With little left to play for, the Buffalo Sabres announced Sunday they have recalled prospect Alexander Nylander from the Rochester Americans of the AHL. The Sabres have struggled recently, having lost four in a row and are 2-6-2 in their last 10 games and with the season starting to get away from them, it may as well see what it has in Nylander.
For Nylander, the team’s first-round pick from 2016, who has missed some time due to injury in the month of February, the recently-turned 21-year-old has struggled once again in his third year in the AHL, having scored just 12 goals and 31 points in 49 games. While those are career-highs after struggling with just 10 goals in the 2016-17 season and eight goals in an injury-plagued 2017-18 when he missed the first two months of the season with a strained groin, the team was hoping for more from one of their top prospects.
He started the season strong, but disappeared in a stretch of 19 games from December through February where he tallied just one goal and four assists in that time. Nylander, however, has been hot recently as he’s scored four goals and added two assists in his last four games, which was enough of a reason to recall him. The team hopes that it can assess what it has in their young prospect considering this is his third year in the organization and the team must assess whether he is the player they thought they picked with the eighth-overall pick. With 14 games remaining for the Sabres, he should get a long look. Nylander received a four-game callup in 2016-17 where he tallied one assist. He got a three-game look last season where he scored his first goal.