Sabres Scratch Louis Crevier Five Weeks After His $16 Million Extension

The Buffalo Sabres signed Louis Crevier to a four-year, $16 million contract extension before he had played a single game for them. Five weeks later, they made him a healthy scratch. Crevier sits out Friday’s game against the Columbus Blue Jackets at KeyBank Center, alongside Ryan McLeod, after a start to the season that has not matched the faith the extension showed. Coach Lindy Ruff says the absence might last one game. He also says the Sabres might start rotating seven defencemen.

What happened on Friday?

Ruff benched two regulars at once. Daily Faceoff reports, citing The Athletic’s Matthew Fairburn, that forward Ryan McLeod and defenceman Louis Crevier will sit out Friday’s game against Columbus as healthy scratches. Both had appeared in all 15 of the Sabres’ games this season, Yardbarker reports, and both played in Wednesday’s 2-1 loss to Ottawa, though neither played significant minutes. Jiri Kulich returns from a concussion to replace McLeod, and Conor Timmins makes his season debut in Crevier’s place. The Sabres are 7-5-3 with 17 points, and the coach’s message, per Yardbarker, is that it is time to fight for a spot in the lineup, and potentially on the roster.

How far has Crevier’s ice time fallen?

From a top-four role in Chicago to the bottom of Buffalo’s blue line in five weeks. Crevier, 25, has one assist in 15 games with the Sabres and is averaging 12:52 of ice time a night, Daily Faceoff reports, a long way from the 17:08 he averaged over 78 games with the Blackhawks last season, when he scored 25 points. In Wednesday’s loss to Ottawa he played 8:05, the lowest of any defenceman on either team. The extension he signed on October 1, hours before the season opener, was a bet on the Chicago version: a 6-foot-8 right-shot defenceman, a seventh-round pick who had worked his way into a full-time role, whose new deal does not even start until 2027-28. The first five weeks of the deal’s shadow have been the opposite of that bet.

What did Ruff actually say about him?

Two things that do not quite sit together. Ruff said he thinks the world of Crevier, Buffalo Hockey Beat reports, called him a very coachable kid who works extremely hard, and said the absence might last one game. “We wanted get Timmins a game,” Ruff said. “He’s on the right track. He’s a very coachable kid. He works extremely hard. There’s a lot of great aspects to him. We’re in a position now where this might just be a one-game absence, and he’s right back in.” Then came the second part: Ruff said the Sabres might begin rotating seven defencemen, “where one or two guys will take their turn being out.” A one-game absence is a reset. A rotation is a system. The next lineup will show which one Ruff meant, and the difference matters for a player whose contract runs through 2031.

Why was McLeod scratched too?

For a mistake everyone could see, in a game Buffalo was winning. With the Sabres clinging to a 1-0 lead in Wednesday’s third period, McLeod lost a defensive-zone faceoff and let his man, Shane Pinto, get free in front of goalie Colten Ellis, Buffalo Hockey Beat reports. Pinto swept in a rebound, the first of two late Ottawa goals in the 2-1 win. McLeod, 27, has one goal and three points with a team-worst minus-7 rating in 15 games, and Ruff said the moment might have been the final straw. “He’s taken full responsibility for it and understands,” Ruff said. “It’s not about not playing tonight; it’s about what the next game’s gonna look like.” McLeod, who scored 14 goals and set a career high with 54 points in 81 games last season, called his own play not good enough and said he wants to get back to basics. It is his first healthy scratch since joining the Sabres in 2024-25, and he is in the second season of a four-year, $20 million contract.

Who is Conor Timmins, and why does he get the spot?

A penalty killer who has been waiting since the preseason. Timmins, 28, has not played since suffering a lower-body injury late in the preseason finale, Buffalo Hockey Beat reports, and he established himself as one of Buffalo’s top penalty killers last season. “He was one of our better guys with his reads and his clears,” Ruff said. His return is the other half of the story: the Sabres are not short of defencemen, they are choosing between them, and the choice this week went against the man they just paid. Timmins’s debut also answers the question of what Ruff meant by getting him a game. It was not a favour. It was the start of a rotation.

What does the extension look like now?

Like a bet made on a training camp, and training camps lie. Crevier arrived in Buffalo in June as part of the deal that sent Bowen Byram and Jordan Greenway to Chicago, with the No. 4 and No. 45 picks in 2026 going the other way, Daily Faceoff reports. He impressed in camp and the preseason, earned high marks from Ruff, and the Sabres signed him before the opener, with Crevier calling the commitment a no-brainer. “It’s like a feeling thing,” he said at the time. “If a team wants me for four, five more years with this year, I couldn’t really refuse it.” He also joked that he still had to be careful with money, because he does not have it until next year. The deal buys three unrestricted-free-agency years and runs through 2030-31, and it was drawn up when Crevier looked like a top-four defenceman. Five weeks in, he is a scratch, and the coach is talking about a rotation. The extension is not in danger; a $16 million commitment does not evaporate over 15 games. But the story of it has flipped, from a team locking up a find before anyone else could, to a team reminding the find that the money was for the player he was in Chicago, and the ice time is for the player he is in Buffalo. The other side of a contract standoff is the Hellebuyck holdout in Winnipeg, where a goaltender’s absence was a choice, and the trade that finally ended it moved him to New Jersey. Crevier’s absence is not a choice, and that is what makes it sting. The same week the Oilers’ enforcer problem produced a one-man fight and a 27-minute penalty night, Buffalo’s problem is quieter: a player paid like a keeper, sitting like a spare. The Red Wings’ own trade-request turmoil shows how fast a contract story turns into a trade story, and Crevier is a long way from that, but the first step on that road is a healthy scratch.

What happens next?

Friday night, then the next lineup card. Columbus visits KeyBank Center at 7 p.m. ET, with Timmins in and Crevier out, and the Sabres’ next game will show whether Ruff’s one-game framing holds or the seven-defenceman rotation takes over. Crevier’s own words from October still apply, just in a different key: he said he was excited, and that it was a lot to take in. The excitement is still there. The taking-in part is now about earning back the minutes that a $4 million-a-year extension was supposed to guarantee.