ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — The Buffalo Sabres dealt Alex Tuch to the Capitals on Wednesday in a sign-and-trade, with the 30-year-old forward landing an eight-year contract with a $10.5 milllion cap hit.
Earlier on Wednesday, Sabres general manager Jarmo Kekäläinen said he expected Tuch’s tenure with the team to come to an end.
The two sides had discussed a new contract prior to the season, but tabled those talks early in the year. Publicly, both sides expressed interest in getting a deal done, but the gap was ultimately too wide.
“I don’t think at this point we’ve come to any points in our talks that would indicate that we would sign with us,” Kekäläinen said.
“We made it clear to him that we wanted to sign him. He was an important player for us and a good leader — all those things that we talked about very many times. But sometimes when the players have the power to choose, they choose differently.”
The Sabres received a 2027 third-round pick and forward David Kämpf, who’s a pending UFA, from the Capitals. Last week, the Maple Leafs gave up a fifth-round pick to acquire the negotiating rights to Lightning defenseman Darren Raddysh before signing him to an eight-year contract worth $8.5 million per year. Last summer, the Leafs got Nicolas Roy from Vegas in a sign-and-trade for Mitch Marner.
Tuch had been looking for a contract in the range of the one Adrian Kempe signed with the Los Angeles Kings. That eight-year deal carries a cap hit of roughly $10 million. The Sabres had been hesitant to get to a double-digit average annual value on Tuch. Tuch and his camp had been confident he could get that.
“One thing that I’ve always said is it depends on the contract. Him being a 30-year-old player, there’s risk involved,” Kekäläinen said. “Do you want to go max term, eight years, it still is. And then there’s the money, and we’re tight on cap this summer because we have the Skinner buyout coming, $6.5 million against our cap this year, then we get into a lot better situation a year from now. The AAV comes all eight years. So that’s something we needed to consider, OK, if we sign him to a certain number, does this now mean we take two, three, maybe four players off our roster to make it work cap-wise? So that was a balancing act with our take on things. He’s a good player, but we have a lot of faith in our group. He’s going to missed, but we’ll be fine.”
Tuch grew up two hours east of Buffalo in Baldwinsville, N.Y., and cheered for the Sabres as a kid. He joined the team as part of the Jack Eichel trade in 2021 and was an instant fan favorite and leader in the locker room. He had 309 points in 360 games for the Sabres, including three 30-goal seasons and a breakout 79-point season in 2022-23. He was also a key penalty killer and earned Selke votes for his two-way play.
The Sabres are also in a better position to replace him now than they would have been a year ago. Josh Doan had a breakout season and signed a long-term contract. Noah Östlund, Konsta Helenius and Zach Benson are all 22 or younger and made a big impact for the Sabres during the postseason.
Tuch’s departure comes after the Sabres traded defenseman Bowen Byram in a blockbuster deal with the Chicago Blackhawks. Byram was unwilling to negotiate a new contract, so Kekäläinen traded him and Jordan Greenway to Chicago for the No. 4 and No. 45 picks in the 2026 NHL Draft and 25-year-old defenseman Louis Crevier. Tuch and Byram were two of the Sabres’ most experienced players, but Kekäläinen is confident the Sabres’ locker room is equipped to handle the loss of leadership.
“We fill that void in my mind with our young players who play like leaders like Zach Benson and Josh Doan,” Kekäläinen said. “They grow into leaders and take that void. Yeah, we’re going to miss some of that stuff and veteran players that have been through a lot. But at the same time, we’re going to grow here as a group, and those individuals showed us already in the playoffs that they’re leaders by example and will take some more responsibility on.”
