ORCHARD PARK – The Sabres tried to convince Bowen Byram to stay in Buffalo. General manager Jarmo Kekalainen said he spent all season working on a new contract, calling it his “first priority.”
But Byram, 25, wanted to become a No. 1 defenseman, an opportunity he would likely never have in Buffalo with captain Rasmus Dahlin, Owen Power and Mattias Samuelsson around. So, according to Kekalainen, Byram “didn’t want to negotiate.”
“He wasn’t gonna sign with us,” Kekalainen said Wednesday at One Bills Drive, where the Sabres are headquartered for this weekend’s NHL Draft. “So that didn’t leave us an option to do anything else with this.”
The Sabres had to make a decision, so Tuesday, they traded Byram and winger Jordan Greenway to the Chicago Blackhawks in exchange for the fourth and 45th overall picks this weekend and defenseman Louis Crevier.
“The deal that we had in front of us, couple deals we had in front of us, were too good to pass on,” Kekalainen said. “So we made the trade, and now we have some draft capital that we can use to improve our team, whether it’s in the near future with a trade, or by making a pick.
“We’ll weigh all those options until the draft time and make another decision.”
Byram, who has one year left on his contract, is expected to sign a long-term deal with the Blackhawks.
“He wanted to get the chance to be a No. 1 defenseman, I respect that,” Kekalainen said. “He has a year left before he gets to free agency, and that’s when the players have a lot of power, and you see that sometimes even two years left in the contract where they sort of make a power move and make it well known that they’re not signing an extension.
“The more term that you have left, the better value you can get for a player. In this case, we had one more year left before his free agency, and we feel like we got very good value.”
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