Sabres announce public development camp schedule at Harborcenter
Buffalo opened a 28-player camp at Harborcenter with its full 2026 draft class on the ice, and all four sessions were free to the public.
Buffalo’s development camp opened Monday at LECOM Harborcenter with 28 players, a roster headlined by first-round picks Daxon Rudolph and Ilia Morozov and built to show how the Sabres want their pipeline to look from draft night to Rochester. Development coach Tim Kennedy and Amerks coach Michael Leone handled the on-ice work, with Leone saying the group had already gone through a hard gym day before moving into video and skating instruction.
The setup made the point quickly: this was not a summer scrimmage for the sake of a summer scrimmage. Buffalo’s June 24 schedule put all four on-ice sessions on the calendar as free and open to the public from June 29 through July 2 at Harborcenter, with the camp closing in an intrasquad scrimmage on July 2 at 9:30 a.m. The public access matters because Buffalo has turned Harborcenter into a visible checkpoint in the Sabres-to-Amerks pipeline, a place where prospects are introduced to the standards they will be judged against once the hockey gets faster and the margin for error gets thinner.
That was the same idea behind Buffalo’s 2024 camp message, which framed the week as an introduction to professional work habits and organizational standards. The structure has stayed consistent. The Sabres held camp at Harborcenter again in 2025, then brought it back for 2026 with the same mix of skating, skill work, educational sessions and team-building. The exact dates change, but the purpose does not: Buffalo is trying to sort out who can handle a pro routine, who needs more seasoning, and who might be ready for Rochester sooner than later.
The first on-ice group included Rudolph, Morozov, Olivers Murnieks, Doman Szongoth and Dylan Dumont, a reminder that the camp is already an extension of Buffalo’s draft class. The Sabres made five selections in the 2026 NHL Draft, taking Rudolph fourth overall and Morozov 20th overall, and team officials had made clear how highly both players were regarded. Rudolph had been near the top of the organization’s list for years, while Morozov drew so much interest that Buffalo considered moving up to get him.
Adam Kleber added another layer to the week. Assistant general manager Jerry Forton called the 2024 second-round pick a high-end NHL prospect, and Kleber backed that up by winning the NCHC Defensive Defenseman of the Year award for 2025-26, becoming the first sophomore to take the honor. That is the kind of name that makes camp more than a photo op. It is the early sorting process for the next Rochester group, and, eventually, for the next wave to Buffalo.
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