Rasmus Dahlin and the Sabres have worked out a three-year, $18 million extension, the team announced on Wednesday.
The 21-year-old Dahlin will remain a restricted free agent when the deal expires following the 2023-24 NHL season. This three-year pact will buy the Sabres two years that the defenseman is arbitration-eligible. He will retain arbitration rights at the end of this contract.
According to Cap Friendly, Dahlin will get $3 million in salary this season with a $2 million signing bonus. The base salary will then jump in the final two years from $5.8 million in 2022-23 to $7.2 million in 2023-24.
Dahlin, the No. 1 pick in the 2018 NHL Draft, finished with five goals and 23 points in 56 games last season. He struggled at the start of the 2020-21 season, but his game began to turn around once Don Granato replaced Ralph Krueger in March.
“His way to play was how I learned to play hockey,” Dahlin said after the season of Granato’s influence. “But the thing I felt was that he trusted me as a player. He really saw what my potential was and I felt comfortable playing out there.”
The Sabres’ blue line will look a little different this season. Rasmus Ristolainen and Jake McCabe are gone and Mark Pysyk, Robert Hagg, and Will Butcher were acquired over the summer. More changes will be coming once the organization works out a Jack Eichel trade.
With Dahlin, Robert Thomas and Kirill Kaprizov signed, that leaves notable RFAs Elias Pettersson, Quinn Hughes, Brady Tkachuk still without contracts as training camps begin.
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Sean Leahy is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @Sean_Leahy.