The Chicago Blackhawks acquired Sam Lafferty from the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday, trading a 2026 sixth-round draft pick for the former Hawk.
He has a season left on his two-year contract with a $2 million cap hit.
Lafferty, 30, is a depth forward who became something of a discovery when the Hawks acquired him from the Pittsburgh Penguins in January 2022 for Alex Nylander. The next season, Lafferty put up 10 goals and 11 assists in 51 games for the Hawks, and served as a penalty killer, drawing interest in the trade market.
The 6-foot-2 forward became a key chess piece in the Hawks’ rebuild when they traded him to the Toronto Maple Leafs in February 2023.
As part of the deal that sent Lafferty, defenseman Jake McCabe and conditional fifth-round picks in 2024 and 2025 to Toronto, the Hawks acquired a 2025 conditional first-round pick that they used on Vaclav Nestrasil in Friday’s first round.
The Leafs traded Lafferty to the Vancouver Canucks for a fifth-rounder in October 2023.
Then the Canucks traded him — along with forward Ilya Mikheyev and a 2027 second-rounder — to Hawks for a 2027 fourth-rounder in June 2024, but Lafferty signed with the Sabres when he became an unrestricted free agent.
Last season, Lafferty produced four goals and three assists in 60 games with the Sabres.