The Buffalo Sabres have signed forward Noah Ostlund to an eight-year extension, the team announced. Ostlund will make an AAV of $6.6MM on the deal, which will begin in the 2027-28 season at 5.81% cap hit on the Sabres’ books.
The contract will take him through the 2034-35 season, when Ostlund will turn 31 years old. At that point, he’ll be an unrestricted free agent and $52.8MM richer.
The deal also carries a 7-team no-trade list that begins in 2030 and carries through the remaining years of the contract. The 22-year-old played a bottom-six role for most of last season and projects to be in that role this year.
He scored 27 points in 60 games in the 2025-26 season, his rookie campaign, which was one of Buffalo’s most cost-effective seasons last year. Behind Josh Doan ($18K per point) and Zach Benson ($22K per point), Ostlund’s production tallied third on the 2025-26 roster, with a $886K cap hit; he had a $33K cost per point season.
The Stockholm native added to that pedigree, playing just three games in the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the Sabres but registering a goal and an assist in that short window. Given his very short window of NHL ice time, he was a bridge contract candidate if he took a step forward this season, but it appears the Sabres are opting for the longest term they can provide before the Sept.
15 deadline, where a new CBA will come into place, and no players with their team can sign longer than seven years. He is currently on the final year of his entry-level contract, signed back in July of 2022, where he was set to become an RFA at age 23 by the end of the 2026-27 campaign.
Ostlund once again began the season in Rochester with the Americans, the AHL affiliate, but in his movement up and down the minors, he scored 10 points in seven games, which earned the young forward an extended look at NHL games. His engaged playstyle was what helped Buffalo’s success despite playing just 12 minutes of even-strength ice time this past year.
Before that, he saw eight NHL games in 2024-25, but the majority of that season was spent with Rochester, where he scored 36 points in 45 games in the AHL. The Sabres originally drafted Ostlund at 16th overall in the 2022 NHL Draft and clearly see him as a long-term fit in their roster.
They have locked in a majority of their core for the long haul, adding Ostlund to the mix. He’s one of 10 Sabres signed through at least 2029-30, along with forwards Joshua Norris, Benson, Tage Thompson, Josh Doan, Peyton Krebs, and Beck Malenstyn, and defensemen Rasmus Dahlin, Owen Power, and Mattias Samuelsson.
More to come.