Patrick Kane Passes on the Buffalo Sabres — and the Plan Holds

Patrick Kane isn't coming home. The biggest item in Buffalo Sabres news this week was a signing that happened 500 miles west: on Thursday, the Buffalo-born winger took a two-year, $16 million deal to return to Chicago, ending a courtship that had the Sabres genuinely in the running. It stings, because Kane at 37 can still play — 57 points in 67 games for Detroit last season — and because Buffalo finally has a team a hometown legend might actually want to join. But the miss doesn't change the math of a franchise coming off 109 points, its first playoff series wins in a generation, and an offseason spent paying its own young core instead of renting someone else's. Jarmo Kekalainen kept his powder dry, and the plan survives the disappointment.

This week in Buffalo Sabres news: Kane says no

The pursuit was real. Reports earlier in July — including radio comments from Chris Chelios that made the rounds — had Kane weighing Buffalo against Chicago, and local coverage spent the week treating it as a live possibility right up until the Blackhawks announced the deal Thursday. At $8 million a year through 2027-28, Chicago paid a premium for nostalgia that Buffalo, sitting on about $5 million in cap space, was never likely to match. Local reaction split between frustration at another star saying no and grudging approval that Kekalainen didn't torch his cap sheet to change the answer.

The other rumble that won't die: Connor Hellebuyck. Pro Hockey Rumors reported earlier this month that the Winnipeg goalie was willing to waive his no-move clause for a trade to Buffalo, and speculation about a Sabres offer was still circulating this week. Nothing has materialized, and it may not — but the interest makes sense for a team whose playoff run ended with Alex Lyon posting an .847 save percentage and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen an .897 as the crease wobbled against Montreal. File it under rumor, but file it near the top of the drawer. The week's last indignity was cosmetic: Lindy Ruff, a Jack Adams finalist in June, was left off a prominent top-ten coach ranking, which Buffalo fans can now add to the grievance shelf.

An offseason of hard choices

Zoom out and this has been the most consequential Sabres summer in a decade, run by a general manager — Kekalainen, hired in December after Kevyn Adams was fired — with no sentimentality about the roster he inherited. Buffalo finished 50-23-9 for 109 points and first place in the Atlantic — the franchise's first playoff berth since 2011 — after going a scorching 32-6-2 over its final 40 games once Kekalainen took over from a 14-14-4 start. The Sabres then beat Boston in six in the first round before losing a Game 7 overtime heartbreaker to Montreal at home, a series in which Buffalo went 2-5 at KeyBank Center and Tuch didn't record a point. Kekalainen's verdict on that team was unsparing, and the trades showed it.

Alex Tuch, a fan favorite coming off a 33-goal season, wanted eight years; Buffalo didn't. So in late June the Sabres signed-and-traded him to Washington on an eight-year, $84 million deal, taking back center David Kampf and a 2027 third-rounder — and Kampf never even unpacked, signing in Czechia instead. Bowen Byram, a year from free agency at $6.25 million and reportedly unwilling to negotiate an extension despite a 42-point season, went to Chicago with Jordan Greenway for a package headlined by the No. 4 overall pick, plus defenseman Louis Crevier and the No. 45 selection. Devon Levi, once the goalie of the future, was dealt to Edmonton for a 2028 third. The one significant add came from Anaheim: 22-year-old defenseman Olen Zellweger, acquired for prospect Anton Wahlberg and that No. 45 pick, then promptly signed for three years and $9.3 million. Zellweger managed 22 points in 76 games on a crowded Anaheim blue line; in Buffalo he gives the left side a puck-mover to grow alongside Rasmus Dahlin and Owen Power.

Paying the core instead

Where the money actually went is the tell. The Sabres committed roughly $88 million in new deals to their own this summer:

• Zach Benson: seven years, $52.5 million — a $7.5 million bet that the 21-year-old winger's arrow keeps pointing up.
• Peyton Krebs: four years, $18 million, signed July 13 to head off the team's only arbitration hearing after the 25-year-old set career highs with 12 goals and 39 points; the deal includes a modified no-trade clause in its back half.
• Beck Malenstyn: six years, $17.5 million for the identity forward on the checking line.

Around the edges came the depth work: Conor Sheary and Dennis Gilbert on $850,000 deals, two-way contracts for Trevor Kuntar and Jason Polin, goalie Matt Villalta signed to stabilize the Rochester crease, and a July 13 prospect swap sending 6-foot-4 forward Tyler Kopff to Washington for Zac Funk. Buffalo also added John Davidson as a senior advisor, giving Kekalainen a graybeard consigliere with decades of front-office mileage. The through-line is a GM who keeps saying he'd rather build from within than shop on July 1 — and whose actions, Kane flirtation aside, have matched the words.

Rudolph at No. 4 and the pipeline

The Byram trade turned into the franchise's highest draft pick since Owen Power, and Buffalo used it on Daxon Rudolph, a right-shot defenseman from Prince Albert who put up 78 points in the WHL and is committed to the University of Denver. At No. 20, the Sabres took Ilia Morozov, a Russian-born center who played NCAA hockey at Miami as a 17-year-old — an unusual path and an aggressive swing. With the second- and third-rounders spent in trades, the rest of the class was three late fliers, including Latvian center Olivers Murnieks at 124. Development camp ran June 29 through July 2 at LECOM Harborcenter, complete with a public scrimmage, giving fans a first look at Rudolph and Morozov alongside the system's returning names.

Cap sheet and the Buffalo Sabres calendar

PuckPedia has Buffalo about $5.1 million under the $104 million ceiling with a full 23-man roster and all three retained-salary slots in use — snug for this season, but the books open dramatically in 2027-28, when the Sabres project north of $36 million in space. Dahlin's $11 million leads the payroll, followed by Power at $8.35 million, Josh Norris at $7.95 million, Benson's new $7.5 million and Tage Thompson — 40 goals and 81 points last season — at a bargain $7.14 million.

The road back starts soon:

• Preseason: four games, opening Sept. 21 in Pittsburgh, with home dates against Columbus (Sept. 22) and Pittsburgh (Sept. 26).
• Season opener: Thursday, Oct. 1 at Columbus — a reunion with Kekalainen's old franchise.
• Home opener: Saturday, Oct. 3 against Chicago, which means Byram returns to KeyBank Center on night one of a five-game homestand.
• The long haul: the new 84-game schedule runs through April 10, with four meetings apiece against Montreal and Boston — the two teams that defined last spring — plus Thanksgiving-week home dates against the Rangers (Nov. 25) and Pittsburgh (Nov. 27).

The Buffalo Sabres wanted a storybook July and got a disciplined one instead. Kane went home to Chicago, Tuch went to Washington, and the return on a decade of misery is now a 109-point roster with its best young players locked up and a top-five pick in the system. If the goaltending question gets answered — by Hellebuyck, by Luukkonen, or by someone not yet on the radar — this team enters October as a legitimate Atlantic contender rather than a feel-good story. For once, the offseason grievances in Buffalo are about garnish, not the meal.