What we’ve learned from the Jack Eichel conclusion

[SDS]

11 minutes ago, K-9 said:

I don’t remember off hand. It was one he did with his brother early summer. I’ll see if I can dig it up. Gionta didn’t name names, but it was clear he had issues with several players and didn’t like that the young players rejected his leadership and gravitated towards Kane and Bogo instead. 

I found it. It was generic locker room disruption talk. No names were mentioned. However, it mirrors the comments that we just heard that specifically pointed to Jack.

[K-9]

2 minutes ago, SDS said:

I found it. It was generic locker room disruption talk. No names were mentioned. However, it mirrors the comments that we just heard that specifically pointed to Jack.

That is also my recollection. I also seem to recall him mentioning how some players mistreated people in the building at times, how that is indicative of a person’s character, and that Adams had several years to observe that in his time there. It all kind of mirrors the gossip we’ve heard around town for several years now as well. 

[thewookie1]

16 minutes ago, dudacek said:

For me personally, the fact that Jack and Sam gravitated to Evander Kane of all people tells me who Jack was at 20. 

May have been Tim Murray’s biggest mistake.

I get the underlying feeling Gionta still harbors a genuine distaste for GMTM undercutting his leadership before he could even establish anything. Effective Murray chucked a grenade into the locker room before they even had a chance to get started building a group. Probably the only sign of Gionta's effect left on the team is Girgensons whom he got to help mentor for a bit.

 

I will always point out that Murray built the roster for McDavid, not Eichel. He acquired Kane to be his power forward whereas he always ended up in Eichel's way due to their similar styles of entering the zone; and we all know McDavid wouldn't of followed Kane's example due to him being a basic Canadian kid.  Eichel on the other hand was a risk taker, liked a good party and hit it off with Kane almost immediately. What Eichel needed was a bunch of boring vets who preached hard work and practice. That no matter how good you are, you are still only one part of a greater team and don't have any off-ice "perks" with being the best. Kane seemingly felt that as long as he showed up to games and put up points; he had carte blanche to do what ever he wanted.

[GASabresIUFAN]

TM was a terrible GM.  He did nothing well and he had no ability to build a team.  

He brought in broken and problem players and fed the kids to them.  Jack and Sam’s departures are just the latest shoes to drop.

Ultimately the people really responsible for this mess are the owners.  They hired LaFontaine who had no business as a team president.  He hired TM and the rest is history.  

KA is just the latest poison fruit from the Pegula tree. I do have some hopium left. I like the management team that KA is hiring to help with his obvious deficiencies.  I just wish we didn’t have to waste another year to start moving forward again. 

Edited November 9, 2021 by GASabresIUFAN

[PerreaultForever]

Just one question. Who's Eichel? 

[GASabresIUFAN]

It’s funny the more I think about this the more I realize we have just turned the clock back to 2015.  Tanking team just got a top 2 pick (Reinhart). 3 first rd picks heading into the 2015 draft.  A top skill center we desperately need at the top of the draft.  A pipeline full of young NHL caliber D or D prospects close to NHL ready (McNabb, Pysyk, McCabe, Risto and Zadorov) but no goaltending. We also have a GM who loves to draft wingers especially in the second and third rounds.  The GM also acquired a currently injured power forward (Kane) and dumped a former top prospect D (Myers).

Flash forward to now.  Just got Power 1st overall.  We have 3 1st rd picks in next year’s draft.  We have a pipeline full of young D including Bryson, Joki, Dahlin, Power, Johnson, Samuelsson, Laaksonen and Fitzgerald but again no goaltending near NHL ready.  We are also desperate for centers but draft a ton of wingers.  At least this GM acquired a center in trade. This draft also has a top center at the top and other capable centers on the board.  GM acquired a currently injured power forward (Tuch) but at least this one wants to be here and wasn’t thrown out of his old team’s lockeroom.  The GM also dumped the former top prospect D in Risto.

Honestly the similarities are a little creepy.  

Edited November 9, 2021 by GASabresIUFAN

[SwampD]

But this isn’t a tank.

 

…It’s like the Matrix isn’t even trying anymore.

[GASabresIUFAN]

7 hours ago, SwampD said:

But this isn’t a tank.

 

…It’s like the Matrix isn’t even trying anymore.

I thought that for 5 minutes until I realized that our goaltenders are now Tokarski and Dell and we give regular shifts to Butcher, Hayden, Bjork, and Caggiula.
 

But there are some positive changes in the code this time.  The power forward wants to be here and a young center was brought in (Krebs).

Edited November 9, 2021 by GASabresIUFAN

[PerreaultForever]

35 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

It’s funny the more I think about this the more I realize we have just turned the clock back to 2015.  Tanking team just got a top 2 pick (Reinhart). 3 first rd picks heading into the 2015 draft.  A top skill center we desperately need at the top of the draft.  A pipeline full of young NHL caliber D or D prospects close to NHL ready (McNabb, Pysyk, McCabe, Risto and Zadorov) but no goaltending. We also have a GM who loves to draft wingers especially in the second and third rounds.  The GM also acquired a currently injured power forward (Kane) and dumped a former top prospect D (Myers).

