There was a heavy expectation heading into the 2025-26 season that the Buffalo Sabres would get an extension done with forward Alex Tuch. Before the campaign, there was no agreed-upon extension, and Tuch’s future is more uncertain following a disappointing start by the Sabres. In a recent interview with David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period, Brian Bartlett, Tuch’s agent, admitted that extension talks had begun to stall.
Bartlett acknowledged that the Sabres wanted to keep Tuch after this season, and Tuch expressed interest in staying as well. However, Bartlett shared further, ” I think we’ve all kind of decided that it’s best to just try to get some wins here. Alex is a leader on that team, both play-wise and kind of, you know, in the room. So he wants to focus on that, not have it a distraction, so we’ve wanted to just kind of let everyone know, like, we’re just gonna put this on the backburner for a little bit – doesn’t mean that we’re closing the door to signing, doesn’t mean anything, just means that, you know, for the time period, he’s gotta try to help the Buffalo Sabres win games.”
Despite earning a win last night, the Sabres haven’t gotten off on the right foot to stave off the 15th year of their playoff drought. If Tuch wants to play on a legitimate contender, few would condemn him for seeking an opportunity outside of Buffalo. Still, there’s plenty of time to correct the disappointing start, and Tuch may feel more inclined to revisit talks if the Sabres can collect more wins.
Additional notes from the Eastern Conference:
- The Tampa Bay Lightning will be without defenseman Maxwell Crozier for the next few games. After leaving the team’s recent game against the Washington Capitals in the first period, Benjamin Pierce, the team’s manager of media relations, passed along a note from head coach Jon Cooper confirming that he would miss the next few games and potentially the next few weeks. Regardless, the Lightning have a readily available in-house candidate to replace Crozier in Darren Raddysh, who’s scored one goal and three points in two games this year.
- Earlier, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman asserted that the New York Rangers were listening to offers for forward prospect Brennan Othmann. Vincent Z. Mercogliano of The Athletic provided additional context in a new article, indicating that the writing was on the wall during training camp. Mercogliano confirmed that Othmann hasn’t made a formal trade request, but agrees that a fresh start would be best. He noted that the Rangers were wholly underwhelmed by Othmann’s four preseason performances and sent him down nearly one week before the beginning of the season.
Tuch needs to get as far away from that disastrous organization. Go somewhere and win.
If your team hasnt won a cup in the last 20+ years, the only thing different is you have a winning regular season record and you draft higher. So Toronto is the team you want to emulate? So they started off 0-3. Ottawa came into town, and the Sabres scored 8 goals (3 players had 2 goal games) or be like the NYR who have been shut out at home in 3 straight games.
I’m a Sabres fan and if I’m Tuch, I am proud of how I played for a dreadful organization while I was in Buffalo but it’s time to peace out!!! If he’s smart, he’ll go to a serious organization. No chance I would re-sign with Buffalo even if the offer is around 10-11 Million.
Buffalo will have just over $20 million in cap space this off-season with Benson & Kesselring as their top RFAs. Depending on Kesselring if he has a good year Buffalo needs to protect themselves from a offer sheet on those 2. The following offseason Buffalo will have a lot of cap space. Buffalo should not go near 8 years max with Tuch.
Love it if the Wings got him! I would give Berggren, Mazure, and Cossa for him if he is guaranteed to sign around $9M AAV.
Just like Zucker Buffalo has until the trade deadline to extend Tuch. If they are in a playoff position keeping him around would not be a bad idea (even without a extension).
On Marek’s The Sheet podcast on Friday, fellow insider David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period reported on the latest doings around the Western New York native, Tuch, and the Sabres.
“They’ve actually pressed the pause button for the time being and put negotiations on the back burner to concentrate on what’s going on with this team. There’s a lot of concern in Buffalo.”
“I’ve talked to a few teams in the last 24 hours, that think it’s not just a $10M AAV for (Tuch) to stay, you’re probably looking at north of $11M, and maybe closer to $12M. ”
Wow! That is $2-3M more than he should get! Just wait for Kempe’s and Necas’s ask!!!