Bold Prediction: Isak Rosen will debut with the Buffalo Sabres in 2023

While it’s way too early to tell whether Buffalo Sabres prospect Isak Rosen will be in the system long-term, he will inevitably see action in the NHL.

If you ranked the Buffalo Sabres prospects heading into next season and broke them into Tiers, Isak Rosen would either sit at the bottom of Tier 1, or at the top of Tier 2. And with the Blue and Gold so stacked at forward already, and with the likes of Matt Savoie, Jiri Kulich, and Lukas Rousek serving as the current front runners for promotion, expect Rosen to remain in Rochester for most of the 2023-24 season.

But that by no means should imply Rosen won’t be in a Buffalo Sabres uniform for at least a game or two next year. Given the way he played late in the regular season, and how his efficacy has continued in the playoffs, I’m more than sure that Rosen will make his inevitable NHL debut.

Buffalo Sabres prospect Isak Rosen deserves to debut next season

The first two games of the North Division Semifinal against the Syracuse Crunch didn’t go Rosen’s way. But then again, there’s not a single Amerk who would’ve been satisfied with their respective performances, especially following Game 2.

Rosen, however, got it together, and he scored two points in Game 3, including his first playoff goal, before he played a pivotal role in the Amerks winning Game 5, and the series. It was the second of Rosen’s two assists in that game, with the first coming off of Tyson Kozak’s goal at the 11:08 mark to open the scoring.

Although you can expect to see Rosen make a cameo similar to what Lukas Rousek made with the Buffalo Sabres in 2023-24, we don’t know if his future is in Buffalo thanks to the number of quality forwards already in the lineup. When Kyle Okposo and Zemgus Girgensons leave for good sometime in the future, it’s more likely to see Rousek and Kulich as the next men up.

At this point, it would have to take something like Tyson Jost leaving the Queen City, which probably won’t happen, neither Okposo nor Girgensons re-signing, Casey Mittelstadt reverting back into a draft bust, and Jeff Skinner getting really old really fast for Rosen to see regular ice time at the next level. That said, he will debut, but don’t expect him to be in a Sabres uniform long-term at the moment.

Article Source: Sabres thoughts: Jiri Kulich, Isak Rosen making big strides for Amerks in AHL playoffs by Matthew Fairburn, TheAthletic.com

(Statistics provided by theAHL.com)