BUFFALO, N.Y. — The 2022 NHL Draft in Montreal was an epic scene. It was the first in-person draft since before the pandemic. It was a celebration of the sport in one of the league’s most passionate markets.And it was also the biggest night of Jerry Forton’s professional career. He had been promoted to director of amateur scouting by then-GM Kevyn Adams a year earlier, just before the 2021 NHL Draft, when the Buffalo Sabres took Owen Power with the No. 1 pick. But the 2022 draft was Forton’s first full draft cycle in the role. Junior hockey had returned to some normalcy coming out of the pandemic, allowing Forton and his staff to hit the road for more in-person scouting. And after trading Jack Eichel and Sam Reinhart, the Sabres had three first-round picks.“The ‘22 draft and subsequent drafts were a huge part of the plan that Kevyn put in place,” Forton said. “That was a lot of pressure, and it was nerve-racking in some sense.”With so much trade talk leading into the draft, Forton was prepared for every scenario, including getting into the top two picks. With picks Nos. 9, 16 and 28 in the first round, including plenty of draft capital beyond Round 1 and in future drafts, Forton knew he had to be ready for anything.The night was a whirlwind. The Canadiens started the draft by taking Slovakian winger Juraj Slafkovský with the No. 1 pick. Shane Wright, the presumed No. 1 pick for much of the season, slid to No. 4. Buffalo didn’t end up making any trades, using the three picks on centers Matt Savoie, Noah Östlund and Jiri Kulich. After a calendar year of agonizing over their list, Forton was finally able to exhale at the end of the night.“All three of those players we had very close to each other on our list, if not side by side, and we had them all on the top 10 of our list,” Forton said.Four years later, the Sabres ended the franchise’s 14-season playoff drought. They also have a core of emerging young players that could help Buffalo be competitive for years to come. Östlund and Kulich, drafted that night in Montreal, are part of that. So are Zach Benson and Konsta Helenius, the Sabres’ first-rounders in the next two drafts. The Athletic recently spoke with Forton about the scouting process behind each of those players to understand how this core was built and get a closer look at the philosophy behind Forton’s scouting methods. This summer, we’ll have stories on each of those players with Forton’s insights.We begin with Östlund, an undersized Swedish center who started to stand out to Forton in November of his draft year. Playing for Sweden at the Five Nations Under-18 tournament in Switzerland, Östlund didn’t have a single point. But Forton thought he was the best player on his team and might have been the best player in the tournament.So he had the analytics staff dig deeper into Östlund’s numbers. There’s a fine line in scouting between finding rational reasons for a lack of production and making excuses for a player. Östlund was clearly a play driver, and the metrics showed that. He was also underdeveloped in terms of both size and strength. Because of that, his shot needed a lot of work.“He’s always been very good at scoring in tight and around the net, a little bit like a poor man’s Jake Guentzel in that regard,” Forton said. “His hockey sense, his edges, his compete and tight areas skills would have reminded us of a Jake Guentzel type but a different player projecting him at the NHL level. We view Noah as a pure center and more of a distributor and pass-first guy. But we all agreed, as scouts, his shot needed to get better. We tied that to a lack of physical development as well. Our analytics staff saw it the same way.”