Blackhawks acquire Sam Lafferty from Sabres

Lafferty is entering the final year of a two-year contract with a $2 million cap hit that he signed with the Sabres as an unrestricted free agent in 2024.

The 2026 sixth round pick is the Blackhawks’ pick.

With the trade, the Sabres free up a roster spot and some salary cap space by moving on from a player that wasn’t quite what they had hoped for. In 60 games with the Sabres, Lafferty had just four goals and three assists for seven points, his worst output in a non-shortened season in his career, so he never quite fit in with the team.

He returns to the Blackhawks, where he spent parts of two seasons in 2021-22 and 2022-23, in hopes of rebounding his game. He had one of his better seasons with the Blackhawks in 2022-23, where he had 12 goals and 15 assists for 32 points in 70 games played with Chicago and the Toronto Maple Leafs. It gives the Blackhawks another forward on their depth chart, and the potential to reignite some solid bottom-six production from before.

The Blackhawks have made a couple other moves ahead of free agency, buying out defenseman T.J. Brodie and acquiring winger Andre Burakovsky from the Seattle Kraken as a cap dump. They enter the summer with nearly $20.5 million in salary cap space.

The Sabres have also made a couple other trades of note as they’ve looked to reshape their team, trading J.J. Peterka to the Utah Mammoth in exchange for Michael Kesselring and Josh Doan, and dumping Connor Clifton’s contract to the Pittsburgh Penguins, also giving them a second round pick, in exchange for Conor Timmins and Isaac Belliveau. The Sabres now have almost $23 million in salary cap space entering the offseason.