Buffalo Sabres’ defenseman Bowen Byram has been traded to the Chicago Blackhawks, as reported by Elliotte Friedman with Sportsnet.ca. The full terms, per The Fourth Period’s David Pagnotta: Chicago also acquires forward Jordan Greenway, while Buffalo receives the No. 4 and No. 45 overall picks in the 2026 Draft along with defenseman Louis Crevier.
Byram, 25, is the centerpiece of the deal and the reason Chicago was willing to part with a top-five selection. The fourth overall pick in 2019 and a Stanley Cup winner with Colorado in 2022, he’s coming off a career year: 11 goals, 31 assists, and 42 points with a plus-15 rating across all 82 games, plus four goals in 13 playoff games as Buffalo won the Atlantic Division and a playoff round for the first time in over a decade. He’s a mobile, transition-driving puck-mover who spent the year bouncing between the top two pairings alongside Owen Power and Rasmus Dahlin, and at 25 he fits the Bedard-era timeline far better than the veteran options on this summer’s market. The underlying numbers draw some skepticism, and the Sun-Times’ Ben Pope flagged exactly that when he floated Byram as a Chicago fit, but the skill, age, and pedigree are real.
The contract backdrop is seemingly what got him back on the trade block. Byram is entering the final season of the two-year, $12.5MM deal ($6.25MM AAV) he signed last July and was a year from unrestricted free agency. He’d made clear to Buffalo he wasn’t prepared to commit long-term, per Sportsnet’s Nick Kypreos, with agent Darren Ferris reportedly seeking around $10MM annually, a number that would have made him Buffalo’s highest-paid defenseman behind Dahlin. The Blackhawks now have a year to convince him to stay long term before he can reach the open market, with plenty of cap space to make a deal work. Darren Dreger with TSN has reported that sources say Byram is happy to be joining the Blackhawks, and he wants to take on a bigger role than he previously had in Buffalo. Early signs are pointing to an extension getting done in the near future.
For Chicago, surrendering the No. 4 pick is the aggressive part. GM Kyle Davidson had been viewed as unlikely to move the selection, with the Hawks tied to several top prospects there, and Chicago has leaned on premium picks throughout its rebuild: Connor Bedard, Artyom Levshunov, and Anton Frondell all came inside the top four over the last three drafts. Trading out of the slot signals a pivot from accumulating lottery talent toward rounding out a young core that’s meant to start competing.
Chicago also takes on Greenway, a 6-foot-6 winger whose value here is size and salary more than scoring. Greenway, 29, carries a $4MM cap hit through 2026-27, mirroring Byram’s expiry, leaving both a year from unrestricted free agency, and is coming off an injury-wrecked season: one goal and six points with a minus-10 in just 40 games, with a career-low 12:27 of ice time. Multiple sports hernia surgeries have limited him to 74 games over the past two years. When healthy, he’s an effective fourth-line forechecker and penalty-killer, not the scoring complement to Bedard the Hawks have chased, but with north of $40MM in space, Chicago can absorb the contract easily, and the added money helps push the club toward the cap floor.
The piece coming back to Buffalo with real upside is Crevier, a towering 6-foot-8 right-shot defenseman fresh off a breakout. A seventh-round pick (188th overall) in 2020, Crevier opened 2025-26 as Chicago’s seventh defenseman and finished it on the top pairing next to Alex Vlasic as the Hawks’ shutdown duo, posting seven goals, 18 assists and 25 points with 95 blocks and 124 hits over 78 games at 17:08 a night. At a $900K cap hit through 2026-27 with restricted free agency to follow, he gives the Sabres a cheap, controllable, right-shot body; a genuine asset, not a salary makeweight.
For Buffalo, GM Jarmo Kekäläinen turns a player a year from walking, plus the unloading of Greenway’s contract into the No.4 overall pick, and mid second rounder, and a very serviceable right shot defenceman, and additonlly holds the No. 20 selection after moving up earlier this offseason. It will be extremely interesting to see what Buffalo does with their two first round selections in the days leading up to the draft. After what we have seen in the last 72 hours, it would be of no surprise to see Buffalo flip these picks to aquire a piece that makes them a more serious contender next season.