By Budd Bailey

Bob Corkum of the Sabres

Taken in Round 3 in 1986

The next pick: Defenseman Sean Borland, a Maple Leafs selection, never played a game in the NHL.

Other picks in the round: The Sabres took Kevin Kerr at No. 56. The right winger played 18 years in the pros in North America, but none of them took place in the NHL. Kevin did have five straight 100-point seasons with the Flint Generals. Jyrki Lumme of the Canadiens (No. 57) leads the players from that round with 985 games.

The details: It took Corkum three seasons to become a regular with the Sabres, but he reached that goal in the 1992-93 season. Then he was taken by Anaheim in the expansion draft. Bob went on to suit up fro Philadelphia, Phoenix, Los Angeles, New Jersey and Atlanta before he returned to Buffalo in March 2002 in a deadline deal.

Other 47s: Norm Milley looked like a great scorer in junior hockey for Sudbury when the Sabres drafted him in 1998. He couldn’t make the jump to the next level, playing 15 games for Buffalo. The Bandits drafted Jimmy Purves in the fifth round in 2010. He was on the roster by 2011, and played in 21 games over three years. Jimmy wore No. 98. No Bills have ever been drafted at No. 47.

(Follow Budd on Twitter @WDX2BB)

Budd Bailey

Budd Bailey has been involved in almost every aspect of the local sports scene for the last 40 years. He worked for WEBR Radio, the Buffalo Sabres' public relations department and The Buffalo News during that time. In that time he covered virtually every aspect of the area's sports world, from high schools to the Bills and Sabres and everything in between. Along the way, Budd served as a play-by-play announcer for the Bisons, an analyst for the Stallions, and a talk-show host. He won the National Lacrosse League's Tom Borrelli Award as the media personality of the year in 2011, and was a finalist for that same award in 2017. Budd's seventh and eighth books, one on the Transcontinental Railroad and the other about Ichiro Suzuki, are scheduled to be released in the fall.

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