{"id":171761,"date":"2025-09-27T02:28:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T02:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/171761\/"},"modified":"2025-09-27T02:28:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T02:28:07","slug":"sabres-alex-tuch-not-close-in-extension-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/171761\/","title":{"rendered":"Sabres, Alex Tuch Not Close In Extension Talks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sabres winger Alex Tuch<\/a> is one of the more prominent players in the potential 2026 UFA class.\u00a0 That said, both he and the team have made it clear that a long-term contract extension is the end goal instead of him going to the open market in July.\u00a0 However, as Pierre LeBrun reports in his latest piece for The Athletic (subscription link<\/a>), the two sides are not in the same ballpark when it comes to getting a deal done.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old has become a much more consistent offensive threat following his trade to Buffalo as part of the Jack Eichel<\/a> swap back in 2021.\u00a0 His best three offensive seasons have come in the past three years, ranging from 59 points to 79; last season, he was basically in the middle of those numbers, tallying 36 goals and 31 assists in 82 games while logging over 19 minutes per night for the third straight year.<\/p>\n

Basically, these are numbers approaching top-line territory or at the higher end output-wise, fully in top-line territory.\u00a0 Given his size and defensive acumen, it seems pretty clear that there will be quite a few teams willing to ante up for his services if he remains unsigned in July, something his representation undoubtedly is keeping in mind as talks go on.<\/p>\n

How much will that cost Buffalo?\u00a0 The top winger contract given to an unrestricted free agent this summer went to Nikolaj Ehlers<\/a> who signed a six-year, $51MM contract ($8.5MM AAV) with Carolina.\u00a0 (Vegas acquired Mitch Marner<\/a> for $12MM per season but that was in a sign-and-trade, not actual free agency.)\u00a0 Ehlers\u2019 price tag feels like it would be on the light side for Tuch\u2019s services, especially as the salary cap continues to be earmarked for bigger jumps than we\u2019ve seen in recent years.\u00a0 A jump to a double-digit AAV doesn\u2019t appear to be out of the question.<\/p>\n

LeBrun speculates that the lack of contracts for some of the other top pending UFAs in contract talks could be playing a role in the minimal progress being made in these discussions as players and agents each wait for someone to be the market setter.\u00a0 But regardless of who ultimately signs first to set potential new benchmarks, it looks like Tuch\u2019s camp and the Sabres have a lot of work to do in the coming weeks and months to get a deal in place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sabres winger Alex Tuch is one of the more prominent players in the potential 2026 UFA class.\u00a0 That…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171762,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[44930,64,63,6581,575,85],"class_list":["post-171761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-alex-tuch","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-buffalo-sabres","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}