Flash forward to now.  Just got Power 1st overall.  We have 3 1st rd picks in next year’s draft.  We have a pipeline full of young D including Bryson, Joki, Dahlin, Power, Johnson, Samuelsson, Laaksonen and Fitzgerald but again no goaltending near NHL ready.  We are also desperate for centers but draft a ton of wingers.  At least this GM acquired a center in trade. This draft also has a top center at the top and other capable centers on the board.  GM acquired a currently injured power forward (Tuch) but at least this one wants to be here and wasn’t thrown out of his old team’s lockeroom.  The GM also dumped the former top prospect D in Risto.

Honestly the similarities are a little creepy.  

Oh ya definitely huge similarities and it's definitely a reset and redo but there are a few key differences. We're not going to be basing it around a "generational talent", we do have some very promising goalies in that prospect pool, we might actually have a deep prospect pool this time. There are some question marks as always, but if this pool of potential talent craps out it will seem like some kind of curse. Just doesn't seem likely. Most significantly perhaps, the character of many of our prospects seems better, and that will matter.

Lastly, comparing Tuch and Kane is just wrong . Really wrong . 

[pi2000]

I want to know why Dr. Cappuccino wouldn't approve ADR for Jack.   

Is there an actual medical reason?   Or did Terry give him orders to not approve his preferred surgery out of spite?

[Thorner]

7 hours ago, dudacek said:

At one point, I’m pretty sure he did. I’m pretty sure he lied.

Adams didn’t fire everyone to launch a rebuild just like Botterill wasn’t fired in order to launch a rebuild. 
That was all about being economic and efficient and Botterill not being on board.

I think a case could be made though that Jack just automatically assumed a new GM would mean some kind of reset, and that his state of mind was already considering a trade request.

It reinforces earlier whispers that Jack wasn’t well-liked by alumni and rank-and-file staff around the team and arena.

But I don’t know that it was at all a factor in the decision to trade him.

He said he heard the plan was a rebuild. You are trying to make it seem like he didn’t even have a reason for wanting out. 

The team was headed for a rebuild, he heard about it/was told. He didn’t want to do it.

Regardless, Adams pivoted away from that plan, as Eichel said, and it was a plan Adams headed back to after that, again, at which point he reiterated his stance on a rebuild. Jack certainly wouldn’t just be assuming anything then 

- - - 

This is their franchise C. They wouldn’t allow him to harbour the delusion they were rebuilding if that wasn’t the case. Jack made it clear he told them upfront he didn’t want to be here for that and they were “upset”. But not that they denied it.

Eichel has been remarkably candid in explaining what he actually thinks - more than you generally see. He was complimentary of Adams. People speculated his injury/desired course of treatment for it was just a play to get out, and he was telling the truth, for what he actually wanted for his body. 

He says he heard the plan was a rebuild and he said straight up he wanted out because of it. I believe him. The very first point in the thread is an attempt to draw a hard conclusion from what Jack specifically said. That principle should remain consistent.

Edited November 9, 2021 by Thorny

[MODO Hockey]

8 hours ago, Zamboni said:

Never happy? I beg to differ. I think besides the constant losing, which every player wasn’t happy about, the first three years or so … he was happy in Buffalo.

Why would you think he was happy ? i mean they eneded up down in the trash every single year and did never improve, not a single dime.

[Sabel79]

3 hours ago, pi2000 said:

I want to know why Dr. Cappuccino wouldn't approve ADR for Jack.   

Is there an actual medical reason?   Or did Terry give him orders to not approve his preferred surgery out of spite?

From what I've read the medical question is what the artificial disk is going to do under the extreme circumstances playing in the NHL will present.  My wholly unqualified interpretation: it's a lot of pressure placed on a small area in a specific and definitely non-trivial spot in the body when, for instance, you take a hit in open ice... sudden deceleration and what happens internally is going to require a whole lot of not failing out of that disc.   Nobody's done the surgery yet and then played at that level, so, yeah, non-zero risk involved.  As there is with any surgery, especially when dealing with the spine, but there's precedent elsewhere.  

 

As far as the spite... once Jack requested (again) a trade and the decision was made to move on, why in the world do the Sabres carry that risk?  He's already worked very hard (due to poor advice from representation IMO... which I think Jack realized and fired Fish and hired Brisson to get things over the line) to tank his value on the market, that value becomes zero if things go sideways after he gets a surgery nobody's come back from (because no NHL player has had one, admittedly).  

So, only slightly petty.  

[kas23]

12 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

I don't agree with all your conclusions. Particularly the medical thing because I find it to be faulty logic. The Sabres could have done the surgery but why take the risk? If it goes bad you have nothing and if it goes good, you're not letting Eichel play anyways so who cares? 

Correct. The corollary to #1 was this divorce was never about which surgery. Jack had decided he wanted to leave well before he was injured. It was the agent-control media that decided the narrative would be about which surgery and how the Sabres were blocking him. However, I agree with the Sabres. Why assume the risk when the player already decided to leave? Plus, they were never blocking his medical choice. 

