- Brandon Hagel spent two summers training in Buffalo at the Sabres’ request before the team walked away in 2018
- The Lightning winger says he never heard from GM Jason Botterill about the decision
- Read below for what a Buffalo staffer told Hagel on the way out
Brandon Hagel gave the Buffalo Sabres two summers of his life. His goodbye was a phone call from a player development guy that ended with “I hope you prove us wrong.”
The Lightning winger sat down with The Cam & Strick Podcast this week and walked through how Buffalo let his rights lapse in 2018, two years after taking him 159th overall in the sixth round.
Hagel was asked whether anyone in the front office ever explained the decision to him.
“Yeah, not really. My agent just kind of called me and he said [an ELC wasn’t offered]. Then I think, I don’t remember who it was, and he just said, ‘They’re not going to sign you.’ I think it was a player development guy who called at the time. He was like, ‘Hey, I hope you prove us wrong, but good luck.’ Stuff like that.”
Then-general manager Jason Botterill, who now runs the Seattle Kraken front office, was not part of that conversation. Catch the full episode:
What stung wasn’t the rejection itself. It was the two offseasons he had already handed over to an organization that asked him to stick around.
“It kind of sucked because I spent two summers in Buffalo. They made me, they wanted me to stay in Buffalo. So I was like, I think it’s obviously the right thing to do is stay and try and get better.”
Our photo from one of those Buffalo camps says plenty. A skinny teenage Hagel, grinning in a Sabres practice sweater, doing exactly what the organization told him to do:
He went home to the WHL’s Red Deer Rebels for one more season and set himself a hard cutoff. A contract by Christmas, or he was enrolling in college classes.
Chicago signed him to a three-year entry-level deal that October. Hagel finished the junior year with 102 points in 66 games.
Eight years later, he owns 161 goals and 371 points in 446 NHL games. He put up 36 goals and 74 points for Tampa Bay last season and made the Second All-Star Team in 2025.
Buffalo finally has a roster worth talking about again. Zach Benson called the Sabres “the real deal” earlier this week. Hagel just isn’t on that roster.
