This is the fourth year of our prospect rankings (I think?), and while the previous 3 years were tedious, this year’s prospect pool feels so much more difficult.

In 2022, the entire Top 3 played a full NHL season, #4 almost saved the playoff run, and my #8 ranking later became the organization’s #1. Zach Benson was the big addition to the 2023 rankings and joined the big club immediately. While Devon Levi took a step back in 2024, the 2nd, 4th, and 5th ranked players played NHL games, and #2 specifically played top line minutes for handfuls of the season.

And now…<incoherent noise of uncertainty>?

Not that I think the pool is bad (yet), but is it too much to say that the outlooks for each of the 25 on the list are a little lower than they were the past couple seasons? Or is it just the early graduations for the Power/Kulich/Benson trio in particular (heck, even Josh Doan is still only 23) combined with an NHL roster of only 3 players who are over 30? The amount of NCAA guys?

If nothing else, the clustering of prospect outlooks still has a little bit of tiering after the main guys. So let’s talk through it.

The List’s Vet

Devon Levi could become a 40+ game NHL goalie putting up better statistics than last year in the blink of an eye if there is an injury in Buffalo. He has, meanwhile, proven himself as one of the top AHL goalies in the league, and still only has 39 NHL games under his belt. While the rebound control is still a clear struggle for him in the NHL that was exposed to an extent in the Calder Cup Playoffs, leading to an earlier that hoped for elimination for the Amerks last year, the uncertainty of the goalie position and its prospect development make it hard to say that he isn’t the team’s top prospect from an NHL outlook.

But after an .872 in 9 games last season with the big club after an .899 in 23 games in 2023-24, he isn’t a lock into the #1 spot even with Kulich’s graduation. With the rankings of the last three years also pulled up in front of me, my intuition has me placing Levi Third in my ranking.

Is there a #1 ranked prospect? And why does #2 get that spot over Levi?

I’m choosing to rank Konsta Helenius first on the list because that was the team’s intention when they drafted him.

The vision after he was drafted was middle six. For an end of the lottery pick, consensus was that he had a high floor. A tad over a point every two games in his rookie season in the AHL worked into those priors, and the lasting clips of him from the playoffs were being a rat to Laval. I think that when the Sabres see Helenius, they are aspiring for a Dylan Cozens replacement, and if that means he’s projecting to be on the fringe of the Top 6 if/when Josh Norris isn’t in the lineup, it’s safe to look at the rest of the pool and say that the 19 year old Finn stands out over the rest. While his highlights this season in Rochester won’t be met with “how is this guy not with the big club yet” the way they got with Jiri Kulich, Helenius is probably going to be a guy Mike Leone relies on a lot amongst a changing of the guard slated for the 2025-26 Amerks.

Then after Helenius comes the prospect that I think (prospect camp and training camp pending) is slated to be the team’s first callup come October.

With Sam Lafferty at 65 minutes and Beck Malenstyn at 47 minutes as his most common 5-on-5 linemates, Noah Ostlund, who picks up the second spot in my ranking, had a shot quantity share of 55.19% and a shot quality share of 51.79% in his 8 game sample following an April recall that served as a reward for the second half breakout he had with the Amerks last season. While not a large enough sample to populate a graph that would be able to tell much of a story, he certainly looked like his size isn’t a blocker from him playing in the NHL as a full time player someday. If he gets more game with the Sabres this season, the longer he can stay afloat despite the size knocks, the better his common linemates should be, and the points (which he had none of in those 8 games) should follow.

The 16th overall pick in the 2022 draft takes this spot because while I think Helenius could provide more ice time flexibility once a full time NHL player, the ceiling that could come from him getting It at the net level could rise higher than the value of a trajectory 1A/1B profile goalie. BUT, as I pointed out, chipping in on the scoresheet is going to be important for him to ensure he doesn’t get lapped by other guys looking to take his spot in the pecking order.

The Rookie and The [List’s Other] Vet

I don’t know why Isak Rosen has only been awarded 15 NHL games across the last two seasons, but in the context of Ostlund’s good first sample, for the second year in a row, the points didn’t follow aside from his first career assist on March 27 against the Penguins.

The on-ice production was better in Year 2 compared to Year 1, but the ice time only slightly increased.

If a month goes by and Rosen has earned a spot in the opening night lineup, I think that the profile he’s put together doesn’t spell a fear as a full time player, but if there’s minimal points coming, “AAAA” player descriptions are going to feel written in sharpie for the 22 year old Swede.

