The Buffalo Sabres continue to be busy ahead of the NHL Draft on Friday night, and a few hours before appear to have found their replacement for Bowen Byram. They had traded Byram earlier in the week and used one of those picks, the 45th overall, in a trade with the Anaheim Ducks while also sending prospect Anton Wahlberg for defenseman Olen Zellweger.
It is a great move, but the Sabres have a little bit more work to do to ensure the trade was worth it. Zellweger is set to be a restricted free agent and the Sabres will need to extend a qualifying offer of $874,125.
A qualifying offer only retains his rights as a restricted free agent, and from there, Jarmo Kekalainen and the Sabres need to agree on a new deal. It will be interesting to see which direction the Sabres elect to go, as he is only 23 years old but has been a full-time starter with the Ducks the past two seasons.
For his career, he has 164 games at the NHL level with 16 goals and 35 assists during that stretch.
Should the Buffalo Sabres offer a short-term or long-term contract?
The big question for the Sabres is whether to offer a short-term or long-term deal for their new defenseman. According to AFP Analytics, they project a short-term deal of two years and a cap hit of $3.24 million, but a long-term deal of seven years with a cap hit of $6.517 million.
For the Sabres, a long-term deal would certainly be appealing, especially if they are confident that he can be a Top 4 defenseman. Zellweger did lose some ice time last year as he averaged nearly 19 million in 2024-25 but dropped to just under 17 minutes last year due to the Ducks shuffling their pairs.
If the Sabres do reach a long-term deal around that average of $6.5 million, it is essentially the same as what Bowen Byram was expected to make this season at $6.25 million. The Sabres should have the cap space to make a deal like that work and if they do sign him to a deal four years or longer, they ensure their Top 4 is locked in for the next four seasons until Mattias Samuelsson's contract is up at the end of the 2029-30 season.
It is also worth noting that while Zellweger hasn't followed the trend that Jarmo Kekalainen has taken with the defensemen he has added since being named general manager, notable Logan Stanley and Louis Crevier, as Zellweger is only 5'10", but he excels at skating and moving the puck. The skillset fits perfectly with what the Sabres expect from their defensemen in terms of jumping in and helping in the offensive zone.
While the Sabres might not want to go all the way to a long-term deal, it wouldn't be surprising if they didn't try to go longer than two years with his next contract. The type of contract Zellweger gets from the Sabres will be a great indication in terms of how confident they are that he can be a key part of their Top 4 moving forward.
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