Mike Harrington: Big picks from Sabres' big deals looking to make their impact

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You remember the deals.

Are you going to remember the draft returns? This season, we should start to see them all come into focus.

Rasmus Ristolainen ...

Isak Rosen.

Sam Reinhart ...

Jiri Kulich.

Jack Eichel ...

Noah Ostlund.

The Reinhart deal with Florida also brought Devon Levi.

And the Eichel trade with Vegas is most notable for procuring Alex Tuch, Peyton Krebs and Jordan Greenway, the latter through other draft-pick trades.

Right wing Isak Rosen may start the season in Rochester, but could make an impact for the Sabres.

Of course, while the Sabres continue to flounder trying to get a mere wild-card entry into the playoffs, Eichel and Reinhart have captured Stanley Cups over the last two years.

Woof.

Meanwhile, Kulich (51 goals, 91 points) and Rosen (34 goals, 87 points) have been mainstays in Rochester in their two AHL seasons.

They likely will go back down the Thruway again to play for new coach Michael Leone and continue to hone their games, but you sense they should start contributing to some degree at the NHL level this year.

We're not there yet, but they are going to be approaching the point of diminishing returns in the AHL soon and they will need to be challenged in the NHL.

Kulich and Rosen got eight games combined with Buffalo last season, posting nary a point.

That needs to change.

Especially for Kulich, who looks closest to the NHL.

Ostlund, meanwhile, just signed his contract and is in North America for his first full season in pro hockey after a five-game cup of coffee with the Amerks last spring.

The trio was expected to be on the ice Friday night against the Columbus Blue Jackets' kiddos in LECOM Harborcenter in the opener of the Prospects Challenge, and the Sabres meet New Jersey at 7 p.m.

Saturday.

An interesting tourney to serve as a precursor to the opening of main camp next week.

Buffalo has a team with five first-rounders, including 2019's Ryan Johnson and Finnish center Konsta Helenius, who was taken in June, and these players have enough pressure on them from that draft status.

They don't need to add more, and that's especially true for Ostlund as the pick who was taken with the selection from the Eichel trade.

When I talked to the 20-year-old Swede on Thursday, he admitted he's heard a couple of references to Eichel but it doesn't matter to him.

Frankly, it can't.

Ostlund was a 16-year-old when Eichel captained the Sabres and finished eighth in the Hart Trophy balloting in 2020.

"I try to see the draft as a positive thing that people like how I play, and they really believe in me," Ostlund said.

"So I try to take it in a positive way, instead of putting pressure on itself.

I want my career to be a guy that people look up to and really like to watch." Noah Ostlund is eating five meals per day in an effort to gain weight and reach the NHL as soon as possible.

My sense is we will.

At the end of a routine camp drill this week, Ostlund used some complete sick mitts handiwork to playfully curl a puck around and backhand it over prone goalie Scott Ratzlaff.

It was a quick, three-second moment on a September morning, but you get the picture.

"I've been working hard on that my whole life and the feeling with the puck comes from hard work," Ostlund said with a smile.

"So I feel very confident when I have the puck and I want to have it as much as possible." New Sabres assistant Seth Appert was hard on Kulich and Rosen while he was the head man in Rochester, just as he was with Jack Quinn and JJ Peterka.

Some tough love helped all of them, and eventually Kulich and Rosen will be ready.

Amerks assistant Vinny Prospal a veteran of more than 1,100 NHL games reminded Kulich watchers among the media Thursday that it took him 312 years in the AHL to be ready to graduate to the Philadelphia Flyers in 1997 and start an NHL career that stretched through 2013.

"You just try to tell them that they have to stay patient, because it's a process.

It takes time," Prospal said.

"It's very beneficial in my mind for each prospect to start in the American Hockey League because it's a man's game, it's a fast league and it's a heavy league.

Obviously, the best players are in the NHL but that is the development league preparing you for the best league in the world." Ostlund is 5-foot-11 and 170 pounds but that's becoming less of an issue in the NHL.

Zach Benson anyone? Ostlund has the good problem we all wish we had: putting on weight.

The Sabres want him eating five meals a day.

"It's a lot of food at my age," he said with a laugh.

"I just want to become NHL ready, be able to play NHL as soon as possible.

That's why I came over to North America, not to be stuck in AHL for a couple years.

I want to take steps every day and be up with the big guys as soon as possible." Not so fast, Prospal noted.

"I was very impatient," Prospal recalled.

"At that age, I was thinking like, 'Oh, I'm ready.' ...

They just need to understand to be patient, be part of the process, and come to the rink and enjoy every day and get better every day." Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sports Columnist {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items..

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