Alex Tuch is a 6-foot-4 right wing for the Washington Capitals with 200 goals and 448 points in 615 NHL games. He signed an eight-year, $84 million contract in June 2026 and was traded from Buffalo to Washington the same day.
| Position | Right Wing |
| Number | #89 |
| Team | Washington Capitals |
| Shoots | Right |
| Height | 6'4" (193 cm) |
| Weight | 219 lb (99 kg) |
| Born | May 10, 1996 (age 30) |
| Birthplace | Syracuse, New York, United States |
| Drafted | 18th overall in 2014 by Minnesota Wild |
| NHL debut | 2016-17 |
| NHL seasons | 10 |
| Career points | 448 in 615 games |
| Stanley Cups | 0 |
Page Contents
Early Life and Junior
Tuch was born in Syracuse on May 10, 1996 and grew up in Baldwinsville, just outside the city. He was a Sabres fan as a kid, which came back around later.
He joined the USA Hockey National Team Development Program in 2012 and stayed two years. The second one ended with a gold medal at the 2014 World Under-18 Championship in Finland, where he put up three assists in seven games. Minnesota drafted him 18th overall that June.
College came next. The 6-foot-4 winger gave Boston College two seasons in Hockey East, scoring 14 goals as a freshman and 18 as a sophomore before he turned pro in 2016.
NHL Career
His time in Minnesota lasted six games. Tuch played those in 2016-17 without a point and spent the rest of the year with Iowa in the AHL, where he scored 18 goals in 57 games.
Then the expansion draft got involved. Vegas selected Erik Haula from Minnesota on June 21, 2017, and the Wild traded Tuch to the Golden Knights the same day for a conditional third-round pick. He was 21 years old with six NHL games on his resume.
Vegas played him right away. Tuch scored 15 goals in 78 games during the Golden Knights’ first season, then added six more in a 20-game playoff run that reached the Stanley Cup Final. Washington won that series in five. He signed a seven-year, $33.25 million extension the following October and put up 52 points in 2018-19.
The Jack Eichel trade sent him closer to home. On November 4, 2021, Vegas traded Tuch, Peyton Krebs, a 2022 first-round pick and a 2023 second to Buffalo for Eichel and a 2023 third. He did not play his first game in a Sabres sweater until December 29 that year.
Everything opened up after that. Tuch scored 36 goals and 79 points in 74 games in 2022-23, both career highs. He matched the 36 goals in 2024-25 and scored 33 more the season after. Across five years in Buffalo he put up 309 points in 360 games, second on the team in goals, assists and points over that stretch.
His last season there was the one the city had been waiting on. The 2025-26 Sabres went 50-23-9 and made the playoffs for the first time since 2011, ending the longest drought in league history. They knocked out Boston in six and lost Game 7 of the second round to Montreal. Tuch played all 13 games and scored four goals.
Six weeks later he was gone. Buffalo signed him to an eight-year, $84 million extension on June 24, 2026 and traded him to Washington for David Kampf and a 2027 third-round pick. The contract carries a $10.5 million cap hit and runs through 2033-34.
“I didn’t want to take that sweater off,” Tuch said about the night Buffalo’s season ended. “I wanted to make sure I sat there for a second because it was definitely one of the toughest moments of my life.”
International Career
Tuch has pulled on the USA jersey at three levels. The 2014 World Under-18s brought him a gold medal. He played five games at the 2015 World Juniors as a Boston College freshman. In 2023 he went to the World Championship in Finland and Latvia and scored five goals in 10 games, though the Americans lost the bronze medal game to the host Latvians.
He has never been picked for a best-on-best roster. No 4 Nations Face-Off, no Olympics.
What Makes Alex Tuch So Good
Size explains part of it. Tuch is 6-foot-4 and 219 pounds and he skates like a much smaller player, which is why every coach he has had keeps finding new jobs for him.
The penalty kill is where he separates himself. His 12 shorthanded goals since 2021-22 are tied for third in the NHL over that span, behind only Chris Kreider and Sam Reinhart. All 12 came in Buffalo, on teams that spent most of those years chasing games rather than protecting leads.
He also finishes. A career shooting percentage of 13.0 sits well above the league average, and he shot 16.9 percent in 2025-26. Thirty-seven of his 200 goals have been game winners.
Add up the scoring and the kill and you get the reason Washington handed a 30-year-old winger eight years.
Records and Milestones
Tuch scored his 200th NHL goal during the 2025-26 season, which was his tenth year in the league. His career high of 36 goals came twice, in 2022-23 and 2024-25, and the 79 points he posted in 2022-23 still stand as his best.
His first hat trick came on October 20, 2022 in a 6-3 win over Calgary. The second arrived on April 1, 2023 against Philadelphia, another 6-3 win, and it included a shorthanded goal. A third followed against Chicago in a 6-2 Buffalo win.
The 2018 Stanley Cup Final run with Vegas is still the deepest he has gone. He scored six goals in 20 games that spring as a 21-year-old, and he has 23 goals in 79 career playoff games.
What Alex Tuch Is Chasing
He is sitting on 448 career points and 200 goals through 615 games, which puts 250 goals and 500 points inside a season or two of normal production.
A 40-goal season is the one that keeps getting away. Tuch has finished on 36 twice and 33 once without clearing the number. Only seven of his 33 goals in 2025-26 came on the power play, and 34 of his 200 career goals have.
The bigger one is a Stanley Cup. Tuch lost the 2018 Final to the franchise that now pays him, and at 30 he has time to fix that.
Off the Ice
Hockey runs through the family. His younger brother Luke Tuch went 47th overall to Montreal in the 2020 draft. Luke’s fraternal twin sister Leah plays field hockey. Their parents are Carl and Sharon Tuch, and all three kids came up in Baldwinsville.
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Stats last updated September 12, 2026. Source: NHL official statistics.