At the same time, I think there are some NHL rosters he could be playing on this season, and since I think the player also wouldn’t feel as much enthusiasm towards playing another full season in the AHL, a AAAA for AAAA type swap at a minimum still seems to me like something that could be in the cards (even if it does involve this front office admitting to moving on from another one of their first round selections.

Or he could return to this list next season too and we can do weigh the pros and cons again in 2026. But after being fifth in last season’s rankings, I’m moving him up to fourth this season.

To round out the Top 5, the newest toy on the blue line joins the conversation.

It sounds like the Sabres are prepared for a slow burn and long development chapter for Radim Mrtka, and that is why despite his draft position and fast track to becoming the top RHD prospect in the organization, he still sits at fifth in my rankings.

The sense when he was drafted seemed to be indifference from a lot of fans because (at least I think) the last two Right Shot Big Boys they drafted in the first round were so consistently debated. But comparing Mrtka to Tyler Myers or Rasmus Ristolainen feels like it would be too easy, no?

If the organization doesn’t royally screw things up, Mrtka will never have to be more than the team’s third best defenseman. So from that perspective I guess the pressure is off for him to have to become something more than he is?

I think that his progression in the organization is going to be heavily weighted in what his D+1 season looks like. So we’ll see.

The “This is a big year for them” Tier

After the summer of 2024 when his name was coming up as the prospect teams were asking about the most, they hype around Anton Wahlberg subdued after 2025. The highlight goal in the opening minutes of the 2024 Calder Cup Playoffs is still the 20 year old’s only point in 11 playoff games. In 63 regular season games last year, he had 11 goals and 19 assists, as most of the acclaim in prospect conversations was in the direction of Ostlund and Helenius. While those guys are probably still going to be around for most of the Amerks season again in 2025-26, guys like Lukas Rousek, Brett Murray, and Mason Jobst moving on from the organization (all of whom had more points last season thank him) means that Wahlberg is going to have a lot more to shoulder in his second full season in Rochester.

It’s not make or break for him this winter, but an ever rotating prospect pool means that there’s runway for him to move up in intrigue or fall behind. Regardless, he still finds himself sixth in the rankings.

At seventh is Jake Richard, who will make his professional hockey debut this season. The 2022 6th round pick broke out in his second year at UConn with 15 goals and 28 assists in 34 games. The 21 year old made the biggest jump in the organization last season and now has even more runway to potentially keep climbing with the aforementioned altered Amerks roster build.

Where did all these defensemen come from?

For the people that consider draft picks after the first round scratch offs, this is the display of scratch offs that’s raffled away at stag parties.

None of the 2023 and 2024 defensemen really separated themselves from one another this past season with their respective clubs, but I think that they remain a step ahead of the next tier of skaters with Amerks years under their belts because of ceilings. While it’s disappointing that none of the college guys will be participating in the prospects challenge this weekend, that isn’t a knock against their evaluation so we move on.

Max Strbak sits eighth in the ranking with his junior year at Michigan State coming up after a big jump in his offensive production in year 2. If that continues, he’ll be headed to his next checkpoint in Rochester before he knows it. I have Adam Kleber ninth. While it’s tougher to evaluate him in a shutdown prototype on a Minnesota-Duluth team that isn’t expected to turn heads or get votes in polls, he didn’t look out of place in best on best at last year’s World Juniors which does enough for me to keep in the main D prospect tiering. In tenth, with room to move up as he heads to Wisconsin for his freshman year, is the USHL’s defenseman of the year last season, Luke Osburn jumped from 15 assists to 31 in 55 games in his final year with the Youngstown Phantoms, providing a similar level of intrigue in progress as Strbak, albeit at the different development path.

The D tier rounds out with Gavin McCarthy eleventh, who plays like a Big Boy at BU and David Bedkowski twelfth, who is a Very Big Boy. The Clarence native gets the spot ahead of the other third round D Man off of seniority for me.

The thirteenth ranked player isn’t a defenseman but gets bunched with the blue liners just because of where he is in his development path. Brodie Ziemer’s freshman season at Minnesota was solid with 12 goals and 11 assists in 38 games, and he added 3 goals and 4 assists in 7 games for the World Junior winning Americans last winter. Another quick step at Minnesota would place him higher than that defensemen in next year’s rankings, so we’ll see how this year plays out with the Golden Gophers.

I think this is the most interesting tier for the Sabres prospect pool this season since each of these guys do not appear to have any expectations for how much college hockey they’re going to play, and if they pay out multiple seasons, it fits into the slow grind.

