Turbo
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If the Buffalo Sabres commit to trading captain Jack Eichel, they want his contract fully off the books.
"One of the biggest hurdles right now to getting a Jack Eichel trade done is that the Sabres ... do not want to retain any salary," Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman reported Saturday on Hockey Night in Canada's "32 Thoughts."
"Now, they are willing to talk about taking contracts back to facilitate a deal, but it's still difficult with so many teams close to the cap and also Eichel still having four more years at $10 million a season left on his salary."
A potential Eichel trade has been in limbo since the outset of this past offseason. The team and player remain at odds over the best way to fix Eichel's ailing neck. Eichel wants an artificial disc replacement - which has never been done on an NHL player - while the Sabres prefer fusion surgery, which is more common but has a longer recovery time.
Eichel is currently on long-term injured reserve. Since being drafted second overall by Buffalo in 2015, the soon-to-be 25-year-old's notched 355 points in 375 games.
The Sabres have begun their 2021-22 campaign with consecutive wins.
The Sabres are going to have to take a loss on this one way or another. No team will be willing to give up many assets without a guarantee that Eichel will play a certain amount of games for them. With guaranteed salaries in the NHL, this is an extremely complex situation and it makes sense that the team has veto rights on medical procedures. If players want to have final say on medical procedures, they might have to be ready to give up guaranteed salaries (basically like the NFL - players decide but teams can drop you if a procedure fails or you fail to deliver).
His body probably hasn’t recovered from all that hockey he played last season.
Time to place him on LTIR until april.