BREAKING NEWS: Buffalo Sabres And Bowen Byram Avoid Arbitration With Two-Year Contract.

Bowen Byram, a defenseman, was re-signed by the Buffalo Sabres to a two-year contract extension worth $6.25 million annually.

He will become a pending 26-year-old UFA at the conclusion of the 2026–2027 season, when this contract expires.

Byram was an RFA scheduled for a team-elected salary arbitration before to resigning. Because the Sabres already had Owen Power and Rasmus Dahlin on the left side, the 24-year-old defensive end was also the subject of trade rumors during the off-season. Some pundits conjectured that they might trade Byram for a top-six attacker after they traded right winger JJ Peterka to the Utah Mammoth in June.

Rather, Byram and the Sabres worked together to keep a strong defense corps that now includes Mattias Samuelsson and Michael Kesselring, who was recently acquired.

Byram just finished his first full season with the Sabres, scoring a career-high 38 points and seven goals in 82 games. He averaged 22:42 of ice time and was one of nine Sabres players to finish with a positive plus-minus rating (plus-11).

Byram just signed a new two-year contract with the Colorado Avalanche in 2023, which included a $3.85 million cap cost. He was a part of the Avalanche’s Stanley Cup championship in 2021–2022, one of his four seasons with the team. Just before the 2024 NHL trade deadline, Colorado sent him to Buffalo in exchange for Casey Mittelstadt.

Byram is now headed into his sixth NHL season. Across his previous five campaigns, he’s made over 250 regular-season and playoff appearances.

Byram has 33 goals, 110 points, and 12 assists in 246 regular-season games and 27 postseason games.

According to PuckPedia, the Sabres now have roughly $7.39 million in salary cap space. Goalie Devon Levi and defenseman Conor Timmins, who submitted an arbitration request, are the only RFAs still on Buffalo.

Additionally, Byram was the second-highest scoring unsigned RFA defenceman. Luke Hughes, a young player for the New Jersey Devils, leads the league with 44 points, while Ryker Evans of the Seattle Kraken now leads with 25.