A skilled, smooth skater with high hockey sense, vision, competitiveness, and a work ethic to match, Ostlund (5-foot-11, 163 pounds) was selected by the Buffalo Sabres with the No. 16 pick in the 2022 NHL Draft.
"[He] for sure has every single quality you would want in an NHL center other than size," Sabres director of amateur scouting Jerry Forton said. "I just talked about the other attributes that I think will easily offset the size. And when he went up to the [Swedish Hockey League] this year -- in very limited minutes, I get that -- they played him at center. He went to the Under-18s, he played a couple games 25-plus minutes at center at the Under-18s on the gold medal team and I don't know that we ever saw a drop off in his play."
The 18-year-old describes himself as a "smart centerman," able to contribute on both sides of the puck.
"Like to be on the puck, create offense, but also want to be reliable in the defensive end," he said. "So a two-way centerman and play both power play and penalty kill."
Ostlund began playing hockey at 5 years old, drawn to the game by Mikael Samuelsson, a retired NHL forward who has been friends with Ostlund's father, Andreas, for more than 25 years. He was 9 when his NHL dream first started to take shape. It was on a trip to Detroit with his father to visit Samuelsson, who showed them around Joe Louis Arena, brought them onto the ice and into the locker room. He got to meet players from the Detroit Red Wings and had lunch with some of them.
"It was very cool," Ostlund said. "To see guys like [Pavel] Datsyuk and [Henrik] Zetterberg. It was two guys I looked up to growing up. Very cool."
Samuelsson played 699 NHL games and joined the Vancouver Canucks player development staff May 30. He said he estimates he's seen Ostlund play about 10 times per year since retiring from professional hockey following the 2014-15 season.
He's been impressed every time.
"You can see he's improving," Samuelsson said. "You can always see a difference when he plays, every time I see him."
Ostlund has put in the work to make that happen. He's been on the ice five times a week during the offseason, and earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic was able to skate just as often at the lone open rink at the time near his home in Nykvarn, Sweden, allowing him to continue his development.
When he's not on the ice, he's honing his skills on the shooting ramp outside his house or playing one-on-one on Samuelsson's backyard rink with Samuelsson's son, William, who's a year younger than Ostlund and plays for Sodertalje of HockeyAllsvenskan, the second highest level of pro hockey in Sweden.
"Noah had a smile on his face 90 percent of the time he was down there," Samuelsson recalled of a session between the two boys one winter. "You saw how much Noah liked the game, and still [does]," Samuelsson said. "So much fun to watch a young guy just play for the love of the game."
Ostlund will return to Djurgardens for this season, looking to build on the 42 points (nine goals, 33 assists) he had in 32 games with its junior team and the 11 games played at the senior level.
"I think the longer the season went, I think I just played better and better," he said. "I think I had a great development throughout the season, got great help from Djurgardens, too, in that way. Just to keep working hard every day and success will come."
