With NHL free agency starting in the middle of last week, we have seen numerous signings take place over the past few days. We saw the Buffalo Sabres lose both of their opening night goalies to free agency, with Carter Hutton going to Arizona and Linus Ullmark signing with division rival Boston. But the Sabres retained a good young player we saw last season to a very team-friendly contract.
Rasmus Asplund signed a two-year deal worth $825,000 per season. At only 23 years old, the Sabres hope that Asplund will be part of their current rebuild and youth movement.
Last season was Asplund’s second season playing for Buffalo, which was much more successful than his first year. In 29 games last season for the Sabres, Rasmus tallied 11 points on seven goals and four assists in only 29 games played. He has played in 57 games over the course of his two-year NHL career. In those games, Asplund has a total of eight goals and six assists.
This is a great value contract for Buffalo on a promising young player. And it barely puts a dent in the Sabres cap hit over the next two years until Asplund’s contract is up. This was certainly a quality signing that was nice to see after the Sabres lost Linus Ullmark to free agency.
Now that Buffalo has locked up Rasmus Asplund with this new contract, their focus now needs to shift to try and sign some of their other young players to new contracts. Players such as Casey Mittelstadt, Rasmus Dahlin, and Henri Jokiharju should be the next players on Sabres GM Kevyn Adams’ radar. It would be very smart for Kevyn Adams to do his best to keep these players in Buffalo for as long as they are willing to be there.