The Buffalo Sabres are still betting on Radim Mrtka’s ceiling, even after a season that didn’t exactly match the hype that followed his arrival as the No. 9 overall pick in the 2025 NHL Draft.
Tim Kennedy, Buffalo’s director of player development, said the organization still views the 19-year-old blueliner as a future fit on the back end. Speaking with Amalie Benjamin of NHL.com, Kennedy laid out the kind of player the Sabres believe Mrtka can become as he heads toward what is expected to be his next stop with the AHL’s Rochester Americans in 2026-27.
"We see him as a top-four (defenseman), first-pass ability, shutdown defender, and that's going to be with him growing into his body," Kennedy said. "We're very excited for him this year.'
That optimism comes despite a year in which Mrtka’s momentum stalled. He flashed right after the draft, standing out at Sabres development camp and then carrying that into a strong showing at training camp. But once the games started, the impact never really matched the early buzz.
Mrtka opened the 2025-26 season with Rochester, but he didn’t make enough of a mark to stick. Buffalo sent him back to the WHL’s Seattle Thunderbirds, where the 6-foot-6, 218-pound defenseman put up 34 points - one goal and 33 assists - in 43 games, without quite overwhelming the league the way a player with his size and draft slot might have been expected to do.
He later returned to Rochester for the season’s final stretch and again struggled to separate himself, finishing his two AHL stints with no goals and one assist in eight total games.
That doesn’t mean the Sabres are ready to move on. Mrtka, who won silver with the 2026 IIHF World Junior Championship team, is still viewed as a long-term project rather than a finished product. But the road to Buffalo looks longer now than it did when he left camp last September, and that has fed trade chatter over the past few months as well.
For the moment, though, he remains in the Sabres’ plans as the new season approaches. The next step is simple enough to say and harder to pull off: he needs a real breakthrough.
Kennedy also had strong things to say about another key Buffalo prospect, Brodie Ziemer, who decided against signing his entry-level contract this summer and instead returned to the University of Minnesota for another season.
The 20-year-old winger made a real jump in his second year with the Golden Gophers, finishing with 36 points - 23 goals and 13 assists - in 36 games while logging meaningful minutes at even strength, on the power play and on the penalty kill.
"We've really seen (him) improve in the 200-foot game," Kennedy told Benjamin. "He's got an elite release and hockey sense ... but we've really seen his game improve in the D-zone the last two years.
Brodie is a player at Minnesota that plays in all situations - PK, PP - and that's what we see moving forward too in pro hockey. He can fit that mold too for us, and we're really excited about him."
Ziemer’s skating may not jump off the page, but his instincts do. He reads the ice well, makes smart positional choices and doesn’t shy away from the work that has to be done around the net or along the boards to create offense.
Buffalo would prefer not to see him stay for a senior year at Minnesota, since that would open the door for him to become an unrestricted free agent in the 2028 offseason. That makes it likely the Sabres will push to get him signed once the Gophers’ season ends next spring.
The 2024 third-round pick projects as a middle-six forward with power-play value, and Buffalo’s current depth in that area is part of why another year of college hockey made sense. He’ll get big minutes, continue to round out his game and keep building toward a pro role that could include special teams responsibility.
He previously played that sort of role for Team USA at the 2026 World Juniors, and the Sabres still see a player whose path could lead to a long NHL career, even if he never turns into a point-per-game scorer at the highest level.
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