Alex Tuch and the Buffalo Sabres’ season came to an end last week, but not until he and the team made some inroads towards greater things for the future. The team snapped its 14-year playoff drought, and the Sabres established themselves as a top team in the league again.
As for Tuch, he could be the top name in unrestricted free agency this summer. The pending UFA has watched as all of the other top forwards have dropped off the board, signing extensions with their current teams. Tuch & the Sabres have not been able to come to terms, as his price has gone up and up as the season progressed.
The two sides stopped discussing an extension during the Sabres’ playoff run to focus on the important stuff on the ice. But as insider David Pagnotta told Daily Faceoff Live, it does sound like it’s trending towards Tuch staying in Western New York, where he grew up (in Syracuse, just a two-hour drive away from Buffalo).
There’s some chatter that maybe the likelihood of him returning has increased… There’s been a very solid line of communication open between Kekalainen and Tuch’s agents.
Pagnotta goes on to admit that Tuch “is the top dog in free agency, so if he wants to really cash out, he can hit July 1 and take his chances there. But it did sound like maybe they were thinking about sticking around in Buffalo.”
At the same time, the Sabres have not yet come up to the amount it’ll take to get it done, which will be somewhere between $10.5M and $11M AAV. So no one should be surprised if Tuch does make it to July 1 unsigned. But that doesn’t mean the Sabres won’t eventually give in and sign him at that point.
Tuch, now 30, registered his third 30-goal campaign in the last four seasons, with 33 markers, to go with 33 assists and 66 points in 79 games, with a career-best plus/minus rating of +24.
Photo: © Brian Fluharty-Imagn Images