Will Alex Tuch stay with the Sabres?

Since the Buffalo Sabres have been eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the big question on everyone’s mind is whether or not forward Alex Tuch will re-sign with the team.

Tuch is a pending unrestricted free agent, as he is at the end of the seven-year contract that he signed with the Vegas Golden Knights in 2018. Since being traded to the Sabres as part of the Jack Eichel trade, the Syracuse native has been a key part of the team’s scoring attack, playing a pivotal role in Buffalo winning the Atlantic Division and clinching a spot in the postseason for the first time since 2011.

While there is plenty of interest from his teammates in him sticking around, Tuch has said he needs time to think about what will be best for him and his family moving forward.

On Thursday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, David Pagnotta joins Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton to give his take on Tuch’s future and whether the Sabres are in it.

David Pagnotta: I did the full Buffalo-Montreal series, and there was some word, or at least chatter anyway, that maybe the likelihood of him returning has increased. He’s gonna have to evaluate all of that properly. They stopped talking ahead of playoffs. Obviously, that was the focus. But there’s been a very solid open line of communication between [GM Jarmo Kekäläinen] and his agents. So, this hasn’t been a point where nobody’s been calling each other, or they look at somebody calling and go, ‘I’m gonna ignore this guy.’ It hasn’t been that. It’s just been a lot of back-and-forth because nobody’s nailed the number. The number is probably going to be anywhere from $10.5-$11 million.

He is the top dog in free agency. If he wants to really cash out, he can hit July 1, and take his chances there. It did sound like maybe they were leaning towards sticking around in Buffalo. We’ll see kind of where that goes in the next few weeks when they reconvene with respect to actual negotiations. Conversations are one thing, talking’s one thing. It’s a matter of actually negotiating that contract and what it looks like now. That’s proably going to happen in the next 2-3 weeks.

You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…