The Sabres haven’t necessarily made bad moves this offseason, and if anything they may have helped their long-term outlook by not overpaying Alex Tuch for too many years and turning Bowen Byram into the No. 4 overall pick and defenseman Olen Zellweger. <\/p>\n
That works from a team-building perspective, and it could pay off a lot in the future if for no other reason than the salary cap flexibility they gave themselves.<\/p>\n
They also locked in forward Zach Benson to what could be a steal of a long-term contract.<\/p>\n
But none of this makes the Sabres better this season. And that is the one negative to what they have done this offseason. With Tuch and Byram going out the door, and no major additions coming in to replace them, Buffalo has lost a lot of production from its 2025-26 roster. Given that the Sabres significantly raised the bar in the eyes of their fans by not only snapping a 14-year playoff drought, but by also winning the Atlantic Division, there is going to be major expectations going into this season. It is the first time in a decade-and-a-half you can say that about the Sabres. <\/p>\n
That should put some pressure on general manager Jarmo Kekkalainen to make a big move. <\/p>\n
He is certainly not afraid to be bold, and he still has some salary cap space and attractive trade assets to take a big swing.<\/p>\n
The most obvious swing would be going after Winnipeg Jets starting goalie Connor Hellebuyck. His future with Winnipeg remains uncertain, and his name is still out there on the trade rumor mill.<\/p>\n
Goaltending might be the one big question mark the Sabres have, and if they could find a way to swing that deal it might help make up for the value that left this summer. It might even make them better. Not just in the long-term, but most certainly in the short-term. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Sabres haven’t necessarily made bad moves this offseason, and if anything they may have helped their long-term…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5101],"tags":[599,93,5137,5,4,3358,5138],"class_list":["post-627757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-detroit-red-wings","tag-detroit","tag-detroit-red-wings","tag-detroitredwings","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-red-wings","tag-redwings"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116957990321406508","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627757","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=627757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}