Alex Tuch can become an unrestricted free agent in just over a month. If the Buffalo Sabres and Tuch can’t come to an agreement by July 1, he’ll be free to test the market. However, that’s also when he will no longer be able to sign an eight-year contract.Signing with the Sabres before July 1 is the only way Tuch can get eight years. For a player who has been playing on a below-market-value contract for the last few years, that eighth year could be meaningful in terms of the total value of his next contract. And if the Sabres want to keep Tuch, that eighth year might be their biggest leverage point.That brings up the natural question of whether signing a player who just turned 30 to an eight-year contract is good business. Tuch would be 38 when that contract expires. Would he return the full value of his cap hit in years seven and eight of that deal? Would the dropoff come sooner than that?Those are fair questions, but it’s also worth framing those questions appropriately. If Tuch can get $11 million per year on a seven-year contract from a team on the open market, that’s $77 million in total money. For the Sabres to match that would be $9.625 million per year on an eight-year deal. If they structure the contract appropriately with bonus money as we’ve written about, that cap hit might be able to come down. Based on the percentage of the cap in future years, Tuch’s cap hit should be well under 10 percent of the cap as the years go on.Tuch’s cap hit hurts in 2026-27 because the Sabres are dealing with the $6.44 million dead cap charge from Jeff Skinner’s buyout. That is the consequence of a regrettable contract handed to Skinner, who declined rapidly after turning 31.Hence the fear with Tuch, who will be 31 in Year 2 of a hypothetical eight-year deal. But Tuch is not Skinner. He’s one of the best defensive wingers in hockey, contributes big minutes on both special teams units and is a huge part of Buffalo’s locker-room culture. That doesn’t mean age won’t catch up to him, but his game is one that should age fine. He’s been near the top of the league among forwards in blocked shots, takeaways and goals off tips. All of those skills should age well, as will his high-end shot. His speed will deteriorate at some point, probably sooner than he wants it to. But Tuch is the type of player who can impact the game in a lot of ways. It’s easy to picture him as a strong middle-six winger on the back half of that contract.After the season, Tuch joked that he would love to be able to play until his oldest son can make the league. Considering Tripp Tuch hasn’t yet turned three, Tuch would need to pull a Jaromir Jagr. But Tuch also mentioned playing until he’s 40, and that’s not a silly goal. Brent Burns and Alex Ovechkin both played at that age this season. Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby are approaching that age and still playing at a high level.“I think with the technology, with everything, I think with how I’ve taken care of myself and how I’m going to continue to take care of myself, I really don’t know how long I’ll play for,” Tuch said. “I would love to play as long as I possibly can, until they force me out pretty much.”That’s what you want to hear from a player at this point in his career. Injuries were a concern when Tuch arrived in Buffalo, but he’s missed 18 total games in the last four seasons. He’s put a lot of emphasis on taking care of his body as he’s approached 30. I think about the way Joe Pavelski produced until he was 40 years old and think that’s the model Tuch needs to follow.Look around the league, and there are plenty of players who still impact the game in their mid-to-late 30s. Patrick Kane, Brad Marchand, Claude Giroux and Mats Zuccarello all produced 49 or more points this season at 37 or older, along with Crosby, Malkin and Ovechkin. There are obvious risks with a long contract for Tuch, but a young team such as the Sabres wouldn’t have an easy time replacing Tuch’s leadership and maturity.Here are a few other offseason Sabres thoughts with the NHL combine approaching.• Konsta Helenius has been busy the last few months. After finishing up a point-per-game season in the AHL as a 19-year-old, he wrapped up the playoffs in Rochester and joined the black aces in Buffalo for the Sabres’ postseason run. Then he was thrown into action against the Montreal Canadiens and had two goals in four games of that second-round series. A few days after the Sabres were eliminated, Helenius got on a plane and flew to Switzerland to play for Team Finland in the IIHF World Championship. He’s been skating on Finland’s top line with Florida Panthers star Aleksander Barkov and Mikael Granlund. What an experience. He has a goal and two assists in four games and will now get a chance to play against Canada in a semifinal game Saturday. Helenius looks like a player who will be a full-time NHLer next season.Konsta Helenius is getting valuable experience playing for Finland in the IIHF World Championships. (Sebastien Bozon / AFP via Getty Images)• When the Sabres drafted Jake Richard in the sixth round of the 2022 NHL Draft, there was a lot they liked about his profile. He had an NHL-caliber shot. The Sabres’ analytics suggested he was one of the best playmakers in the USHL. Getting him in the sixth round felt like a bargain.Four years later, Richard is entering the Sabres’ system after signing a two-year entry-level contract with the organization this week. In the time since he was drafted, Richard had a dominant post-draft year in the USHL and then spent three years at UConn, where he had 88 points in 108 games.Richard’s path was untraditional. He’s from Jacksonville, Fla. His father was running the Jacksonville Barracudas of the SPHL when Jake fell in love with hockey. By the time he was a teenager, he was regularly driving five or six hours to the Fort Myers area for practice. He was traveling to games by plane while playing for the Florida Alliance. He took online classes throughout high school and surrounded himself with hockey players who were doing the same.“It’s what I love to do,” Richard said last summer at Sabres development camp. “It’s all I wanted to do. I didn’t want to go to those normal schools and spend countless hours. All I wanted to do was get done with school as fast as possible and train as much as I could. I never really thought about it as work when I was younger. I didn’t want to do anything else. I wanted to play ball hockey with my buddies or stay on the ice for six hours a day.”Now he’s realized his goal of playing professional hockey. He’ll likely start in Rochester, where the Amerks have lost a lot of forward depth in recent years with players such as Helenius, Noah Östlund and Jiri Kulich moving on to big roles in the NHL. Isak Rosen got traded, too, so there’s a path to meaningful minutes and power-play time for Richard.Statistically, Richard had a down year. But he’s also developed a more well-rounded game. When he was drafted, Richard’s shot was the trait that stood out. His skating is still a work in progress, but he’s become a much better player around the net. Amerks coach Michael Leone has praised Richard’s ability to protect pucks and create space for teammates. He’s become skilled at deflecting shots at the front of the net, too. At 6-foot-1 and 194 pounds, he should be physically ready to handle the jump to the AHL.When UConn’s season ended, the early thought was that he might head back for his final year of eligibility.But he’s also loved his time in Buffalo since getting drafted. Last summer, he stayed in Buffalo with Gavin McCarthy, a 2023 third-round pick of the Sabres who signed an entry-level deal this spring. McCarthy, who grew up in Clarence, was teammates with Richard in the USHL. His family offered Richard the chance to hang in Buffalo for the summer and get easier access to high-level training than he would have had in Florida. He spent time working with the Sabres’ development coaches at Harborcenter and getting more familiar with the area.• The Sabres have only four picks in the upcoming draft. Their first pick is No. 27 overall. Then they have their own selections in rounds four, five and six. That’s not a ton of capital to work with. And while the 27th pick will be one of Buffalo’s easiest trade assets to part with this summer, it wouldn’t hurt to add a quality prospect to the system. The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler and Corey Pronman had the Sabres selecting Russian winger Gleb Pugachyov with pick No. 27 in one of their recent mocks. In another recent mock draft, Wheeler went with left-handed defenseman Xavier Villeneuve out of the QMJHL. Right-handed defensemen have become the strength of the prospect pool, but beyond that, the Sabres could go in a lot of directions with this pick.