BUFFALO - The Sabres may have found a little value late in the draft with Dylan Dumont, a sixth-round pick who brought real production and a growing two-way game out of Drummondville.
Dumont, who turns 18 on Aug. 17, arrived in the Quebec Maritime Junior Hockey League as a winger with skill. The Voltigeurs, though, didn’t let him stay in that lane all the time. Former coach Sylvain Favreau said they pushed him into situations that forced him to round out his game, not just flash with the puck.
“Being able to contribute as much away from the puck than with the puck,” former Drummondville coach Sylvain Favreau told the Times Herald.
That meant Dumont got chances on the first and second lines, but also assignments that tested him. Favreau said the team wanted him to learn through both success and failure.
“We gave him opportunities to succeed, but we also gave him opportunities for failure, and not because we don’t like him, but it’s just for him to have those lessons,” Favreau said.
One of those lessons came in the defensive zone, where the Voltigeurs trusted him with late-period faceoffs and other pressure moments. If he missed a coverage, it became a teaching point. Favreau said that kind of workload helped Dumont grow fast.
“Those types of opportunities, he got a lot, and he really (had) a lot of success, and his growth was incredible,” said Favreau, who on Thursday was hired as an assistant coach by the Syracuse Crunch, the Tampa Bay Lightning’s AHL affiliate.
The offense still came, and in a big way. At 6-foot and 168 pounds, Dumont led Drummondville with 28 goals and finished with 44 points in 62 games for a team that outperformed expectations and leaned heavily on 17-year-olds. That production helped convince Buffalo to take him 188th overall on June 27.
Favreau credited Dumont’s skating and hands for much of that scoring touch. He said the rookie could beat defenders off the rush, finish around the net, and make plays in tight.
“He’s someone that can put the puck (in) the net, and in tight, he’s got great hands, he can finish,” he said. “He can finish off the rush with a good shot and shot selection, he moves his feet.
“Where he has to gain is on the physical side, needs to become a more complete player physically, and that’s going to come with maturity.”
Dumont also got a taste of playoff hockey, scoring four goals in five games during Drummondville’s first-round loss to Val-d’Or. Favreau said that series gave the younger players a hard look at what happens when they run into a bigger, older opponent.
“You saw kind of good and bad, which is totally normal for kids that age competing,” Favreau said. “… It was intimidating for some of our guys to play against these guys, and probably why they had success in that first round against us.”
For a Sabres system that needs more forward prospects, Dumont could end up being a smart swing. Buffalo made only five picks this year after dealing away selections, so each one matters more.
Dumont did not go to the NHL Scouting Combine, but he said he had a “great chat” with the Sabres a week before the draft. After last Thursday’s development camp session at LECOM Harborcenter, he said landing in Buffalo felt like a major moment.
“It was a dream come true,” he said.
He also had a close-up view of what the Sabres can mean to a city. Dumont grew up in Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, about 30 minutes from Montreal, and watched Buffalo’s second-round playoff series against the Canadiens. From roughly 400 miles away, he said he could feel the building shake when the Sabres scored at home.
“The whole thing was electric,” he said of the entertaining seven-game series the Canadiens clinched in overtime at KeyBank Center. “The fans were unbelievable.”
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