{"id":66491,"date":"2025-07-15T03:17:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-15T03:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/66491\/"},"modified":"2025-07-15T03:17:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T03:17:10","slug":"sabres-bowen-byram-avoid-arbitration-with-two-year-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/66491\/","title":{"rendered":"Sabres, Bowen Byram Avoid Arbitration With Two-Year Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Sabres have settled with restricted free agent defenseman\u00a0Bowen Byram<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>before their arbitration hearing, Rick Dhaliwal of CHEK<\/a> reports. It\u2019s a two-year contract worth $6.25MM per season, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet<\/a> adds. The team has since confirmed<\/a> the signing.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The contract, worth $12.5MM in total, could still be part of a sign-and-trade involving Byram, whose name more seriously popped up in trade speculation<\/a> early in the offseason ahead of what he hoped would be a big payday for him. Instead, the young rearguard settles for another \u201cshow-me\u201d bridge deal, one that notably walks him to his first UFA-eligible year in 2027, giving him better earning potential on a long-term deal than he has now, assuming he continues an upward trajectory.<\/p>\n

Byram, selected No. 4 overall in the 2019 draft by the Avalanche, struggled with concussions early and often in his development but has enjoyed healthier campaigns in recent years. After getting his name on the Stanley Cup with Colorado in 2022, they signed him to a two-year, $7.7MM bridge deal the following summer. Before he completed the first season of the contract, Colorado, looking to upgrade its center group, dealt Byram to Buffalo in a surprise one-for-one trade for Casey Mittelstadt<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

While few things have gone right for the Sabres in the last decade-plus, that trade was one of them. Colorado no longer has Mittelstadt or the veteran they ended up trading him for,\u00a0Charlie Coyle<\/a><\/strong>, on their roster. Byram, meanwhile, could still be poised to play another couple of seasons in Buffalo \u2013 multiple reports have indicated he\u2019s open to staying long-term as long as the money is of interest.<\/p>\n

Byram\u2019s best NHL season came last year in top-pairing deployment with\u00a0Rasmus Dahlin<\/a><\/strong>. While a bit of an awkward fit at first glance with two lefties, Byram managed a career-high with 38 points and a +11 rating while averaging nearly 23 minutes per game and, perhaps more importantly, played in all 82 contests. He\u2019s now missed just nine games over the last two years after missing more than half of the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons combined.<\/p>\n

Byram notably did not file for arbitration, leaving himself susceptible to an offer sheet. Still, the Sabres negated that threat the following day when they opted for team-elected arbitration<\/a>. That move limited their ability to walk away if they didn\u2019t like the award and allowed Byram to choose between a one-year or a two-year term. Even without a hearing, Byram likely gets his wish here with a chance to test unrestricted free agency as early in his career as possible.<\/p>\n

Still just 24, Byram\u2019s 116 blocks co-led the team last year, although his possession impacts, with a noticeable discrepancy between his and Dahlin\u2019s even-strength Corsi shares, are cause for concern. Both Buffalo and Byram, for his market value\u2019s sake, will count on his defensive play to improve as the Sabres aim to make the postseason for the first time since 2011, assuming he remains in Western New York come opening night.<\/p>\n

Image courtesy of Jeff Curry-Imagn Images.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Sabres have settled with restricted free agent defenseman\u00a0Bowen Byram\u00a0before their arbitration hearing, Rick Dhaliwal of CHEK reports.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":40207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[47170,7944,1720,1649,293,62,1650,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-66491","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-arbitration","9":"tag-bowen-byram","10":"tag-buffalo-sabres","11":"tag-newsstand","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-transactions","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114855087264619590","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}