{"id":126733,"date":"2025-09-02T07:57:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T07:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/126733\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T07:57:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T07:57:09","slug":"this-buffalo-sabres-prospect-is-a-hidden-star-in-the-making","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/126733\/","title":{"rendered":"This Buffalo Sabres prospect is a hidden star in the making"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Buffalo Sabres have struggled to find hidden gems<\/a> in the NHL Draft throughout Kevyn Adams’ five-year tenure as general manager. Brodie Ziemer, a 2024 third-round pick, has a chance to buck that trend after an impressive freshman season at the University of Minnesota.\n<\/p>\n

Ziemer recorded 23 points (12 goals and 11 assists) across 38 appearances for the Golden Gophers last season. It was a strong NCAA debut campaign after spending the previous two years with the U.S. National Development Team in the USHL.\n<\/p>\n

The 19-year-old winger will attempt to take another significant step forward in his second season at Minnesota, which would set the stage for him to potentially make a jump to the AHL’s Rochester Americans within the next year or two.\n<\/p>\n

Ziemer’s prospect profile<\/p>\n

Steady growth is the most promising sign for any developing player, and that’s exactly what we’ve witnessed from Ziemer in recent years.\n<\/p>\n

The Minnesota native compiled 53 points in 66 games during his two seasons with the USNDT. Whether his offense would translate was the biggest question as he made the jump to the Gophers and, while there were some growing pains, 0.61 points per game is a solid scoring rate for a freshman.\n<\/p>\n

Ziemer also starred for Team USA at the 2025 IIHF World Junior Championships in the middle of last season. He scored three goals and dished out four helpers across seven contests to help the Americans complete their run to a second straight gold medal in the event.\n<\/p>\n

The 5-foot-11, 190-pound forward isn’t going to dazzle you with his skating or rack up a bunch of goals with a lethal shot. Instead, he’s a hardworking, do-it-all winger with an endless motor who isn’t afraid to challenge opponents in the most contested areas of the ice.\n<\/p>\n

He’s at his best when on the forecheck, where he’s skilled at creating turnovers to create instant scoring chances. It’s an area where the Sabres could desperately use some help, which makes his development all the more important over the next few seasons.<\/p>\n

Accolades arriving for talented winger<\/p>\n

Ziemer isn’t get a ton of attention at a league-wide level quite yet, but his name is starting to pop up on some lists of Buffalo’s top prospects.\n<\/p>\n

Most recently, Jacob D. Strozyk<\/a> of The Hockey Writers listed the forward as the ninth-best prospect in the Sabres system on Sunday.\n<\/p>\n

“As the future ‘Swiss Army knife’ player gets sharpened at the University of Minnesota, his playmaking and two-way talents as a forward will continue to be important,” Strozyk wrote.\n<\/p>\n

That’s undoubtedly the key to his professional future. Can he develop his offensive game enough to at least score around 50 points consistently at the NHL level. If he can reach that modest target, the rest of his game is more than strong enough to become a full-time member of the Sabres lineup.\n<\/p>\n

If Ziemer takes another step in that direction \u2014 scoring closer to a point per game as a college sophomore should be the baseline target \u2014 his name will start showing up on more prospect lists next summer.<\/p>\n

Ziemer’s 2025-26 season outlook<\/p>\n

Aside from the baseline offensive numbers, there are a couple things the right-shot forward can showcase this season to further boost his stock.\n<\/p>\n

First, Ziemer must continue to improve his skating. It’s the most underrated aspect of a player’s tool kit and a lot of prospects who otherwise would be impact NHL players never stick at the top level because of that single area of weakness.\n<\/p>\n

Defenseman Nikita Novikov is a perfect example in the Sabres system. He has a high hockey IQ, which helps him shut down plays in the defensive zone, and he’s made steady progress in terms of his offensive playmaking. His lackluster skating is holding him back, though.\n<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, it’d be nice to see Ziemer step up in the Gophers locker room. Minnesota lost five of the six members of its leadership group from last season, with senior blueliner Cal Thomas being the only returnee. Other players will need to fill that void.\n<\/p>\n

Ziemer has displayed leadership traits throughout his development, including with the U.S. as the world juniors, so it’s a natural progression for him. Even if he’s not chosen to wear a letter, seeing him operate as an on-ice leader would be a good sign.\n<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the winger probably won’t reach Buffalo until 2027-28 at the earliest, but maintaining his current trajectory would lead to increased hype prior to that arrival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Buffalo Sabres have struggled to find hidden gems in the NHL Draft throughout Kevyn Adams’ five-year tenure…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-126733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}