By Budd Bailey, Buffalo Sports Page Columnist

Peter McNab of the Sabres

Taken in Round 6 in 1972

Other picks in that round: No other player selected in that round played more than 16 games in the NHL, and that player was McNab’s teammate at the University of Denver, Rob Palmer.

The details: McNab, the son of hockey player/coach/GM Max, arrived in Buffalo in the 1973-74 season. He had 43 points in 53 games in 1974-75 when the Sabres reached the Stanley Cup finals, and added 56 points the following season. But he was a little stuck behind centers like Gil Perreault and Don Luce in terms of playing time. The Sabres and Bruins worked out a deal to exchange the rights to free agents, as McNab went to Boston and Andre Savard came here. McNab blossomed as a scorer, scoring at least 35 goals in the next six seasons. He finished with 363 goals.

Other 85s: You’ve spent too much time studying hockey media guides if you remember David Pergola, a fifth-round choice of the Sabres in 1987. The right winger spent four years at Boston College and then played parts of two years for Erie in the ECHL.

(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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