Tuch hopes to remain with Sabres following playoff run

BUFFALO -- Alex Tuch hopes to remain with the Buffalo Sabres, but the pending unrestricted free agent forward knows he'll soon have to make "decisions" on where he will play next season.

The forward, who grew up a Sabres fan in Baldwinsville, New York, just over two hours east of Buffalo, has spent the past five seasons here but can become a free agent on July 1.

"I love it here. I've loved my time here," said the 30-year-old, who has two sons, a  2 1/2-year-old and a 1-year-old, with his wife, Kylie. "I've loved playing hockey here.  I'm going to do whatever's best for myself and my family. That's all. That's my power and consideration. I don't know how talks are going to proceed. I don't know what they're going to say, I don't know the future. But my main priority is my family."

The Sabres, who qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since 2011, were eliminated by the Montreal Canadiens with a 3-2 overtime loss in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Second Round on Monday.

Tuch, who has been eligible to sign a contract with Buffalo since last summer, said his agents had conversations with former general manager Kevyn Adams, who was replaced by Jarmo Kekalainen on Dec. 15, but they didn't progress to where Tuch and his camp had hoped, so the sides tabled discussions for later. 

Conversations continued as the regular season progressed, but when the playoff push started, Tuch decided it was in both his and the Sabres' best interests to put things on hold until the end of the season. 

Tuch had his exit meeting with Kekalainen before meeting with the media Wednesday and said the GM "once again expressed his desire to have me back on the team."

"Obviously he'll be in touch with my agent, and that's it," Tuch said. "Throughout the playoffs, it hasn't been a focus of mine at all. Honestly, I've just been thinking about the game and about the playoffs and that was it. So, obviously, the next month or so I'm going to have to make some decisions here."

Tuch was second on the Sabres in goals (33) behind forward Tage Thompson (40) and was third in points (66) in 79 regular-season games.

"We’ve talked about it all season long when these questions arise, that he’s been an important part of our success," Kekalainen said. "He’s always given some of the most ice time for any of our forwards, killing penalties, playing power play. He’s a consistent goal scorer. He’s a valuable part of our team. Just like I’ve told him and I tell everybody in the same situation: we make our decisions based on, ‘How can we make our team better?’ And we have to come to an agreement that this is the type of contract that we can still make our team better. And hopefully we can do that."

He led Buffalo with four goals and tied for the team lead with seven points in its six-game series win against the Boston Bruins in the first round. However, he was a team-worst minus-8 in the second round and was held without a point despite leading Buffalo with 26 shots on goal.

"Offensively, I felt like I let my teammates down with that, but at the same time I was really proud of my effort," Tuch said. "I was really proud of a lot of things during this entire season. But yeah, ultimately (we) came up short and it was devastating."

Tuch said he was still processing the playoff exit and hadn't put any type of timeline on a contract. 

"There's endless amounts of possibilities and options for a guy going into free agency," he said. "You don't really know anything until everything's laid out in front of you. So, I'm going to take some time in the next few weeks to really figure it out and see how it goes."

Tuch was acquired by the Sabres in a trade with the Vegas Golden Knights on Nov. 4, 2021, along with forward Peyton Krebs and two draft picks, for center Jack Eichel and a draft pick. The very next day, he met with the media and couldn't stop smiling as he rattled off a list of former Sabres from the 2005-06 and 2006-07 teams he grew up watching. Prior to this season, the Sabres hadn't reached the second round since 2007.

Ending their League-record 14-season playoff drought gave Tuch some perspective.

"It's really special," he said. "It makes the Game 7 loss (to Montreal) that much more devastating, too, because of all the time and energy that we put in as a group. 'Dahls' (captain Rasmus Dahlin) and 'Tommer' (Thompson), I think they're seven years in and I'm five years in (with Buffalo). (Mattias Samuelsson) is almost five years in. We've put everything into this organization, this city, and we've gotten a lot of love back and we really appreciate that.

"It wasn't always good times; there were a lot of hard stretches. … I'm really proud of our group. I'm grateful to be a part of it."

His teammates hope he'll still be a part of it next season.

"I don't think it's a secret that everyone in that room wants him to come back," said Thompson, who lives across the street from Tuch. "He's a huge piece of this team, a massive reason why we got to where we did."

"All of us want him back, that's the bottom line," Dahlin said. "He's so big for us on and off the ice. It's his life and he does whatever he wants, and I respect whatever he does. But I just hope he and Jarmo can find something together."