The Rochester Americans—and thus the Buffalo Sabres—have signed Alex Kile to an AHL deal for 2017-18, and an amateur tryout for the rest of this season. Kile has spent the last four seasons at the University of Michigan, and was a very interesting name last spring after a huge junior season. He’ll look to try and regain that momentum from last year with a solid professional debut for the Americans.
Serving as the captain for the Michigan Wolverines, Kile had a very lackluster senior year in which he scored just 14 points in 28 games. The 22-year old winger was coming off a 34 point junior season that had scouts around the NHL paying attention, but failed to repeat on his offensive performance. To be fair to Kile the entire Michigan team struggled this season to a 13-19-3 record, and their leading scorer had just 21 points.
Standing 6’0″ 190-lbs, Kile was known for his excellent skating ability and improving shot, but wasn’t able to utilize either much this season after an ankle injury robbed him of three weeks in the middle of the year. The former linemate of both Dylan Larkin and Zach Hyman will now head to the AHL to try and rebuild his value and prove that an NHL future is still a possibility.