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<\/p>\nDefenseman was drafted by the Sabres during the 2nd round in 2023<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tApr 1, 2026<\/p>\n
The Buffalo\u00a0Sabres\u00a0signed defenseman Maxim\u00a0\u0160trb\u00e1k\u00a0to a three-year, entry-level contract on Wednesday.\u00a0With the contract not beginning until the 2026-27 season, he will report to the Rochester Americans on an Amateur Tryout for the remainder of the current season.<\/p>\n
\u0160trb\u00e1k, 20,\u00a0was selected in the second round\u00a0(45th overall)\u00a0in the 2023 NHL Draft and played 102 games in three seasons at Michigan State.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u0160trb\u00e1k\u00a0guided the Spartans to three consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances\u00a0and\u00a0two Big Ten\u00a0Championships. He\u00a0recorded 46 points (8+38) with a plus-33 rating during his collegiate career.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a hard-to-play-against, shutdown defender,\u00a0can\u00a0skate\u00a0really well,\u201d\u00a0Sabres\u00a0development coach Tim Kennedy told Sabres.com\u00a0last month. \u201cHe\u2019s\u00a0very physical and that\u2019s what we love about him.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Kosice, Slovakia,\u00a0native\u00a0had the second most points by a Michigan State defenseman this season with 18 in 37 games.\u00a0\u0160trb\u00e1k\u00a0was tied for 10th in the Big Ten with a plus-20 rating and had 38 blocked shots.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
He\u00a0represented\u00a0Slovakia at four IIHF World Junior Championships\u00a0(2002-2025), sharing an IIHF record, and had 16 points (2+14) in 19 games. He finished tied for the most assists by a defenseman during the 2024 tournament (6) and was selected as one of Slovakia\u2019s top three performers at the event. He also represented Slovakia at the 2023 Men\u2019s U18 World Championships in Switzerland, finishing fourth and serving as an alternate captain, competed in the Ivan Hlinka Tournament on Slovakia\u2019s 2022 squad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Defenseman was drafted by the Sabres during the 2nd round in 2023 Apr 1, 2026 The Buffalo\u00a0Sabres\u00a0signed defenseman…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5100],"tags":[1107,229,5133,5,4,1108],"class_list":{"0":"post-536317","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-buffalo-sabres","8":"tag-buffalo","9":"tag-buffalo-sabres","10":"tag-buffalosabres","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-sabres"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116334508065652521","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}