No matter what team he’s on, superstar center Jack Eichel won’t be lacing up his skates for another couple of months, at least. The Fourth Period’s Dave Pagnotta reports today that considering Eichel’s recovery timeline for any potential surgery, time’s run out on the possibility of him being ready for the start of the regular season on October 12th.
What remains to be seen is how long it takes before the price Buffalo will be able to ask for begins to drop in earnest. It’s obvious that the Sabres and Eichel won’t come to a resolution on his health anytime soon, as Eichel and his agents remain adamant that he receives artificial disc replacement, a procedure that the Sabres won’t permit him to undergo. With Pagnotta reporting that there are multiple teams around the league that would let him undergo that surgery, though, it seems like there’s at least light at the end of the tunnel for Eichel’s health and neck issues.
But are teams going to be willing to pay full price for a player who needs to proceed with a surgery that some deem as risky? It’s a question that’s been thrown around ever since trade talks began. As days continue to pass by without a deal, it seems like that a slightly decreased return may be the case, barring any unforeseen circumstances. The usual suspects — Anaheim, Vegas, Minnesota, the Rangers, and others — reportedly remain in on Eichel, but it’s hard to get a true read on the situation considering discussions appear to be in a holding pattern for now.
The future remains extremely uncertain for Buffalo and Eichel, but it’s a reality that he won’t be suiting up at the beginning of 2021-22.
This has been a complete cluster F
Lots of blame to go around with neither side handling this well.
I think everyone can agree the team has mishandled this, but how has Eichle mishandled it? He hasn’t done anything other than ask for a (risky) procedure that could have great benefits for his career.
or it could completely derail it because it’s never been preformed on a hockey player…
So what? Why do the Sabres care about that unless they’re trying to keep him? If teams that are interested in him aren’t scared by it, then approve it, trade him, and move on. They’re only killing his trade value by dragging this out this long. Nothing they’ve done so far has upped his trade value, or helped this situation. It’s only backed them into a lose-lose corner they can’t get out of. There is a reason they are in the shape they’re in, and it’s because of stuff like this.
Exactly, quite confused on why Sabres didn’t allow him to get surgery months ago. Especially when they know they’re moving him anyway and now they’re hurting themselves in a potential return by delaying this long and continuing to push his recovery farther away. If he had gotten surgery right when trade request had come out, he would be skating by now and more than ready to go for training camp thus increasing his value even more now that the main issue of health was behind him. Or at the very least allowed him to get surgery when they knew other teams were ok with surgery, which would have came up in trade talks right away. Thoroughly confused. On a side note, how would Minnesota afford Eichel? They have 13 million in cap space, but that’s before signing Kaprizov, and it’s estimated he will get about 8 per season. Throwing in eichels 10 million, they would be significantly over the cap and not sure Buffalo would want any of their bigger contracts in return. Then throw in fact that they’ll have up to 12 million in dead cap space In the coming years with buyout of Parise and Suter, and needing new contracts for Greenway, Fiala, Kapponen, etc next season, I don’t see anyway it makes sense.
It’s likely a simple answer: egos are in it now, and Sabers management don’t want to be seen as weak.
Honestly I think most teams won’t want him until they see the results of whatever surgery he will get unless they get him for nothing. So I can understand the hesitation of the sabres but at some point somebody has to let the kid do what he thinks is best. It’s just hockey. Yup and it’s a lot of money but that’s the risk you take running a sports team.
I hope Chris Drurybhas read this. Avoid this guy!!!!
This is going to be handled with an arbitrator,PA,Sabres,and receiving club. I’ve got Anaheim & Vegas burping for this.
If they play the cards right, with this being a new procedure never performed on a NHL athlete, there has to be some sort of give-and-take with the salary that is promised, not putting it on long-term reserve, etc.
The longer Buffalo waits on making this trade, the less they’ll get for Eichel. They should’ve just approved the surgery he wanted and let another team deal with any downside from the procedure.
Exactly. The only way it makes sense to drag this out like this is if Buffalo wants to keep him – that ain’t happening, so why are they holding firm on this if other teams aren’t scared by the surgery he wants? Let him get it, trade him, and then it’s not their problem. Every way that Buffalo is handling this is awful for all involved.
You both nailed it. Just goes to show how comically bad an organization Buffalo is. The only thing that makes any sense is that not having him in the lineup helps them tank, which in theory would help them rebuild around him before the contract is up, but after this long, I can’t see Eichel playing for them again. So now they’re just shooting themselves in the foot by eroding his value further. Just sucks for Eichel, because they’ll void his contract if he gets the surgery, and he won’t play until he gets it, most likely. Buffalo is going to have a hard time signing new players or resigning their own when all is said and done.
