Washington Capitals Acquire Tyler Kopff

The Buffalo Sabres and Washington Capitals have swapped minor-league forward prospects. In a trade earlier today, the Capitals acquired 23-year-old Tyler Kopff, who can play both center and left wing, and sent winger Zac Funk to Buffalo.

Both players are entering the final year of their respective entry-level contracts. Kopff, who stands 6’4″, 205 pounds went undrafted as as point-per-game player in the BCHL, leading him to spend two seasons at Brown before earning attention from professional franchises. Kopff had a stellar second season at Brown, scoring 28 points in 32 games and earning ECAC Third-Team All-Star honors. That caught the eye of pro teams and Kopff signed a two-year ELC to kick in for the 2025-26 season, and an ATO for what remained of 2024-25.

After a six-game trial with Rochester at the end of the 2024-25 campaign, Kopff began his professional career in earnest last fall. In total, he played in 30 games for Rochester, registering just five points. Kopff lost his role in Rochester in March, just after the team suffered its seventh consecutive loss. He was sent down to the ECHL, and he would finish the year in that league with the Jacksonville Icemen. He scored six points in 10 ECHL games.

Seeing as Kopff struggled to make an impact in his debut professional campaign, and couldn’t hold down even a regular fourth-line role with the Americans, it’s no surprise to see the Sabres swap him out for another prospect. That’s especially true seeing as Kopff was a signing of former GM Kevyn Adams, who has since been replaced by Jarmo Kekalainen.

In exchange for Kopff, the Sabres received Funk, another undrafted prospect albeit one of a dramatically different profile. The 22-year-old, who stands 6’0″ 210 pounds, is a former WHL star who has not been able to stick in the AHL across his two full seasons of pro experience.

In his final campaign of junior hockey, Funk led the WHL with 67 goals and finished with 123 points in just 68 games. That made him one of the more coveted undrafted free agents coming out of the CHL that season. The team at Elite Prospects rated Funk the No. 4 CHL free agent at the time, while also calling him the most likely of the free agent class to play NHL games.

It should be noted, though, that the opinion on Funk’s upside was divided among public-facing scouts. While Elite Prospects expressed some optimism Funk would find his way to the NHL, Corey Pronman of The Athletic made a notably more pessimistic projection. He specifically questioned whether Funk’s stellar overage season – the core reason he had been receiving pro attention – would translate to the pro game. He wrote at the time “There’s always a concern about translatability when a guy’s offense spikes as a 20-year-old in junior.”

So far, Funk’s professional career has been more in line with Pronman’s projection. The 22-year-old was limited to just 10 AHL games last season, compared to 23 in the ECHL. In 25 career AHL games across two seasons of professional hockey, Funk has just six points.

In trading out Funk for Kopff, the Capitals have swapped scoring pedigree for athletic tools. While Kopff has never been a dominant scorer, he brings a level of size and bulk Funk simply doesn’t have. But from Buffalo’s perspective, the team has had success developing more undersized, hard-working wingers, and may hope whatever offensive upside Funk does possess can be unlocked by their development staff.

Regardless of whatever motivations the involved teams may have had, it’s clear the importance of this deal is far greater for the players involved rather than their teams. In all likelihood, this pair of players will occupy a spot on the bubble of their respective team’s AHL roster. They are both expected to be marginal players for those AHL affiliates. The key for each player will be reversing some of the downward momentum that was built in 2025-26 in order to beat the odds and earn another NHL contract next summer.