Buffalo, N.Y. (WGR Sports Radio 550) - The Buffalo Sabres wrapped up their annual development camp Thursday at Harborcenter with their annual 3-on-3 tournament.
With so few players invited to camp, there were only two teams that played two 30-minute running time periods instead of a three-team round robin tournament like in the past.
Team Blue used a Jake Richard hat-trick to beat Team Gold, 8-6. Richard has a knack for scoring in the 3-on-3 tournaments, as this is his fourth camp.
This past season was his sophomore season at UConn, where in 34 games, Richard netted 15 goals and 28 assists for 43 points.
The Huskies are a program on the rise, and Richard is happy he chose to be there.
"It’s been awesome to be a part of it, and watch it grow as I’m there," Richard said following Thursday's 3-on-3 tournament. "It’s a huge goal of mine to try to grow the program myself, and try to bring trophies there. So it’s been an awesome experience, and I love it there so much."
Tage Thompson played two years at UConn before signing his entry-level contract with the St. Louis Blues.
It’s always an uphill battle for a sixth-round pick to make the NHL. Lukas Rousek is the last Sabres sixth-rounder to play in the league, and he only got 17 games before returning to play in Europe in the Swedish Hockey League.
Brandon Hagel is the Sabres' last sixth-round pick to have a major impact in the NHL, and he never even played a game with Buffalo as, then, general manager Jason Botterill declined to sign him after he netted 41 goals and 61 assists for 102 points for the Red Deer Rebels as an overage junior.
The 2022 sixth-round pick thinks his game is on the right track.
"I feel very confident in myself and my game right now," Richard said. "I love hockey and I love getting better. It’s all I want to do, and all I ever think about. I have such amazing resources, whether it’s at school or here in Buffalo, so I have everything I need to make it at the next level. It just comes down to me putting the work in."
Last year’s fourth-round pick Simon-Pierre Brunet had two goals for Team Blue, while this year’s seventh-rounder Melvin Novotny had two goals, as did 2023 seven-round pick Norwin Panocha.
I thought Scott Ratzlaff did well in his 30 minutes of work in goal, stopping 21-of-23 shots faced. At the other end, 2022 second-round pick Topias Leinonen had 12 saves on 17 shots faced.
Both prospects are set to turn pro this season, and will likely battle to be Devon Levi’s backup with the Rochester Americans this season. The other will likely be the starting goalie for the Jacksonville Icemen of the ECHL.
It was hard to get a good gauge on this year’s first-round pick Radim Mrtka, because it was 3-on-3. There was one good sequence where he led a 3-on-2 and then hustled back to kill a rush the other way when his rush didn’t work out.
It was nice to see 2024 second-round pick Adam Kleber kill a few plays as well. He’s 6-foot-5 and weighs over 210 pounds, and was able to stop the nifty Vasily Zelenov because he held his position and didn’t fall for the speed or the moves.
Brodie Ziemer, once again, showed off his great shot, ripping a puck off the crossbar.
We won’t see many of these prospects in September, because they’re college players and will already be enrolled in school and training with their hockey teams.
With the Sabres already announcing HockeyFest for Sept. 13, I think we can safely assume the annual Sabres Prospects Challenge will begin at Harborcenter sometime close to then.