{"id":759298,"date":"2026-06-25T02:33:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T02:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/759298\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T02:33:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T02:33:10","slug":"benson-signs-7-year-52-5-million-contract-with-sabres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/759298\/","title":{"rendered":"Benson signs 7-year, $52.5 million contract with Sabres"},"content":{"rendered":"

Zach Benson<\/a> signed a seven-year, $52.5 million contract with the Buffalo Sabres on Wednesday. It has an average annual value of $7.5 million.<\/p>\n

The 21-year-old forward could have become a restricted free agent July 1.<\/p>\n

Benson had a career-high 43 points (13 goals, 30 assists) in 65 regular-season games for the Sabres and nine points (five goals, four assists) in 13 Stanley Cup Playoff games.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Selected by Buffalo in the first round (No. 13) of the 2023\u00a0NHL Draft, Benson has 101 points (34 goals, 67 assists) in 211 regular-season games.<\/p>\n

Benson\u2019s signing followed Wednesday’s trade of forward<\/a> Alex Tuch<\/a> to the Washington Capitals for forward David Kampf<\/a>, who will be an unrestricted free agent on July 1, and a third-round pick in the 2027\u00a0NHL Draft.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Asked about Tuch\u2019s likely departure earlier on Wednesday, Buffalo general manager Jarmo Kekalainen said one way to make up for the loss of Tuch\u2019s 33 goals and 66 points would be to look in-house.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also have a lot of internal options for the role, getting a little bit more ice time, a little bit more responsibility, more offensive ice time, all those things,\u201d Kekalainen said. \u201cSo I think we\u2019re in really good shape.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the Sabres traded defenseman Bowen Byram<\/a> and forward Jordan Greenway<\/a>\u00a0to the Chicago Blackhawks for the No. 4 pick in the 2026 NHL Draft<\/a>, defenseman Louis Crevier<\/a>\u00a0and a second-round pick (No. 45) in the 2026 draft.<\/p>\n

Again, Kekalainen pointed to younger players such as Benson to rise into leadership roles with the loss of Tuch and Byram.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe fill that void in my mind is that our young players who play like leaders like Zach Benson and Josh Doan<\/a>, they grow into leaders and take that void,\u201d Kekalainen said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to miss some of that stuff with the veteran players that have been through a lot, but at the same time we\u2019re going to grow here as a group and those individuals showed us already in the playoffs that they\u2019re leaders by example and now they can take some more responsibility on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zach Benson signed a seven-year, $52.5 million contract with the Buffalo Sabres on Wednesday. It has an average…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":759299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-759298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759298","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=759298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/759299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=759298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=759298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=759298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}