The longest-tenured member of the Buffalo Sabres is sticking around for another season. Center Zemgus Girgensons has signed a one-year, $2.5MM contract to stay in Buffalo, keeping one of the team’s most integral leaders in the organization. CapFriendly confirms the entirety of Girgensons’ deal is paid in base salary.
The 29-year-old Latvian just completed his ninth year as a Sabre and has settled in as a reliable enough bottom-six pivot over the past couple of seasons, although he has played much of his career on the wing. Selected 14th overall in 2012, Girgensons never did hit his ceiling coming up through one of the darkest eras in Sabres history, which makes his desire to stick around all the more justified – he wants to see Buffalo’s rebuild through rather than looking for more term on the open market.
Girgensons matched his point totals from 2021-22 this past season, scoring 10 goals and eight assists, but it took him 80 games to do so. His offense has never been a strong suit, though – in fact, he’d never put up consecutive double-digit goal seasons until his last three campaigns. Still, he’s far from a liability defensively, with some advanced metrics going so far as to label him one of the best pure shutdown centers in the league.
It hasn’t been an easy road to consistency for Girgensons, either. A hamstring injury kept him out for the entire (albeit shortened) 2020-21 campaign, and he missed more than 20 games the following year with various injuries.
He’ll attempt to make the playoffs for the first time in his career next season with a slight pay bump. Buffalo had signed him to a three-year, $2.2MM average annual value deal before the 2020-21 season. It’s certainly fair compensation for his role with the Sabres, on and off the ice.
General manager Kevyn Adams had this to say earlier in the offseason:
Zemgus is, I would call it, a quiet leader, goes about his business but cares about his teammates and teammates care about him. He’s literally the same every game. There’s very little drop off [or] ups and downs with him.
He’ll likely reprise a fourth-line role next season, and he joins a Sabres team that’s already filled out with youngsters but still looking to add in free agency. With depth crunches coming at forward, it’s fair to wonder what today’s news means for Tyson Jost, a pending restricted free agent who gave the team some decent depth scoring after being claimed on waivers from the Minnesota Wild early in the season. If the team believes better options are attainable on the open market, he could go unqualified.
Seems like a hometown discount for Buffalo there. I thought consensus was he would be moving on & there was interest from other teams.
OK. @Josh, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to get to the bottom of the random sorting errors happening on both the “Top Stories” and “Recent” sections on the main page. For example, currently the “Top Stories” section has “Dallas Stars Extend Joe Pavelski” and the “Recent” section has “Los Angeles Kings Loan Jacob Moverare To AHL”, which are several months old. I have seen articles dating back to 2018 at times during the day. Asking for a friend (I told @Gbear I wouldn’t mention him by name). :)
Dang, still? I had noticed it on my end a few weeks ago. I thought we had dealt with it, hadn’t happened since then. I’ll see what we can do :)
@Josh – Thanks! There’ve been a couple of times I almost replied to an old article. Sometimes I actually do look twice after I stooged myself on a malfunction-at-the-junction for a local grocery store’s ad. Online, the site was pointing to another store in another state, so the local manger here was very confused as to what I was asking him. Turns out the deals here were good anyway, so no harm, no foul. But, this kind of thing makes me automatically delete the cookies and re-login just to be sure.
@Josh—As of about 9:09PM ET, it’s baaaack! Articles hot off the press from 2021…
@Mac – Now that you’ve dropped my name, truth is, the Jason Moverare ordeal still has me glued to see how it all plays out. :p
@Gbear – Oh, crap, you peeked! That means I’m a dash-1 on this shift. And, I have to serve the bench minor. The only thing that gets me out of the doghouse is this: Listen in at about the 25:20 mark of this Leafs-Hurricanes clip. One of the best of the season! link to podbay.fm
Is he related to Jacob? Or is he selectively using that as an alias for an alibi because of an errant play in the neutral zone?
@Josh – (Whispering) It’s all good again…for the time being. :)
@Mac – That’s where the intrigue lies: is it Jason or Jacob out on the ice….and have they ever been seen on the bench together? :D
But look at that, the Moverare boys team up for a PP goal, so your minor penalty is over. :p
And it would be Pulijarvi (or however it’s spelled) getting squashed by a linesman! :D
@Gbear – Whew! And now I take the skate of shame back to the bench. Hey! I think I know who the “other” Moverare brother really is – Enrico Pallazzo! I imagine fans in EDM are happy that he got plowed over by a linesman, rather than running into #97 again. :() (Oh, They’re gonna go!)
@Mac – My money is on the linesman in that tussle. :D
@Gbear – And when the linesman’s peers turn a blind eye at the elbow he just threw, we hear in the distance, from a renowned color analyst, those familiar words, “Oh, goody! Prison rules!”
The roster is getting pretty tight in Buffalo with young legit. NHL players. Kevyn Adams is on record that he does not want to block any players.
So the reasonable reaction is to question this move. But, Gus is almost built for playoff hockey. And here’s the thing, KA is planning on being in the playoffs in 2024.
It seems that this is a novelty/sentimental signing, The Sabres would be better served by filling that roster spot with a younger player moving forward.
I can’t think of any on-ice benefit to bringing back a standout defensive forward on a team that struggled defensively.
Quiet leader is an impossible and lazy cliche.
You may not believe it WILF, but there are advantages to being quiet sometimes. Some people even prefer to be around people who weigh their thoughts rather than just spew out every thing that goes through their head.
Just sayin.
Never heard the phrase “actions speak louder than words”, have you?
While it seems like a bit of an ‘overpay’, most contracts feel that way across the board now, so I think this is just the times we’re living in. Now as far as ZG goes; Buffalo also held on to Okposo, so they clearly are trying to keep these older guys around for a reason. This deal would have been painless at 1.5, but unless you’re a 10+ year veteran player coming off a buyout where another team is still paying you, pretty much NO ONE makes less than 2 mil these days…
Overall a bit of a nothing-burger signing unless you’re part of the Sabres faitful.. Hopefully they can get IN to the Playoffs this year so this dude can at least say he had a crack at the post-season.
Agreed that this is an overpay, but it doesn’t hurt the Sabres to show their team, the fans and anyone who might be considering Buffalo as a destination that they don’t mind taking care of their longterm faithful. They’ve got the money to do it, as well, and it still leaves them with plenty of cap space to go after a big name.