{"id":758421,"date":"2026-06-25T02:35:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T02:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/758421\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T02:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T02:35:09","slug":"sabres-sign-zach-benson-to-seven-year-52-5m-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/758421\/","title":{"rendered":"Sabres sign Zach Benson to seven-year, $52.5M deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Sabres signed the restricted free agent to a seven-year extension with an average annual value of $7.5 million, the team <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BuffaloSabres\/status\/2069937554158182730?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">announced<\/a> Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The move comes after the Sabres lost forward Alex Tuch to the Washington Capitals in a sign-and-trade earlier in the day. On Wednesday, the Sabres dealt defenceman Bowen Byram to the Chicago Blackhawks in a trade sending the fourth-overall pick in Friday&#8217;s draft back to Buffalo.<\/p>\n<p>Benson, 21, has been a consistent producer for the Sabres since entering the league as a 19-year-old rookie in 2023-24.<\/p>\n<p>He had a breakout year in 2025-26 to help the Sabres bust their 14-year post-season drought, potting 13 goals and 43 points in 65 games. He added five goals and nine points in 13 playoff games.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Chilliwack, B.C. native was selected 13th overall by the Sabres at the 2023 NHL Draft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Sabres signed the restricted free agent to a seven-year extension with an average annual value of $7.5&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":758422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-758421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758421","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=758421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/758422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=758421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=758421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=758421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}