The Buffalo Sabres have been considered to have one of the deepest prospect pools in the NHL, which is in part due to them selecting high in recent drafts because of their not qualifying for the playoffs. The Sabres have displayed an eye for talent, but the organization’s developmental model has not yielded enough results.
Leading up to the opening of training camp in mid-September, we will look at the club's top 40 prospects. All are 25 years old or younger, whose rights are currently held by the Sabres or are on AHL or NHL deals, and have played less than 40 NHL games.
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#30 – Samuel Meloche – G (Rouyn-Noranda – QMJHL)
The Sabres continued their practice of selecting goalies, but after taking Topias Leinonen in 2022, Scott Ratzlaff in 2023, and Ryerson Leenders in 2024, the club selected a pair of netminders at the 2025 NHL Draft. With their seventh round pick, they took Belarusian Yevgeni Prokhorov, who has a longer development window in the KHL, but with the second to two fourth-round picks, Buffalo selected QMJHL goalie Samuel Meloche.
The 18-year-old broke into the Q with Rouyn-Noranda as a 16-year-old, and leading into his draft year played 51 games for the Huskies, posting an excellent 30-14-6 record. In the playoffs, he went 8-3-2, leading Rouyn-Noranda to the QMJHL semi-final, where they lost to Moncton in a four-game sweep.
Elite Prospects said that Meloche had an ”ability to stay composed, even when things broke down in front of him rather frequently, and that his “play reading and composure pair well with his athleticism. He’s able to make up for rare mistakes in save selection with quick, explosive reflexes” and is “one of the better puckhandling goalies in this draft.”
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