Jack Eichel Buffalo Sabers NHL Trade Rumors Are Growing Stronger

The Buffalo Sabers are enduring another miserable season, and to add to the pain, their biggest star apparently isn’t happy once again.

During a radio show on WGR 550, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman detailed how tumultuous the season has been for the Sabres. Sitting at the bottom of the East Division, Buffalo really has no reason to be hopeful about their year beyond what they can muster together at the deadline.

Amid this doom cloud, rumors that star center Jack Eichel wants a change of scenery are once again cropping up in all facets of this team.

“We talked about the big step Eichel made last year,” Friedman said, “and yet, as far as the team’s success, it didn’t really go anywhere. And now look where is this year. You I know he’s going to be frustrated.

“And there were conversations last year, and what I was told was the Sabers just said ‘we’re not ready to do that.’ The teams made offers. It was reported that he was agitated. I don’t think he ever asked for a trade. I don’t think he ever asked for a trade, but he was restless and teams knew it. »

Without Eichel, the Sabers wouldn’t even come close to competing. The one bright light that instills hope in the present and future of this team has simply been let down by management’s perpetual inability to attract enough talent to make the Sabers even somewhat competitive with any type of regularity.

Since Buffalo went completely into the tank during the 2014-15 season – knowing they would get either Connor McDavid or Jack Eichel as the prize for icing one of the worst teams in league history – the situation has not improved. They managed to get the one thing every other team dreams of, a player like Eichel, but lacked the foundation to build a modicum of success around that centerpiece.

Big deals, like acquiring Evander Kane from the Winnipeg Jets or stealing Ryan O’Rielly from the Colorado Avalanche, quickly led to their own departures as the lack of stability grew within the organization . Now on its third general manager and fourth head coach since Eichel’s rookie season, the team is back in the middle of mediocrity, and that’s saying something.

Ultimately, by going the route of trading draft picks for depth talents like defensemen Colin Miller and Brandon Montour, and forward Jimmy Vesey, the Sabers left themselves with an empty cupboard of prospects and just a few regulars. underperformers to show it. While the Sabers have certainly won the off-season title for a few years in a row – signing Taylor Hall to a one-year deal and acquiring Eric Staal this summer – the team is still lost in its direction as ‘Eichel is only getting older and closer. to lose hope.

It’s all gotten to a point where fingers are pointing and no one really knows who to blame as they sit in a pile of fermented trash juice. So this team will just keep changing supporting casts and leads until they have to make a franchise-altering decision by trading someone who has already stayed past the point where anyone’s loyalty would be dried up.

While Eichel is locked up through the 2025-26 season with a $10 million AAV cap hit, a lock-in clause is set to go into effect on July 1, 2022. With that in place, Eichel will have full control of the place where he is. exchanged to. If moving Eichel is something the Sabers are going to do, the best time would be within the next 17 months, when they will have the attention of the other 31 teams and won’t need the player’s approval on where to go .

The Edmonton Oilers have Leon Draisaitl for Connor McDavid to lean on and support him during the franchise’s internal instability, and the Toronto Maple Leafs have a concrete front office to go along with a huge supporting cast for Auston Matthews, while the Buffalo Sabers brought nothing of value to Eichel. Nothing that should justify him staying there for the remainder of his contract and nothing that should make him excited about playing hockey on this team.

Trying short-term solutions like signing Hall and trading for – then unfortunately signing – Jeff Skinner can sometimes work. But without a clear plan and with a team that seems to blindly approach each offseason without any real long-term direction, it makes sense that Eichel won’t be happy in Buffalo.

With each embarrassing loss, the spotlight gets brighter on this team to step up and send Eichel somewhere where he can launch his reputation into a winning stratosphere. Teams like the New York Rangers and Los Angeles Kings, with cap space and prospect capital burning a hole in their wallets — and a desire to bring in a bona fide top center — would be more than willing to pay the price, one would think.

However, whatever the Sabers get in return for Eichel – if they treat it – wouldn’t be enough. Considering this guy had All-Star seasons surrounded by no-nonsense wingers and bottom-six talent, no one can imagine what’s possible next to someone like, say, Artemi Panarin.

The rumors will never stop until the Sabers win, which, judging by the way this franchise looks right now, seems completely out of the question. Eichel has the desire to win and he will likely need a deal to get a taste of what that means anytime soon.

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