Danforth, Kulich, Ostlund Still Down — And the Clock Is Running

Three weeks in, and Buffalo still has no return timeline for any of them. Justin Danforth and Jiri Kulich remain on injured reserve, Noah Ostlund is out, and the organization has offered nothing to suggest that changes soon. For a franchise that spent the summer selling a youth-first rebuild, that's an uncomfortable place to be in mid-August.

The timing is the thing. The Sabres traded Bowen Byram to Chicago, moved Alex Tuch to Washington, and used the returns to acquire Olen Zellweger and draft Daxon Rudolph fourth overall. The message was clear: the future is young, and the young are coming. Then three of the prospects the front office was counting on to validate that message went down simultaneously. You can't develop players who aren't on the ice.

What makes it harder is that the broader rebuild has real pieces in place. Four Sabres prospects landed on The Athletic's top-100 list in July. Zach Benson, who put up 24 points in just 36 games last season, is locked in long-term. Peyton Krebs has his extension. Rasmus Dahlin just got recognized as a top-five defenseman in the league. The bones are there. But the injury cluster has created a gap between the organization's stated direction and what it can actually show right now.

September 15 is the deadline for Buffalo to sign three eligible youngsters to eight-year extensions. That's the next concrete moment in this offseason, and it matters. My read: the front office needs at least one of Kulich or Ostlund back and healthy before training camp to keep the rebuild narrative from feeling purely theoretical heading into 2026–27.