'I want to be the best' | Tracing Radim Mrtka’s development back to Havlickuv Brod, Czechia

Central Czechia’s Havlickuv Brod, population roughly 25,000 and a 90-minute drive southeast of Prague, has produced its share of hockey talent.

It’s no Kladno, hometown of the likes of Jaromir Jagr, Jakub Voracek and Tomas Plekanec, but Havlickuv Brod has been the starting block for five NHL players – just one, journeyman goaltender Vitek Vanecek, is currently under contract. Another native, Ondrej Beranek, finished second in the professional Czech Extraliga with 50 points this past season.

Radim Mrtka has his sights set higher.

In just four years, the defenseman has blossomed from off-the-radar youth player to the Buffalo Sabres’ ninth-overall draft pick. Everything about the 18-year-old – his 6-foot-6 frame, his path to North America and his eye-opening work ethic – hints at an NHL future.

Here’s how Mrtka reached this point, and how the Sabres got a hold of, in their eyes, the franchise’s next cornerstone blueliner.

“Found a love for the sport by myself”

The young Mrtka didn’t play and train for hockey with a professional career in mind, as his working-class family couldn’t afford high-level skating or skills coaching.

Havlickuv Brod had just one accessible rink. While wealthier players traveled out of town for more ice time and advanced coaching, Mrtka took advantage of every opportunity he could find on the local sheet.

“I’ve never been to any skills camp, because we never really had money for it,” said Mrtka, who also played soccer as a child. “I understand, and I never asked for that. So, I just tried to do more on the ice if we had some minutes after practice, or I was in shooting lines at the gym. I just tried to do everything for me to be better.

“I just enjoyed my life, and my family just tried to keep me enjoying life, and I kind of found a love for the sport by myself.”

Buffalo’s European scout Frank Musil, from nearby Pardubice, Czechia, played 797 NHL games from 1986 to 2001. Currently living and scouting in his home country, the 60-year-old helps the organization identify young Czech talent like Mrtka.

“They’re a hockey family coming from a very modest environment, a region of the country where people have to work for a living, and hockey is a big part of our culture there,” Musil said.

“I believe he’s one of those players that grew up like we did in our days. He spent his time at the rink, but he also spent (it) doing other activities besides hockey, which makes him very versatile.”

“Once he was in, he was all-in”

By age 14, Mrtka had gotten himself on the radar of Czech professional organizations.

“That was the time when the big club in Czech started to have interest in me; they maybe just saw some potential in me,” he said. “Motivation for me, and I just realized that I need to work hard to be there.”

Mrtka joined Ocelari Trinec, debuting in 2021-22 with the Under-17 club. He lived with a billet family in Trinec, on the eastern tip of the country and a roughly three-hour drive from Havlickuv Brod. Suddenly, the kid who’d frequented the local rink for fun was on a fast track for the big leagues; two seasons later, Mrtka earned promotions to Ocelari Trinec’s Under-20 club, and then its professional squad.

“We’re seeing this more and more now with all athletes: they commit to their sport full-time at a very young age,” said Sabres assistant general manager Jerry Forton. “I’m not going to say he’s the opposite of that, but yes, a little late to the game in that regard.

“But he seemed, once he was in, he was all-in.”

Ocelari Trinec has established itself as a modern Extraliga dynasty, winning five consecutive championships since 2019. For three games in 2023-24 and the beginning of this past season, the young, slender Mrtka was tasked with helping continue that run of dominance.

But last fall, after 10 games with limited ice time, Mrtka made a much larger move, coming to North America to play for the Western Hockey League’s Seattle Thunderbirds.

“I wanted to have some experience with ‘man’ hockey,” Mrtka said of the Extraliga, “… but I didn’t get a lot of minutes.”

“The men’s league was accelerated for him, I would make a case,” added Forton. “He could handle it for a while, but then, playing in a very successful organization, his minutes started to dwindle a little bit. The league and the team understood he might come over to North America to challenge himself, and that maybe it wasn’t ideal to be playing at that age in the men’s league.”

Brief as it was, Mrtka’s Extraliga experience added to his lengthy resume of growth against tough, older competition and further intrigued Sabres scouts.

“One of the common questions – I bet, if you went around the league, in interviewing players – is what type of challenges they’ve faced,” Forton said. “… Anytime a kid’s had challenges and had to work through those challenges at a younger age, you would like to think ultimately that’s going to help them when they have some adversity at the pro level and American League, or the NHL level.”

North American junior hockey proved to be the perfect showcase for the draft-eligible defenseman. Joining Seattle in late November, he played 43 games and totaled 35 points (3+32), those 0.81 points per game ranking third among WHL rookie blueliners. Also performing well at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup and Under-18 World Junior Championship, Mrtka established himself as one of the top 2025 draft prospects.

“The kid’s a sponge”

Forton was present for more than 20 of Mrtka’s WHL and international games over the last year-plus. Musil watched him in Czechia, and additional Sabres scouts monitored the young prospect leading up to the draft. All cite his already impressive track record and sky-high ceiling. None can hide their excitement.

“When you see a kid that’s as good a player as he is right now, with that size, and you realize once he gets exposed to even more [with] strength, conditioning, skating, skills instruction and so forth, you start dreaming a little bit on even more upside than you would normally expect with a player that age,” Forton said.

Added Musil: “He skates very well for his size, and I think the potential with his game is endless. Once he puts on weight and power, he will be somebody that will be hard to handle out there.”

That process began earlier this month at Sabres development camp, where Mrtka was introduced to the organization’s revamped strength and conditioning team. The staff led by Brian Galivan, who’s renowned for his developing USA Hockey teenagers into NHL players, will help Mrtka fill his 6-foot-6 frame and become that disruptive physical presence.

“He hasn’t had that final push of elite-level training,” said Jason Nightingale, Buffalo’s assistant director of amateur scouting. “I think that’s something that will just help accelerate his timeline to the NHL.”

When scouting for the draft, Buffalo’s front office considers not only a player’s skills and physical traits, but also his coachability. Mrtka, who’s worked to improve his English since moving to North America, has embraced everything thrown his way in the short time since the draft.

“You can tell the kid’s a sponge, from the day he’s been here – what he’s doing to access all the different resources we have in our organization,” Forton said, mentioning the strength and conditioning staff as well as nutritionists, trainers and coaches.

The kid who’s come a long way from Havlickuv Brod still has a long way to go, but with the Sabres organization at his side, Mrtka expects to achieve his lofty goals:

“I want to be the best in every part of the game.”