Quoting: BuFfaLOFaN
I had notes that got deleted for some reason. I was saying this was the #3 pipeline after Chicago and Anaheim...seems to me this is still the best pipeline, and these are just the players who are currently projected to play NHL games.
Completely agree, hard to figure the team is ranked third.
Isak
Rosen who had a very good year in the AHL is ranked as the 15th best prospect.
It took Casey a couple of years to adjust to playing against men, remember he could not do a single pull up before he was drafted.
Once he bulked up he did just fine.
Once Rosan adds more muscle he will probably excell as well.
Levi is ranked 12th best prospect, that alone should scream how deep the pipe line is.
Savoie is ranked 8th behind Benson, Ostlund and Kulich, yet the breakdown of his skills indicate he is a top line forward potential:
Skating:
Above NHL average
Puck skills: NHL average
Hockey sense:
Above NHL average
Compete:
Above NHL average
Nikita
Novikov did not make the top 19, but he was one of the best players during the three on three competition.
He will be one of the players for me to watch very carefully during the prospect challenge.
Finally, 17th Ryan Johnson, will probably be in the NHL before the end of the season.
Over the past 7 seasons Buffalo has drafted extremely well.
They may have as many as 15 drafted players in the NHL in the next 3 years.
2017 Casey-UPL
2018 Dahlin-Samuelsson
2019 Cozens-Johnson
2020 Quinn-Peterka
2021 Power-Rosen
2022 Savoie-Ostlund-Kulich
2023 Benson-Wahlberg
Then add in Strbak, McCarthy, Poltapov, Navikov etc.
They were able to get a third back for Portillo and an NHL LHD (Stillman) for our sixth over all pick from the 2021 draft (Bloom).
IMO that speaks volumns of what the other NHL GM's think of the Buffalo prospects.