"I think it was easy because, I've said it before, I want to be a part of this for a long time," Samuelsson said about negotiations. "That feeling was always there from my side. When they expressed that they were interested in the long term too, it wasn't too long before something came together. It was a pretty easy process when both sides were pretty much on the same page the whole time."
The 22-year-old defenseman had 10 assists in 42 games for the Sabres last season. He averaged 20 minutes of ice time per game, fourth on the Sabres behind defensemen Rasmus Dahlin (24:01), Owen Power (22:05) and Henri Jokiharju (21:53).
"Mattias Samuelsson, in our mind, is exactly the type of person we want to be here long term," general manager Kevyn Adams said. "He's a great teammate, he's a great hockey player who we believe has the work ethic and character to continue to get better. He plays a style that we don't have as much as a 6-foot-4, 232-pound defender that's tough to play against and can also have the skill to move the puck. And he'll continue to work on his game to get better. For us, I look at it more as an investment and you have to make these types of decisions as we build out our roster and obviously we were comfortable doing that."
