Three drafts, zero picks and then 67 goals. A spotlight on Zac Funk and his path to the Buffalo Sabres.
Introduction
Every team in the NHL had three separate chances to draft Zac Funk. Three times, and all of them passed. Then, in his third and final year of draft eligibility, the Prince George Cougars winger scored 67 goals, the third-most of any player-season in the entire four-year, seven-league dataset – and still there was crickets.
Players getting passed over by the NHL is not uncommon. But in this story, we're going to explore what happened before the 67 goals, what happened after it, and the question hanging over the first full pro season of his career: will this be Zac Funk's breakout year in the NHL?
The Number Scouts Missed
Funk turned 18 in July 2021, which made him eligible for the draft that October. However, he went unpicked. And then he went unpicked again in 2022, and again in 2023. Each time the passing on Funk may have been justifiable; that is, he wasn't consistently producing across his first three junior seasons. Generally, scouting models are built to reward steady, visible performance and production over four or five viewings a year.
Then came the spike in 2023-24. In 68 games, Funk put up 67 goals and 56 assists for 123 points, leading the entire WHL in goals. He scored eight hat tricks in that single season, up from zero in the previous three years combined. That was a +112% jump in points year over year, the kind of curve that doesn't show up cleanly on a five-year projection chart.
Yeah, you read that right: +112%!
In short, three draft classes had already priced him out before he was able to hit his stride. And clearly, Funk was aware of this.
“I knew going into my last year of junior that I had to make something happen. Desperation is a big factor in that; I knew I had to put the pedal to the metal.”
— ZAC FUNK, THE HOCKEY NEWS
Where Funk Actually Ranks
And while it may be easy to write off one junior season as an outlier by virtue of matchups, linemates, or a weak league, the data reads differently. Funk's 1.81 points per game in 2023-24 sits in the 99.8th percentile of all 15,956 qualifying player-season stints (minimum 10 games played) across the seven North American minor and junior leagues that we tracked, spanning four seasons worth of data. His 67 goals rank third among every player-season in that same window.
That's not third among undrafted players. That's third full stop!
Now, we're not saying that any of this means he could have jumped straight into the NHL – even the top leagues in this dataset post lower raw scoring rates than the NHL's own middle tier. And draft prospects rarely jump straight onto the ice with NHL teams. But a 99.8th-percentile season, no less in a league where the data reinforces a legitimate development pathway rather than empty stats, is not the profile of a player who should have gone four drafts without a call.
So, what did the scouts miss?
The Teammate Who Went in Round One
One aspect of what the scouts potentially missed was right there with Funk. Terik Parascak, with whom Funk shared the same bench, team and coaching staff, put up 43 goals and 62 assists for 105 points in 2023-24 and went 17th overall to Washington in the 2024 draft. But, Funk outscored his own first-round-drafted linemate by 18 points that year and was still passed over.
That notwithstanding, Funk was super positive about Parascak going to the show.
“I was back in my hometown watching the draft and when I heard his name, I was pumped. I was yelling...It's very exciting to have a linemate come here.”
— ZAC FUNK, RMNB
The thrill of two linemates attending development camp and the pressures of producing are evident in this YouTube interview of Funk and Parascak. Clearly, these guys had on-ice chemistry and knew how each other played the game.
To visualize the comparison of their production stats, here's a view of Funk and Parascak in the 2023-24 season.
Zoom out to the full four-season tracking window and the picture gets more textured. Funk logged a qualifying season (GP ≥ 10) in every one of the four years the dataset covers — a clean run that not every prospect in this cohort can claim. And his blended scoring rate spanned all four seasons (1.13 points per game) and sits roughly three times the dataset's median of 0.37 and lands in 98th-percentile territory league-wide.
This was significant.
At first glance, Parascak's own four-season blended rate, 1.42 points per game across three qualifying WHL seasons, is actually higher than Funk's on this cut. This is because Parascak's number is built from three strong junior seasons, while Funk's blend already includes his first, injury-shortened taste of pro hockey. Interestingly, the statistical apex over this same stretch belongs to Andrew Cristall, at 1.62 points per game across four seasons split between the WHL and AHL, which is shown below.
Read together, the three numbers tell a three-pronged story:
- Funk was one of the better players on his own draft-day bench;
- he has been durable and productive at a rate that exceeds the league median; and
- he still has ground to make up on the two comparable names (Parascak and Cristall).
All things considered, perhaps it's the consistency factor that accounted for Funk being passed over.
So, where to from here?
The Road Since the Breakout
In March 2024, months after going undrafted for a third time, Funk signed a three-year entry-level contract with the Washington Capitals as an undrafted free agent. Someone in the Caps organization believed the breakout was real even without a draft slot attached to it.
“They were frontrunners... they were really personable, they wanted me from the start. I always wanted to be a Capital.”
— ZAC FUNK, THE HOCKEY NEWS
The two seasons since have been thin by necessity: just 33 total games split between Hershey of the AHL and South Carolina of the ECHL, an injury-shortened stretch that hasn't given his pro translation much room to get into the spotlight.
This past July, Washington traded him to Buffalo for forward Tyler Kopff. So Funk now has a new number and organization, reporting to the Rochester Americans, and, notably, only one season left before he's eligible for restricted free agency. This puts real stakes behind whatever happens next rather than leaving it as a curiosity.
Yeah, it's game on!
The Key Question for this Season
So, here is where he's at. Funk is a player who was a very productive forward on his own draft-eligible roster; he ranked in the 99.8th percentile of goal-scoring across a four-season, seven-league dataset; and he has been durable enough to post a qualifying season within the dataset. However, his actual pro sample is 33 games long and was unfortunately interrupted by injury, and his production numbers over that stretch still trail a teammate who was drafted in the first round.
But, Funk now has an opportunity to build on his past successes with the Rochester Americans – and could potentially see time with the Sabres if he does well.
In Funk's own words:
“I have to earn everything I get here so I'm just learning...We'll see.”
— ZAC FUNK, RMNB
In short, a healthy, full season in Rochester is the first real chance to answer the question three draft classes couldn't settle: was 67 goals in a walk year the floor of what Zac Funk is, or the ceiling? The data says he's earned the look. Whether his translated production climbs back toward that WHL peak – or toward Cristall's tier – over a full 72-game season is the one number this file doesn't have yet.
Will we feel the funk?
