Kesselring, a 26-year-old defenseman, had two assists in 34 regular-season games for the Sabres this season and no points in one Stanley Cup Playoff game.<\/p>\n
He is in the last of a two-year, $2.8 million contract ($1.4 million average annual value) he signed with the Utah Mammoth on June 28, 2024, and can become a restricted free agent on July 1.<\/p>\n
“Michael has a big frame (6-foot-5, 215 pounds) with solid two-way ability,” Sharks general manager Mike Grier said. “He is a responsible player in the defensive zone with a well-rounded offensive game, and will be a good upgrade for us patrolling the blue line. We’re happy to have him a part of the organization.”<\/p>\n
Kesselring was acquired by Buffalo from Utah, along with forward Josh Doan<\/a>, for forward JJ Peterka<\/a>\u00a0on June 26, 2025.<\/p>\n Selected by the Edmonton Oilers in the sixth round (No. 164) of the 2018\u00a0NHL Draft, Kesselring has 55 points (12 goals, 43 assists) in 190 regular-season games for the Arizona Coyotes, Mammoth and Sabres.<\/p>\n The Sharks (39-35-8) finished fifth in the Pacific Division, four points out of a playoff spot in the Western Conference. They had 86 points, a 32-point improvement from last season, when they finished with the worst record in the NHL.<\/p>\n San Jose has eight selections in the 2026 draft, including the No. 2 pick.<\/p>\n The Sabres (50-23-9) won the Atlantic Division this season and qualified for the playoffs for the first time since 2011; they lost to the Montreal\u00a0Canadiens in seven games in the second round. Buffalo has four picks in the draft.\u00a0<\/p>\n The No. 20 selection initially belonged to Edmonton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kesselring, a 26-year-old defenseman, had two assists in 34 regular-season games for the Sabres this season and no…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":713446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-713445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713445","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=713445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/713446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}