Alex Tuch To Hit Free Agency, Won't Re-Sign With Buffalo

With no progress in contract talks, the 30-year-old pending unrestricted free agent is set to hit the open market on July 1. 

Talks between Tuch and the Sabres picked up again on Tuesday to see if there was any chance of reaching a deal. Ultimately, the gap between what the Sabres were willing to offer and what Tuch was looking for remained to wide to overcome. 

Then, on Wednesday afternoon, Sabres general manager (GM) Jarmo Kekäläinen all but confirmed that Tuch won’t be back in Buffalo next season.

“I don't think at this point we've come to any point in our talks that would indicate that he would want to sign with us,” Kekäläinen said. “I think he's moving on and getting into free agency, and now we have to look at our options whether its a sign and trade so we can recoup some value now that we used him as a rental for our own team.”

Kekäläinen said that they made it clear to Tuch and his representatives that they wanted to re-sign one of the team’s leaders. However, the terms of the contract needed to make sense for the organization. 

The first-year Sabres GM said that there’s risk in signing a 30-year-old player to a max eight-year contract. When it comes to the money, Buffalo is dealing with a $6.44 million dead cap from the Jeff Skinner buyout years ago. Kekäläinen didn’t want to see a decision to re-sign Tuch now hurt the team in the future.

“AAV counts all eight years,” he said. So that's something we needed to consider. If we sign him to a certain number, does this mean we have to take two or three, maybe four, players off our roster to make it work cap wise? So that was a balancing act with our take on things.”

Tuch has spent the last five years in Buffalo after being one of the centerpieces in the trade that sent Jack Eichel to Vegas. Over that time, he’s scored 309 points in 360 games. In his first playoff run with the team last season, he had nine points in 19 games.

For the Sabres, it’s about finding a replacement for someone who’s been one of the team’s better all-around forwards for five years. Kekäläinen says he has a plan for what he’d like to do, and isn’t too worried.

“He's a good player, but we have a lot of faith in our group,” he said. “He's going to be missed, but we'll be fine.”