{"id":354630,"date":"2025-12-17T19:07:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T19:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/354630\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T19:07:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T19:07:13","slug":"atlantic-notes-tuch-sabres-forsling-bell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/354630\/","title":{"rendered":"Atlantic Notes: Tuch, Sabres, Forsling, Bell"},"content":{"rendered":"

Almost as soon as the Buffalo Sabres formally transitioned to a new regime led by Jarmo Kek\u00e4l\u00e4inen<\/a>, trade speculation had increased around winger Alex Tuch<\/a>. On last night\u2019s rendition of TSN\u2019s OverDrive<\/a>, the crew reported that Tuch is seeking a larger extension than what winger Adrian Kempe<\/a> signed with the Los Angeles Kings.<\/p>\n

Understandably, that report only served to increase speculation around the possibility of Tuch being moved from his hometown franchise by this year\u2019s trade deadline. Michael Augello of The Hockey News believes<\/a> that if the Sabres aren\u2019t interested in going beyond an eight-year, $85MM ($10.625MM AAV) extension for Tuch, they should move on sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n

In fairness, if that is where the market is at for top-six wingers, Kempe is the best comparable for Tuch to use. Each player is 29 years old and has averaged around 0.85 points per game since the 2021-22 campaign. Still, unless other moves are made, Buffalo will enter the summer months with just over $21MM in cap space, meaning if they gave Tuch what he wants, they would have already used more than half of their financial resources.<\/p>\n

Other notes from the Atlantic Division:<\/p>\n

Staying in Buffalo, on Monday\u2019s episode of Oilersnation Everyday<\/a>, David Pagnotta of TheFourthPeriod asserted that Kek\u00e4l\u00e4inen wasn\u2019t necessarily the Sabres\u2019 first choice last summer. Pagnotta shared that Buffalo reached out to longtime front office leaders: Ken Holland<\/a> and Lou Lamoriello<\/a>. Obviously, neither executive moved forward with the Sabres, as Holland joined the Kings as Vice President and General Manager. At the same time, Lamoriello has yet to find a new job after being ousted by the New York Islanders.
\nAccording to George Richards of Florida Hockey Now<\/a>, defenseman Gustav Forsling<\/a> wasn\u2019t on the ice with the Florida Panthers this morning for practice. The belief is that Forsling is nursing an arm or hand injury after blocking a shot during Monday\u2019s game against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Fortunately, given the line rushes the team was using, there\u2019s no expectation that Forsling will be out long, if at all.
\nIn the AHL, the Belleville Senators, affiliate of the Ottawa Senators, are making a move at head coach. TSN\u2019s Bruce Garrioch reported<\/a> that Belleville fired head coach David Bell<\/a> and has promoted Andrew Campbell<\/a> in the interim. Bell had been the Senators\u2019 head coach for the last three years, managing a record of 83-69-12-8. The team didn\u2019t qualify for the postseason last year and is currently in fifth place in the North Division.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Almost as soon as the Buffalo Sabres formally transitioned to a new regime led by Jarmo Kek\u00e4l\u00e4inen, trade…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[391,70861,176125,1809,176126,4820,176127,10156,176128,176129,385,1319,99],"class_list":["post-354630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ahl","tag-alex-tuch","tag-andrew-campbell","tag-buffalo-sabres","tag-david-bell","tag-florida-panthers","tag-gustav-forsling","tag-injury","tag-ken-holland","tag-lou-lamoriello","tag-nhl","tag-ottawa-senators","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}