The Top 25 Under 25 is a collaboration by members of the Die By The Blade community. 117 readers ranked Buffalo Sabres players under the age of 25 as of August 1, 2025. Each participant used their own metric of current ability and production to rank each player.
Zac Jones
Drafted: 2019, NYR (68th overall), 3rd round, 6th pick
Position: Defense
Born: 10/18/2000 (Age: 24) Richmond, Virginia, USA
2024-2025 stats: GP 46 G 1 A 10 PTS 11
2024 T25U25 Ranking: Not Ranked with Buffalo
Former New York Ranger Zac Jones is an interesting add this off season for Buffalo. The Sabres signed him as a free agent on July 2nd for more defensive depth. He was once thought of as one of New York’s top defensive prospects. He has played parts of 5 seasons with the Rangers while splitting time with the Hartford Wolf Pack of the AHL. Jones was a very effective offensive player in the minors. His time in the NHL has been mostly sporadic with limited minutes. He did play his NHL high of 46 games with New York this past season, scoring 11 points. At only 5’11” but a decent 190 pounds, Jones won’t be hammering opposing players in front of the net often. He does have exceptional offensive instincts though and likes to join the rush. He is good on the power play too but it is hard to see him getting time there with Buffalo. Jones is a strong skater and a left shot but can play on either side.
By all accounts, Jones feels like a younger, bigger and slightly better version of Jacob Bryson. They both have a 900,000 cap hit and both look to battle it out as the Sabres’ 7th defender. Bryson has more experience but Jones has more intangibles in his favor. It will be interesting to see how Buffalo plays this. They just resigned Bryson but now have a similar type player, albeit a slightly better one in my opinion. Zac Jones’ contract is a two way deal though, we don’t know what the Sabres have in mind yet. Also, let us not forget Ryan Johnson. Many feel like he will make a push this training camp to make the big club. It is hard to see that now with both Jones and Bryson here, unless a move is made. (Trade? Demotion?) It might be better to let Johnson marinate longer with Rochester and make his push next season.
Training camp and preseason games will probably determine when, where and how often Jones and Bryson get to play. We know what we are getting with the Bry-Train. (Woot Woot, in the style of Apollo Creed’s famous line “Ding Ding”) Zac has more potential upside to me though. The good news is that Buffalo has better depth now on defense than they have had in years. Trading for Michael Kesselring and Conor Timmins was a good start. Signing Zac Jones inched that up a little further. Miraculously signing Bo Byram though was the icing on the cake. This will be an intriguing group to watch but how much will Jones be a part of them?
Zac Jones fun fact: He is the first ever native of Richmond, Virginia to make it in the NHL.
PS: DBTB’s associate Rangers blog Blueshirt Banter are not big fans of Jones – he was given a D grade in his 24-25 season report card, with the consensus fans’ grade of C+ in a miserable season for the Rangers. They went on to report – In spite of only skating in 46 games, Jones managed to grade out as the fifth-worst player, and third-worst defenseman, in the league by GAR – ouch.