Jack Eichel heard the whispers.
When owners Terry and Kim Pegula fired 22 employees with the Buffalo Sabres’ hockey operations department in June 2020, there was talk that their new general manager, Kevyn Adams, was ready to orchestrate yet another rebuild.
The Sabres missed the playoffs for a ninth consecutive year and Eichel expressed his frustration when speaking to reporters after a 2019-20 season in which the 25-year-old center became a Hart Trophy contender with a career-high 36 goals.
Eichel wasn’t willing to go another season without experiencing the playoffs, so he approached Adams with a request. If the Sabres wanted to retool, Eichel suggested that a change of scenery would be best for both sides. Adams declined and delivered on a promise by signing the top free-agent available, winger Taylor Hall in October 2020, and adding veteran center Eric Staal, among others. The moves were made to try to win immediately.
The Sabres’ plan went awry. Eichel broke a rib prior to training camp, played through an abdominal injury and suffered a herniated disk in his neck that cut his season short at 21 games in March. When the eight-month saga ended with Eichel’s trade to Vegas on Thursday, he sat down with Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman for an interview and traced the disconnect back to that first conversation with Adams one year ago.
“I was hearing a lot of things that we were going to try to do a rebuild, so I went to the team and just said I wasn’t really happy with the idea of that,” recalled Eichel. “And if that’s the route they wanted to take that maybe it would be better to move me and use me as sort of a jump start in getting some picks, prospects, whatever you want to say, and start your rebuild if that’s the case. Obviously, that didn’t go over well. I’m a competitor. I want to win. We obviously hadn’t won and, like I said, this is a business. This is pretty apparent to me after the last eight months and I looked at that as a decision I was making strictly because I thought that was the best business decision for me as a hockey player. That didn’t go over well, but then throughout the offseason, I give Kevyn Adams a lot of credit. He went out, he signed Taylor, he made some trades. It seemed like we were in a better position to be competitive and that excited me again. Obviously, we went into the season in January, and we didn’t have nearly the year we wanted as a group.
“It was kind of a disaster in terms of a personal season for myself. I didn’t have a great year. I was obviously injured in March and things just didn’t go well. But yeah, I think probably that conversation that happened a year ago probably had something to do with part of the process being so difficult.”
Eichel’s comments confirm what was rumored for the past year. Last fall, the New York Rangers expressed interest in acquiring Eichel. Their overtures were rebuffed by Adams, who told reporters that he did not intend to trade the face of the franchise. Word of Eichel's frustration spread across the league.
Read the full story from News Sports Reporter Lance Lysowski
The retool spearheaded by Adams and former coach Ralph Krueger fell apart during the abbreviated 56-game season. Playing through injury resulted in a career-worst 3.3% shooting percentage for Eichel, who totaled two goals and 18 points in 21 games. Eichel’s final game was March 7 against the New York Islanders when he appeared to suffer the neck injury on a check from behind by Cal Clutterbuck.
Krueger initially told reporters there was an outside chance that Eichel could return before the end of the season. Meanwhile, Eichel left the team to seek a different opinion and his fact-finding mission led him to an artificial disk replacement. While the procedure has produced promising results in other professional athletes, it had never been done on an NHL player.
The Sabres’ doctors wouldn’t OK the surgery. Eventually, Eichel again stated his desire to be traded and the dispute went public when he told reporters about the disagreement during an end-of-season media availability in May. Eichel has since fired his agent and was stripped of the captaincy in September.
Drafted second overall by the Sabres in 2015, Eichel played with the weight of the playoff drought on his shoulders. Individual success came quickly – he had five consecutive seasons of 24-plus goals and three all-star nods – but the team struggled. Eichel played for three head coaches, not including Don Granato, and three general managers in six years.
The bitter ending has upset some Sabres supporters, but Eichel did some damage control during an interview with ESPN on Thursday afternoon.
“I can’t say enough good things about the fans here,” Eichel said. “They love hockey. They deserve a winner. You know what, I feel bad that I wasn’t able to contribute more to winning here, but they deserve it all. I really, truly care about the fans here in Buffalo.”