Shields

Tyson Kozak gets the fourteenth spot in the rankings because the organization gave him the largest opportunity last season, but he doesn’t go ahead of Wahlberg, Richard, and the defensemen tier because the returns diminished pretty quickly in his March callup compared to his best stretch during his January games (also playing most of his minutes with Malenstyn and Lafferty just like Ostlund did, for what it’s worth. A Lukas Rousek comparison seems like the current median projection for the 22 year old Kozak, especially with similar draft positioning in the latest rounds, but I don’t think sitting here before training camp that more recalls in 2026 would be a cause for concern in a vacuum.

At fifteenth is a player that I think deserved a cup of coffee last season based on the results he saw in his second season with the Amerks. Nikita Novikov chipped in with 6 more goals in 68 games, and is now a +48 (yeah yeah but still) across his 133 career AHL games. The sample is still small, but when Novikov puts up points, the Amerks have won the majority of those games. It’s not everything for a prospect ranking, especially since his mobility concerns would be more prevalent at the next level, but in a business where decisions are still made based on production, I think the work that Novikov’s has produced was deserving of a “you’re doing well, kid” recall to the National, as they like to say down in the minors.

Vsevolod Komarov has similar concerns in mobility to Novikov, but he played well with the Amerks in his AHL rookie season and ranks sixteenth on the list. He would need to take a similar production jump to Novikov to also be in the mix for a recall, however.

Two forwards wrap this tier up. First, Viktor Neuchev seventeenth, who had an injury-riddled 2024-25 that set him back in his outlook, and then Red Savage eighteenth, who will make his AHL debut after four years of college hockey split between Miami Ohio and Michigan State before the Red Wings, who selected him 114th overall in 2021, relinquished his draft rights. Neither projects to get NHL minutes this season, but strong seasons could make them more heavily relied on for the Amerks this season.

Working to 25

I don’t know what to make of Prokhor Poltapov. Since he doesn’t seem eager to pivot to North America but does have 3 full seasons of KHL hockey under his belt, he ranks ahead of the rest of the draft classes but not ahead of the AHL guys for me. The 33rd overall pick in 2021 could also still have one more season on this list before aging out, but the Sabres could retain his rights in perpituity if they choose. So nineteenth it is. Topias Leinonen returns to my Top 25 in the twentieth slot after moving from SM-liiga to the Swedish first division and seeing better results. Starting in Jacksonville for his first North American games seems to be the plan with the occasional recall to Rochester if duty calls. He still seems pretty raw, but it’s not a written off second round pick.

Let’s keep the goaltending going. Twenty-first is Scott Ratzlaff, who is also on his ELC and has had a couple practice stints with the Amerks now following his WHL seasons in Seattle. In his first junior playoff stint, he had a 3.30 GAA and .919 SV% in six games. Ryerson Leenders is twenty-second after his .910 SV% was tied for 5th in the OHL last season for Brantford. Perhaps Samuel Meloche or Yevgeni Prokhorov join them in the future, but not this season.

For the final three spots, Patrick Geary gets the final defenseman spot at twenty-third based on seniority that comes with two seasons of Michigan State under his belt.

At a point per game last season in Jacksonville, Olivier Nadeau’s NHL likelihoods aren’t as strong as they would have been before he signed his ELC, but at a point per game last season in Jacksonville, that’s enough for me to keep on the prospect list for another season. He gets the twenty-fourth spot.

And then finally, twenty-fifth. Matous Kucharcik rounds out the list with the best combination of draft pedigree and longest runway ahead of him, entering his rookie season in the USHL this season with the Youngstown Phantoms.

1	Konsta Helenius
2	Noah Ostlund
3	Devon Levi
4	Isak Rosen
5	Radim Mrtka
6	Anton Wahlberg
7	Jake Richard
8	Maxim Strbak
9	Adam Kleber
10	Luke Osburn
11	Gavin McCarthy
12	David Bedkowski
13	Brodie Ziemer
14	Tyson Kozak
15	Nikita Novikov
16	Vsevolod Komarov
17	Viktor Neuchev
18	Red Savage
19	Prokhor Poltapov
20	Topias Leinonen
21	Scott Ratzlaff
22	Ryerson Leenders
23	Patrick Geary
24	Olivier Nadeau
25	Matous Kucharcik

Thank you for listening to me think out loud through this. I think this season’s prospect pool is harder to assign ordinal numbers to in a ranking, so I figured a piece like this would help to get a sense of where guys belong and what fans could expect and should look for when following the Amerks or checking in on the highlights from the Kris Bakers of the world.

(Photo Credit: Buffalo Sabres)