Sabres sign Jake Richard to two-year, entry-level contract

The Buffalo Sabres announced Thursday they signed forward Jake Richard to a two-year, entry-level contract.

The 21-year-old spent the 2025-26 season in the NCAA with the University of Connecticut, where in 38 games he scored 10 goals and added 17 assists for 27 points. Through three seasons of playing college hockey, Richard had 32 goals and 56 assists for 88 points in 108 career NCAA games.

Sabres’ development coach Tim Kennedy praised Richard’s two-way development in a statement to the team last March.

“His 200-foot game has improved, whether it’s on the forecheck, the backcheck, his defensive-zone play,” Kennedy said.

A native of Jacksonville, Fla., Richard was taken by the Sabres in the sixth round of the 2022 NHL Entry Draft. Before enrolling at Connecticut, he spent parts of two seasons in the USHL, where he scored 49 goals and added 61 assists for 110 points in 113 career regular-season games with the Muskegon Lumberjacks and Tri-City Storm.

Buffalo is coming off its most successful season in nearly two decades, finishing the 2025-26 campaign with a 50-23-9 record, 109 points and a plus-47 goal differential. They won the Atlantic Division and advanced to the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time in 17 years.

The Sabres eliminated the Boston Bruins in six games in the first round, then took the Montreal Canadiens to Game 7 before being eliminated.

Tage Thompson led the team with 40 goals and 81 points, while captain Rasmus Dahlin had a team-leading 55 assists.

In the crease, goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen led the team with a 22-9-3 record and a .910 save percentage in 35 appearances, while his fellow netminder Alex Lyon went 20-10-4 and a .907 SV%.