This is also a good point I hadn’t thought of yet either, the franchise is already regarded pretty poorly league wide, and this is only strengthening that view. All of their top players in recent seasons have all wanted to leave and talked about how much the losing weighed on them like O’Reilly, eichel, Reinhart, Ristolinen,etc,and Lehner talked about how their doctors were a joke and terrible as well. They are going to have to fix all of this and quick, and that starts with moving eichel. Thought it was hilarious that GM and owner were talking about going big game hunting in a couple of offseasons for players like Kane, Draisatal, Matthews, etc, only way their getting any of those guys to sign is to MASSIVELY overpay and outbid everyone else by wide margin. Which is a terrible long term strategy to compete and how you end up with Jeff Skinner at 9 MILLION a season with SIX years still remaining on contract.
The longer this drags on every team who has playoff aspirations may drop out because if your giving up a ton for a guy who will now miss a big chunk of the season it isn’t worth it so his value will continue to go down. Only reason I can think of is Buffalo doesn’t want to trade him unless they get blown away which they now realize isn’t happening so they and are telling him we have a contract with you and we are not going anywhere this season anyways so if you want to play it will have to eventually be with us. This may get allot nastier.
The steaming pile of offal that is Sabre’s leadership and ownership.
Dark side is wrong. Disk replacement HAS been performed in hockey players, just not at the NHL level. And it has been successful on mma and rugby players, who i think take a bigger physical beating than hockey players.
has it? I was of the impression that it hadn’t, but I’d certainly be willing to admit I just misread or was misinformed as a non-expert in this field.
Actually, at this point, the move for Buffalo is to make it VERY clear to Eichel that he’s not going anywhere and he’s not going to be a guinea pig on their dime.
They have him signed for a long time and they will be awful for the forseeable future anyway, why sell low on him?
Play hardball.
Tell him to get the surgery they approve or retire. And then explain to him that he’s not going to be traded anywhere until he comes back, plays for the Sabres and reestablishes his value to a level commensurate with what they are paying him and then and only then will they trade him…and if he doesn’t like it, again, he can retire.
Zero chance he’ll do that, so what would Eichel do at that point? I imagine he slinks back like Aaron Rodgers did in GB.
It’s either that or auction him off to a very narrow list of teams for pennies on the dollar.
Having said that, I will ask again…what made Adams qualified for this job beyond maybe being the person who happened to be standing the closest to Pegula after he fired Tim Murray?
It doesn’t work that way, they can’t force him to get the surgery he doesn’t want. So that’s leaves them 2 options trade him or put him on injured reserve. So basically they are stuck paying him 50 million over the next 5 years to do nothing, that will sure show him.
The problem with this is: what is the sell high position? Eichel is suddenly going to have a surgery he clearly doesn’t want, return to the Sabres lineup and play great hockey so Buffalo can get a ransom for him? Not sure I’d be placing a bet on that happening.
Is getting one less prospect or pick in a deal that would already have brought the Sabres a 1st rounder, good prospect and another asset worth risking at this point? Seems like a fools bargain to me.
They can prevent him from getting the surgery he does want, though.
Players who show up to camp physically unable to perform can be suspended. Without pay.
Eichel would appeal and it would go to arbitration. The Sabres would argue that it was Eichel’s choice to not get a readily available and often used surgery that left him unable to perform.
Selling low guarantees that you will sell low. If the current offers aren’t enough, what is the path to getting a better offer?
@FWJBT, They cannot suspend him without pay tho. His doctors say one surgery is better for his career path, their doctors say another. There is no proof one is better than the other and the courts/arbiters would not be able to resolute it one way or another. There is no proof one way or another that one would prevent him from producing or having a happier/healthier life afterwards at this point.
And if his team took him to a legal process, which would likely take at least a year, what’s to say he wouldn’t just role thru the emotions for the team after until he finally got dealt? At which point he has a full NMC which dictates where he goes and gives him more control?
Would have to see the contract. My guess is that it doesn’t actually contemplate this situation, which is why it would go to arbitration.
I see no scenario where it would allow Eichel’s personal doctor to overrule the team’s doctor, but it might not have the teeth to allow Buffalo to force him. The question is whether Eichel’s refusal to take a team approved measure to remedy a hockey injury would then reclassify his injury as a functionally non-hockey related injury, which would allow them to not pay him. That is unclear.
Every standard sports contract allows for the athlete to seek a secondary opinion. And then the athlete and team are to discuss in good faith the treatment. The team cannot force the player to a surgery they are not comfortable with, and are allowed to dispute alternative surgeries they are not comfortable with. The 2 are supposed to act in good faith with eachother to reach a conclusion respectable by both sides. This situation seems like both are refusing to even attempt to come to a conclusion. The injury is a hockey related injury, so they can’t back out of the contract. It’s resolving the injury now that is the issue.
