Casey Mittelstadt was in the midst of a standout training camp at this time last year, one that had him slated to begin the season as the Sabres’ top-line center following a productive finish in 2020-21.
An upper-body injury sustained on opening night prevented Mittelstadt from seeing that potential through for most of last season, sidelining him for three separate stretches and limiting him to 40 games and 19 points (6+13).
Mittelstadt found ways to make the most of his adversity, learning to stay patient while he worked his way back onto the ice and learning what he could while watching games. He finished in memorable fashion, scoring in overtime of the season finale against Chicago.
With another productive summer under his belt, coaches and teammates are once again excited to see what Mittelstadt can do with a healthy season.
“If you want to know me, it’s nerve wracking,” Sabers coach Don Granato said. “Because here’s a guy that’s put in the work and you want to see him get rewarded for it.
“I just want him to stay healthy. I think that he will, and we’ll all get to see a much, much better version of Casey Mittelstadt based on not only the work he’s gone through but the experience he’s gained, some of it just having to sit on the sidelines. You gain some experience, especially at that age.”
Video: TRAINING CAMP: Granato
Mittelstadt, still only 23, has had a long journey to this point. He made the NHL straight out of his freshman season at the University of Minnesota and had played 114 games with Buffalo by the time he joined Rochester for the first time midway through the 2019-20 season.
Mittelstadt went to the AHL with a positive attitude and made the most of his experience, developing the off-ice habits he maintained through the COVID-elongated 2020 offseason. He stayed patient when he spent the first half of the 2020-21 season on the taxi squad. Once Granato was named interim coach in March of that season, he began to lean on Mittelstadt in high-leverage situations. Mittelstadt responded with the most productive stretch of his career.
Kyle Okposo saw the same kind of impact from Mittelstadt during the final month of last season.
“It’s hard to play in this league when you miss half a season, especially with injury and to try and come back,” Okposo said in May. “If you really iso-cammed him over the last 20 games you found that he was one of the best players on the ice every night. So, looking forward to a big season from him next year.”
Jeff Skinner offered a similar sentiment on Monday.
“The majority of people don’t see the work that goes into practice, and I think if you watch him in practice, he’s an impact player,” Skinner said. “…Having him back, having a full summer and seeing how he is out there in practice so far, it’s exciting, I think, for us. It should be exciting for everyone.”
As for Mittelstadt, he is simply taking his season one day at a time.
“In all honesty, I’m not one to put numbers down or make big goals,” he said. “I like to focus on day-to-day things. I find that if you’re doing the right things every day and getting good meals, getting good sleep, and usually that leads to good practices, and good practices lead to good games .
“That’s the plan for me. I’m not going to put anything down on paper necessarily; I just want to go out and play to the best of my ability every time I touch the ice.”
Video: TRAINING CAMP: Mittelstadt
Here are more notes from Day 5 of Sabers camp.
1. Granato shared an anecdote to illustrate the competitiveness within the Sabers dressing room. The team has installed a RapidShot virtual training system inside KeyBank Center, which records scores on a mobile app. Rasmus Dahlin owned the high score until Mittelstadt beat him.
“Dahlin saw it on his phone later and actually went back to break it, and he has the record now,” Granato said. “According to the guys who installed the machine, they’ve never seen scores that high, which is good.”
Might there be a RapidShot competition brewing between former roommates Dahlin and Mittelstadt?
“I feel like something about Ras makes me more mad than anyone else, but I’m not sure why that is,” Mittelstadt said with a big smile. “… We both have a couple blisters now. So, we may be on a little bit of a break, but we’ll be back soon.”
2. The players who traveled for Sunday’s preseason opener in Washington were given the day off on Monday. The rest of the group participated in a 90-minute session at KeyBank Center.
The forwards lines and defense pairs rotated through out the practice, but the look to start each drill was as follows:
53 Jeff Skinner – 72 Tage Thompson – 65 Linus Weissbach
71 Victor Olofsson – 37 Casey Mittelstadt – 21 Kyle Okposo
49 Filip Cederqvist – 17 Brandon Biro – 89 Alex Tuch
96 Anders Bjork – 28 Zemgus Girgensons – 63 Isak Rosen
23 Mattias Samuelsson – 26 Rasmus Dahlin
25 Owen Power – 10 Henri Jokiharju
78 Jacob Bryson – 46 Ilya Lyubushkin
3. Skinner and Thompson have been paired together consistently through the early days of camp, a trend Granato said he expects to continue moving forward. The two spent most of last season as linemates and both eclipsed 30 goals.
“I can pretty comfortably say I see those guys staying together,” Granato said. “There’s chemistry there, but they work together. They strategize together in between games, after practices. So, they’re really dialed in. I see that we have any number of guys that could fit in there. And what will happen from a From a chemistry standpoint, we’ll see.”
4. Granato said he could see multiple players fitting on the right wing alongside Skinner and Thompson. Alex Tuch and Victor Olofsson both had success in that spot last season.
Tuch, for his part, said he is comfortable playing throughout the lineup.
“Every player on this team has a different skill set,” he said. “Different type of play, different style. I think that it doesn’t really change my style of the game and me playing with other guys doesn’t change their style of game.”
He continued: “I feel like I have chemistry with a lot of different guys and I think we have a lot of depth, so it makes it easy to really just be able to, whenever coach wants to shuffle up the lines, we can do the same way.”
Video: TRAINING CAMP: Tuch
5. The Sabers play their first home game of the preseason against the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday night. Craig Anderson is expected to play at least part of the game in net, Granato announced.
Read more about Anderson in our Day 2 notebook.
Tickets for the game against the Flyers are available here. Fans can stream the game live on Sabres.com or hear the radio call with Dan Dunleavy and Rob Ray on WGR 550.
.