{"id":376471,"date":"2026-06-26T23:03:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T23:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/376471\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T23:03:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T23:03:12","slug":"sabres-acquire-olen-zellweger-from-ducks-for-prospect-draft-pick-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/376471\/","title":{"rendered":"Sabres acquire Olen Zellweger from Ducks for prospect, draft pick"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Buffalo Sabres<\/a> might have found their Bowen Byram<\/a> replacement Friday by acquiring Olen Zellweger<\/a> in a trade with the Anaheim Ducks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Zellweger heads to the Sabres in exchange for prospect forward Anton Wahlberg<\/a> and a second-round pick in Friday’s NHL draft.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the Sabres traded Byram<\/a> along with forward Jordan Greenway<\/a> to the Chicago Blackhawks<\/a> in a deal that saw them receive the No. 4 and No. 45 picks in this year’s draft plus defenseman Louis Crevier<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A few days later, the Sabres went out and added a puck-moving option such as Zellweger who was once part of the Ducks’ prized farm system.<\/p>\n

Zellweger, a second-round pick in 2021, finished with seven goals and 22 points in 76 games to help the Ducks reach the playoffs for the first time since 2018.<\/p>\n

The idea that he could get moved this offseason started growing in earnest when the Ducks had too many top four options that resulted in him becoming a third-pairing defenseman. He had a second more ice time than Drew Helleson<\/a> while averaging 48 more seconds than Radko Gudas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His arrival gives the Sabres someone who could be used on their second pairing in a group that already has Rasmus Dahlin<\/a>, Owen Power<\/a>, and Mattias Samuelsson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Zellweger is a restricted free agent in need of a new deal with the Sabres possessing $13.799 million in salary cap space, per PuckPedia.<\/p>\n

Moving on from Zellweger was one less item for their front office to worry about in what has a chance to be an active offseason. They have only three defensemen under contract while Pavel Mintyukov<\/a> and Tyson Hinds<\/a> are also RFAs.<\/p>\n

Anaheim could also require more reinforcements on the back end with John Carlson<\/a>, Jacob Trouba<\/a>, and Gudas all set to hit theopen market before free agency opens next Wednesday.br\/]<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Buffalo Sabres might have found their Bowen Byram replacement Friday by acquiring Olen Zellweger in a trade…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[152392,163,824,165,164,2064,750,100,404,152391,152390],"class_list":["post-376471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-152392","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-ducks","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-buffalo-sabres","tag-espn","tag-news","tag-nhl","tag-wahlberg-anton","tag-zellweger-olen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376471","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=376471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}