There are rumblings that the Buffalo Sabres and Jack Eichel are making progress on the captain’s injury impasse after months of stagnation:
Hearing Eichel could have surgery very soon, and December would be the earliest return. The asking price is extremely high at this point, between 4 and 6 pieces. With Brisson now repping this process will get moving.
— Shawn Simpson (@TSNSimmer) August 31, 2021
It has always been a possibility that Jack Eichel would need to wait until the 2022 NHL Entry Draft to be traded, despite the prevailing narrative to the contrary from every corner of the hockey-verse. Many have assumed that the Sabres would not be willing to enter another season with the captain still under contract even if that meant the team had to take a sub-par deal to ensure that reality. Back in July, before the start of free agency, Adams was adamant that he would be willing to go into training camp with Eichel if the offers he received weren’t up to his standard.
“I would have no problem at all if Jack Eichel is on our team when we start training camp,… Adams said following the second-round of 2021 draft. “I have said this before and I’ll say it again: If we are in a position that we believe will help our franchise, not just in the short term but for the long term in building this out, building around a core and the foundation of critical assets, then we’d be open and looking at it.…
It makes sense that the 31 other NHL clubs are not willing to part with the kind of pieces the Sabres are no-doubt asking for in a trade without knowing how the Sabres captain would respond to surgery, but General Manager Kevyn Adams has repeatedly said he isn’t going to trade Eichel unless he gets back what he considers fair value. The idea of trading Eichel has only become more difficult following the opening of the free agency period because many teams had spent large chunks of cash on new players. Adams seemingly hasn’t wavered on his high asking price for Eichel, or his willingness to have Eichel on the team, and now reports are that Eichel could be heading for surgery, per TSN’s Shawn Simpson who provided that bit of potential surgery news yesterday.
So what would it mean if Eichel were indeed healthy by the start of the new year?
Well, for one, with news coming out that the NHL looks poised to send their players to the Olympics, it could be possible for Jack Eichel to be healthy enough to suit up for the red, white and blue at the winter games. A good showing there would undoubtedly raise his trade value, assuming he shows up and gives the kind of performance that Sabres fans saw in 2019-2020. The Olympic Games feature the best talent in the world for Eichel to play against – and perhaps more importantly – play with. How many points could Jack Eichel put up if he plays with the likes of Buffalo-native Patrick Kane? A quality showing against top competition would answer a lot of the questions from the 31 other GMs in the league who are monitoring Eichel’s situation.
The development on the injury front could also mean that Eichel plays for the Sabres this season despite the cacophony from the national and local NHL media in other markets that argues such a situation is untenable. The thing is, both sides have a goal in mind – to trade Eichel from Buffalo – and to accomplish that, they’ll need to work together. The best way to accomplish that goal at this point is to showcase a healthy Eichel toward the end of the season and then wait for the offers to come in prior to the draft in 2022 (and prior to Eichel’s no-trade clause kicking in at the start of the league year in 2022). It would behoove both sides to make this inconvenient marriage work for a couple of months near the end of the season to accomplish the goal that both sides are now possibly working toward, even if there are uncomfortable questions asked along the way.
And there would plenty of questions for Eichel and the team if-and-when he comes back.
The international media from “Tronna… to Tampa Bay would undoubtedly swarm the Sabres when they come to town with the goal of getting a juicy quote from the Sabres captain about how it feels to still be with the Sabres organization. Again, it’s pretty easy to diffuse these situations. He can simply tell reporters that his goal is to play the best hockey can in order to help the Sabres win for as long as he’s part of the organization. It’s an honest answer and a completely non-confrontational one as well. Granted, it would get old to be asked these questions every night.
A potential positive of getting the surgery in the near future before training camp hits is that it allows the Sabres and Don Granato to enter the season without having to answer questions surrounding Jack Eichel’s future. With the Massachusetts native on the shelf and away from the team following surgery, there’s really no drama for reporters to look for at training camp. This allows the first-time head coach to focus on the players who are at training camp to get ready for the season without the young core of the Sabres team being asked about the guy in the locker room two stalls over.
There are certainly some sticky issues that would need to be addressed following the return of Jack Eichel, if he does in fact return to the team following a surgery. Namely, what do they do with the status of his captaincy? After the second day of the draft, I wrote a piece about the feasibility of Eichel returning to the Sabres for this season and by extension, what to do with the status of his captaincy should he return. At the time, I didn’t really take a position on the matter, but it makes the most sense for the Sabres to give him the captaincy back should he return to the ice.
The Sabres could simply work with three alternate captains for the beginning part of the year and then allow Eichel to jump back into the captaincy assuming he can come back healthy and ready to go. Such a move would be a gesture of goodwill and no hard feelings from Sabres management, and it would also allow Eichel to avoid additional questions from the media that – simply put – will not generate positive outcomes for either of the parties involved. Frankly it’s about time that both sides stop trying to save face and start working on compromises to get Eichel out of Buffalo with a win-win approach.
No more ego.
There’s no need to harbor resentment and hold grudges instead of moving on for the greater good of both parties. Adams seemed to acknowledge he would be open to a forgive and forget approach when he spoke post-draft.
“I have no sort of - in any way shape or form - hard feelings with Jack Eichel,… he said. “I want to make that very clear. I like Jack. Over the past year plus I’ve been on the job, we’ve had a lot of different discussions, some of them maybe not as fun as others.…
All these questions may be a long way down the road still with the injury resolution process only beginning to take shape, but it would be a gigantic step in the right direction if Eichel is indeed headed for surgery in the near future. Negotiating through the media has not brought resolution to the situation at all. Getting the captain’s surgery done and proving how good Jack Eichel is makes far more sense.