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Sabres get bad news on Alex Tuch before free agency originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
The Buffalo Sabres certainly wouldn't mind bringing Alex Tuch back.
The question with the pending free agent has never been that. It's been whether Tuch will want more money than the Sabres want to give him in a long-term contract.
The latest indication is that they might be trending in that direction.
NHL insider Darren Dreger recently reported that the Sabres and Tuch haven't made much progress, and that Tuch is currently trending toward becoming a free agent.
On the surface, it certainly seems like tough news for the Sabres. You never really want to lose a top-six forward when there's a chance to retain him.
But Tuch is also in a fascinating spot of being potentially the best free agent available. That will come with a massive contract from someone. Maybe the Sabres actually get saved in the long run by not paying Tuch all that money.
His most recent action for Buffalo was disappointment -- in the seven-game series loss to the Montreal Canadiens, Tuch didn't have a single point.
That isn't expected to tank his value as an unrestricted free agent, although maybe it makes it slightly tougher for Buffalo specifically to hand him a big deal.
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The Sabres have contract extensions to figure out for promising younger players like Zach Benson and Bowen Byram. Maybe for the sake of their salary cap situation, not paying Tuch actually works out better in the long run.
Free agency doesn't start until July, so there's still time for this story to change.
But right now, Tuch is on the path toward hitting the open market, and only years from now will the Sabres really be able to tell whether that was a bad thing or not.
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