Indeed, what is the path of getting better offers? Taking the player to arbitration to try and void his contract ensures they’ll get no return at all for him. And in the unlikely scenario that Eichel got the more conventional surgery and he has a set back with it (e.g. Tarasenko’s shoulder surgeries), what will be the return for him then?
Making perfect the enemy of the good often leads to getting neither perfect or good.
How does Buffalo reach the cap floor with or without the overrated Eichel?
If Buffalo wants their asking price, they’re gonna have to eat 2+M of that deal AND take on a contract coming back. Then they’re going to have to find a way to take on some big contracts just to reach the floor.
They still need to re-sign Dahlin and some other restricted free agents, and given the insane amount of money top defenseman are getting, I’d imagine Dahlin will cost a significant amount. And getting to the cap floor isn’t something that should go into them negotiating a trade for eichel at all, sure they might take back one significant contract so the team trading for eichel can fit him in, but that should be used as bargaining chip to strengthen their return. Given the flat cap, there isn’t a shortage of cash strapped teams that would be willing to dump a contract on Buffalo for cap relief, getting to the floor is the least of Buffalo’s worries, well should be. Also, they should look at what Arizona has done in gaining a HUGE amount of draft picks by taking on other teams bad contracts, Arizona now has SEVEN picks in first and second round of next season, and still hasn’t moved Dvorak or Kessel yet. Which could net them two more first round picks, so they could be looking at FOUR first round picks and FIVE second round picks, with a bunch of cap space going into next offseason to repeat this and speed up their rebuild. And the draft is extremely deep next season, with Shane Wright at the top.
They need to resign 3 RFA’s (middlestadt, jokijharu, and dahlin) all coming off of entry level deals. None will be very big, just bridge deals. The cap floor is $60.24M, they are currently $8M below that, those raises likely get them right around there at most. If they deal Eichel, they need to fill that $10M or face penalties. Potential penalties include losing their 1st round picks. The teams rumored to be interested in Eichel (MIN, NYR, CGY, ANA, VGK) don’t have many “bad contracts” they’re just willing to send to Buffalo as part of the deal without considering them as potential pieces they could keep. The floor has to be a part of deal negotiations.
Sabres are gonna park him on LTIR and eat one year of his deal and hope to get rid of him in the summer….
as Henry Rollins once said, ‘sometimes things don’t work out…’ ~o_O~
It’s not that easy. For 1) his no movement clause kicks in after next season so their limited in where he can be dealt at that point. Right now they can deal him anywhere and he has no say. For 2) they need to reach the cap floor and by putting him on LTIR it means they need to add another 10M just to get there.
I don’t think they’re all that worried about a cap floor penalty if they’re already taking the majority of $10 mil off the books(for the season)…, and per his NMC; well, if anyone thinks Eichel is going to get picked up with his price tag, and reluctance to undergo a team recommended procedure after all of this laundry has been aired out in public, then you’re all off your rockers…lol. players that are ‘problematic’ are having real struggles getting moved these days… GM’s just ain’t having it, and they for sure ain’t paying tens of millions of dollars to straighten him out…
I thought this situation was dumb but the comment section here is even dumber. Lol. If you guys were GMs everything you touch would turn gold. Btw never understood the idea of trading Eichel. Why would any team trade their young franchise center? Because hE’s NoT hApPy?
Speaking of dumb…
I hAvE nO iDeAs So NoOnE eLsE sHoUlD eItHeR.
I don’t understand this new “people shouldn’t comment in sports comment sections unless it’s to say things like ‘noted’ or ‘well, I guess we will have to wait and see how it turns out while we twiddle our thumbs'” impulse.
Like the useful replay of “that’s just your opinion” as if that isn’t ENTIRELY self evident.
A) if I was a GM, I never would have signed Danny DeKeyser to a 6yr x 5M deal. He has never had that upside.
B) the team has to trade their “franchise center” because he doesn’t want to play for that team anymore. So they continue to pay an UnHaPpY pLaYeR $10M a year to coast? Send the guy out, acquire some assets and move on.
C) this is one of the dumbest comments I have seen on the internet ever, and I read the hockeybuzz comments often.
D) you don’t understand the idea of trading eichel ever because you don’t understand common sense. The guy isn’t happy and doesn’t get along with management. If you publicly spoke out about your boss/employer/company, even if you were GREAT at your job, would you expect them to keep you?
Yeah, why did Montreal trade Patrick Roy when he said he’d never play for them again! They should’ve, like, just made him play the rest of his career there. People are just so dumb! (insert eye roll).