The regular season is right around the corner, and while the coaches and players are preparing on the ice, the front offices around the league are trying to secure their future. That usually comes in the form of contract extensions, like what the Minnesota Wild have done with Kirill Kaprizov and Filip Gustavsson.
For the Buffalo Sabres, it really is only one player, and fans know who that is in Alex Tuch. He has been one of their best players since joining the team as part of the Jack Eichel trade and has had 94 goals over the past three seasons.
Unfortunately, the two sides haven't been able to reach a new contract, and part of it is out of their control and is a league-wide issue. The NHL has seen its salary cap jump significantly to $95.5 million this season and is expected to only go up to as high as $113 million in just two seasons from now.
Buffalo Sabres want to keep Alex Tuch but aren't close on a new contract
Recently, David Pagnotta was on The Daily Faceoff podcast and mentioned that the Sabres and Tuch want to get a new contract done, but aren't really close. He mentioned that Kirill Kaprizov's contract, which has an AAV of $17 million, has shifted the market, and around the league, teams and players might be going back to reassess.
Now, Tuch isn't going to be anywhere close to what Kaprizov received, but he is going to see a significant bump from his current AAV of $4.75 million. The challenge, and this is probably where the holdup lies, is that an AAV this season could be viewed very differently in just two seasons.
A player with an AAV of $10 million this season accounts for 10.4% of the salary cap but in the 2027-28 season, that percentage drops to 8.8%. This means that teams have more money to work with and salaries will rise.
Entering this season, there are only 17 players in the NHL with an AAV of $10 million or more, according to Puckpedia. That number is only going to rise each season, and Alex Tuch is going to be part of that group. The sooner the Buffalo Sabres acknowledge that, the better their chances are that they can keep Tuch in Buffalo and allow the focus to be entirely on the ice for this team.