As the NHL Trade Deadline quickly approaches, the question of what the Buffalo Sabres do with Alex Tuch continues to loom large. Based on some recent reporting, it seems that trading Tuch even with no contract extension agreed to, is off the table.
That is absolutely the right decision with the Sabres remaining in playoff contention and moving up even as high as second in the Atlantic Division heading into their game with the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday. However, the question remains how it got to this point in the season without a new deal for Tuch, and Elliotte Friedman recently shed some light on why that might have happened.
Earlier this week, Friedman was on The FAN Hockey Show on Sportsnet and said about the Tuch negotations going back to when Kevyn Adams was general manager: "I was under the impression, and it's never been confirmed or denied to me, and I asked about around that when Kevyn Adams was the GM, that was the offer to Tuch was the Tage Thompson deal or there abouts."
Tage Thompson's deal is the exception and should not be the rule for future contract negotiations for the Buffalo Sabres
If the Sabres thought that Tuch would sign a deal similar to Thompson's, it was clear that negotiations were not going to go anywhere. Tage Thompson is currently playing on a seven-year deal with an AAV of $7.1 million that was signed before the 2022-23 season.
That contract has become easily one of the biggest bargains, not just on the Sabres but in the entire NHL. However, at the time, the Sabres took a bit of a risk because Thompson had yet to be the player he is now, and in the first year of that contract, Thompson was accounting for 8.6% of the salary cap.
Since then, the combination of Thompson's development and the increase in the salary cap has made this deal look better and better each season. Every year, Thompson's percentage of the salary cap goes down, and during the 2028-29 season, it is expected to be only 5.81%.
This is ultimately where the disconnect probably lies between the player and team in terms of contract negotiations. For the Sabres, particularly under Adams, they were looking at total value, and three or four seasons ago, Tuch probably was a player who could fetch a contract with an AAV of $7 or $8 million.
Meanwhile, the agent for Tuch is probably looking at it in terms of percentage of cap, and being around 8% moving forward puts a contract with an AAV of $10 or $11 million, which is what he is reportedly asking for.
The Buffalo Sabres should consider themselves lucky to have a player like Tage Thompson on the contract he has. The problem, though, is that, at least in this case, it seems to have hindered them from getting a deal done with a key free agent that ultimately could cost them the player leaving in free agency with nothing in return.