and failing – to rip off a convenience store rather than on an actual professional hockey team.

Ennis, obviously, isn’t 15. Considering he was drafted 26th overall by the Sabres in 2008, and players have to be 18 to be drafted, he’s 20. However, if ignorant fantasy-hockey poolies had to guess he likely would be going on 28 and entering the prime of his career following his nine-point performance in 10 games last season.

I have personally been a part of several fantasy drafts in the past few days and Ennis has been drafted relatively high in each of them, ahead of players like Stephen Weiss, Alex Kovalev, Jason Arnott, David Perron, Steve Sullivan, Sam Gagner, Mike Fisher, Chris Stewart, James Neal, Andy McDonald, hell, even Tyler Seguin. As such two things are abundantly clear:

1) The world is going to hell in a hand basket and Ennis is one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, probably famine, judging by his skeletal appearance, but that could be the crack, though.

2) I’m in all likelihood going to do alright in all of my pools.

Now, admittedly Weiss may not pan out with the Florida Panthers because he may or may not have a lucid David Booth to play with (I like Booth, but, when it comes to pools, past concussions are a serious cause for concern), and Kovalev is always a risk-reward kind of guy. Meanwhile, Arnott will be playing in the offensive wasteland that is New Jersey, with the Devils only possibly due for an increase in output now that they have Ilya Kovalchuk. And Perron has yet to find his full stride as a top-six forward.

In addition, Sullivan is likely to get injured sometime before Christmas as sure as death and taxes are a certainty. The only thing that remains to be seen is for how long. But, then again, Marian Gaborik is also due for a groin pull, or some other type of injury that sounds like it could originate in a bath house, following a completely healthy 2009-2010. Now look me in the eye and tell me that you would choose Ennis ahead of Gaborik. If you’re able to, you’re either a very good liar or are blessed with some weird kind of medical condition that prevents you from blinking regularly.

At the end of the day, choosing Ennis over any of those players can certainly be justified if one tries hard enough, but who would the guilty parties be trying to convince? Their competition that Ennis is destined for 60 points so that they can trade him before the season starts and he turns out to be just as much of a dud as teammate Drew Stafford? Or themselves because they’re closet Sabres fans that have to draft every Sabre possible the same way Hab-happy Montreal Canadiens loyalists choose to believe P.K. Subban will win both the Calder and Norris Memorial Trophies this year? Maybe both sets of fans should go shopping in the next few days to get a head start on getting their grocery bags before the playoffs, which both teams are likely to miss.

Logic dictates that the only way Ennis starts the season as a top-six forward is if he starts the season on a team short on depth. Seeing as scouting reports reveal just that, it’s clear the Sabres will encounter much the same problem they did last year, with a twist: there’s no guarantee that they will have the above-average goaltending necessary to come to the rescue of their utterly average team.

Ryan Miller may have won the Vezina Trophy last year, but the Boston Bruins’ Tim Thomas won it the year before, and that only got him the best seat in the house riding the pine as Tuukka Rask’s back-up. And while Martin Brodeur won it in each of the two previous years, the Calgary Flames’ Miikka Kiprusoff won it the year before, and I would refer you then to our post which reveals just how quickly a decent team can turn bad. Shameless self-promotion or not, it doesn’t change the fact that the Sabres can go from Northeast Division champions to playoff-bubble chumps just like that.

Up front, while Tim Connolly is injury-prone, Thomas Vanek continues to cripple the team with his huge $7-million salary-cap hit and ever-decreasing return on investment. And Jason Pominville and Derek Roy continue to baffle fans with their inconsistency. Roy, especially, can be a superstar one game and worse than invisible the next.

Meanwhile, if your best defenseman is a 20-year-old not named Drew Doughty, you’re in for problems. Tyler Myers will be a stalwart on the blue line for many years, but he’s still some time away from making that potential of his a reality. Forcing him into a starring role on what by most accounts will be a mediocre team is not going to lead to success for him or the team. Kind of like Ennis.