Josh Doan reacted to the burgeoning atmosphere inside KeyBank Center after a win against Anaheim earlier this month, when he helped energize a sellout crowd with a spirited fight and a tenacious backcheck that led to a goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can feel the energy off every play,\u201d Doan said. \u201cWe were told coming here that, when you\u2019re winning, it\u2019s the best place to play, and you\u2019re starting to feel that.\u201d<\/p>\n
He can get used to that feeling. The Sabres have signed Doan to a seven-year contract extension worth an average annual value of $6.95 million, the team announced Wednesday. The deal keeps him in Buffalo through the 2032-33 season.<\/p>\n
Doan was previously scheduled to become a restricted free agent after the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cJosh is a player that impacts the team both on and off the ice,\u201d Sabres general manager Jarmo Kek\u00e4l\u00e4inen said. \u201cHe works hard, is competitive and skilled, and his game is going to continue to develop. We believe he will be a core piece of this team moving forward and I am excited to have him as a Buffalo Sabre long term.\u201d<\/p>\n
Buffalo acquired Doan from Utah alongside defenseman Michael Kesselring this past offseason in exchange for forward JJ Peterka. Doan embraced the fresh start and suggested he had more to give offensively after scoring 19 points in 51 NHL games last season. He spent the offseason studying the tendencies of elite net-front scorers, a role he\u2019s since inhabited on the Sabres\u2019 power play.<\/p>\n
Tage Thompson, who\u2019d trained with Doan during summers in Arizona and played with him at last year\u2019s IIHF World Championship, also teased the 23-year-old\u2019s upside.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously I\u2019m biased because I train with him in the summer, but he does have skill and can score,\u201d Thompson said in June. \u201cIt\u2019s just not what his role\u2019s been at the NHL level so far. But he\u2019s one of those guys that will go to war for you and do anything to help the team win. That\u2019s what we need. I think both those guys bring that edgy playoff hockey to the regular season, which is going to help us make the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Josh Doan reacted to the burgeoning atmosphere inside KeyBank Center after a win against Anaheim earlier this month,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-424915","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}