{"id":365218,"date":"2026-06-18T03:57:26","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T03:57:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/365218\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T03:57:26","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T03:57:26","slug":"san-jose-sharks-acquire-defenseman-michael-kesselring-from-buffalo-sabres-amid-pick-swap-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/365218\/","title":{"rendered":"San Jose Sharks acquire defenseman Michael Kesselring from Buffalo Sabres amid pick swap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BUFFALO (AP) \u2014 The <a class=\"Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement\" data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/buffalo-sabres\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Buffalo Sabres<\/a> are moving on from defenseman Michael Kesselring.<\/p>\n<p>Buffalo sent the 26-year-old Kesselring and the 27th overall pick in the upcoming NHL draft to <a class=\"Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement\" data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/san-jose-sharks\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">San Jose<\/a> on Wednesday for the 20th overall selection.<\/p>\n<p>The Sabres acquired Kesselring in a trade with Utah in June 2025, hoping the 6-foot-5 blueliner would provide some physicality and grit to Buffalo\u2019s defensive core. <\/p>\n<p>Injuries, however, intervened. Kesselring had just two assists in 34 games with the Atlantic Division-winning Sabres. He appeared in just one playoff game, seeing a scant 4 minutes, 25 seconds of ice time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMichael has a big frame with solid two-way ability,\u201d Sharks general manager Mike Grier said in a statement. \u201cHe is a responsible player in the defensive zone with a well-rounded offensive game, and will be a good upgrade for us patrolling the blueline.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kesselring, a sixth-round pick in the 2018 draft, has 12 goals and 43 assists in 190 career games with Arizona, Utah and Buffalo.<\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p>AP NHL: <a class=\"Link AnClick-LinkEnhancement\" data-gtm-enhancement-style=\"LinkEnhancementA\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUFFALO (AP) \u2014 The Buffalo Sabres are moving on from defenseman Michael Kesselring. Buffalo sent the 26-year-old Kesselring&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[2064,7,66125,4401,4694,404,1489,88,90,89,98,127,4591],"class_list":["post-365218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-buffalo-sabres","tag-california","tag-michael-kesselring","tag-mike-grier","tag-new-york","tag-nhl","tag-nhl-hockey","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-san-jose-sharks","tag-sports","tag-utah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}