[Taro T]

9 hours ago, dudacek said:

 

A question we were debating prior to the season was whether trading Jack was Adams’ idea first, or Jack’s. One of the theories was that Jack found out that Adams was floating his name out there and reacted.

It’s clear that theory was wrong.

The rumours from last summer about Jack being shopped weren’t about Adams responding to calls, they were about Adams doing his due diligence on Jack’s trade request.

You can debate what path Adams wanted to take when he took over (ultimately he initially chose the path of Staal/Hall/change Jack’s mind) but you can’t say that the idea of trading Jack came any where other than Jack.

It would be really interesting to see what options would have been on the table last summer had they acted on Jack’s request immediately.

 

8 hours ago, dudacek said:

At one point, I’m pretty sure he did. I’m pretty sure he lied.

Adams didn’t fire everyone to launch a rebuild just like Botterill wasn’t fired in order to launch a rebuild. 
That was all about being economic and efficient and Botterill not being on board.

I think a case could be made though that Jack just automatically assumed a new GM would mean some kind of reset, and that his state of mind was already considering a trade request.

It reinforces earlier whispers that Jack wasn’t well-liked by alumni and rank-and-file staff around the team and arena.

But I don’t know that it was at all a factor in the decision to trade him.

To the bolded in the 1st post, why do you assume Adams had no idea nor inclination to trade Eichel & Reinhart when he took over?  He'd been in Buffalo since retiring & had worked inside the Sabres & along side the Sabres during that entire time.  He had opinions about them before being named GM.  And pretty much everything he has said since being named GM has touched on character.

Still say Eichel's interviews put the idea of moving on from Jack & Sam into the chicken & egg basket.  Eichel didn't want to be part of a rebuild, Adams didn't want leaders that weren't fully bought in.

As to the other bolded, not saying that the front office was purged for a rebuild, there was a huge financial component to it, but it definitely signaled a retooling.  And pretty sure that Eichel, per his own words, saw that retooling as a 1st step towards a rebuild and expressed his dissatisfaction with that.  Which again brings us to the chicken & egg question.  Did the GM who had issues with the character of his young leaders 1st want them gone or did those leaders want to lead an exodus out the door?

Turns out it was way more mutual than yours truly realized.  But make no mistake, Adams was far more in the Gionta camp than you are acknowledging. 

And 2 or more people can each independently arrive at an idea.  (The reason Watson & Crick share the Nobel prize for the identification of DNA is they each independently came up w/ the idea & the research 1/2 a world away from each other.)    After Botterill was gone, Eichel went to the team with an idea.  He probably had thought of that before & it also almost assuredly wasn't the 1st time it broached Adams mind either.

Now, why it didn't go further then will likely be debated here well into the 2030's, there are a lot of possibilities, several of which likely factor in including (but not limited to) the Pegulas not wanting to give up on the sunk costs in their young core due to the fact that almost all the fans costs were emotional investments & having Jack & Sam walk could gut attendance; Eichel was coming off a leg injury and the offers for Jack might have had an injury discount, Adams didn't have a front office to bounce the trade proposals off and a decision that big is best made when there are more than 1 set of eyeballs reviewing it (McDermott traded away from Mahomes and waited a year to draft his quarterback after Beane was brought in), presumably the entire core would be out if that new direction was chosen & there wasn't enough bandwidth to pull the entirety of that one off during a pandemic (kinda stretching w/ that one 😉 ), etc.

[Gatorman0519]

9 hours ago, Zamboni said:

Never happy? I beg to differ. I think besides the constant losing, which every player wasn’t happy about, the first three years or so … he was happy in Buffalo.

Do you remember the constant sulking? Maybe in the first year or two he dreamed we’d be good soon.  But overall we all saw the sulking, the bad post game interviews, etc. 

[dudacek]

2 hours ago, Thorny said:

He said he heard the plan was a rebuild. You are trying to make it seem like he didn’t even have a reason for wanting out. 

The team was headed for a rebuild, he heard about it/was told. He didn’t want to do it.

Regardless, Adams pivoted away from that plan, as Eichel said, and it was a plan Adams headed back to after that, again, at which point he reiterated his stance on a rebuild. Jack certainly wouldn’t just be assuming anything then 

- - - 

This is their franchise C. They wouldn’t allow him to harbour the delusion they were rebuilding if that wasn’t the case. Jack made it clear he told them upfront he didn’t want to be here for that and they were “upset”. But not that they denied it.

Eichel has been remarkably candid in explaining what he actually thinks - more than you generally see. He was complimentary of Adams. People speculated his injury/desired course of treatment for it was just a play to get out, and he was telling the truth, for what he actually wanted for his body. 

He says he heard the plan was a rebuild and he said straight up he wanted out because of it. I believe him. The very first point in the thread is an attempt to draw a hard conclusion from what Jack specifically said. That principle should remain consistent.

Whether Jack made a knee jerk assumption of what we are watching now, based on the firings and Terry’s efficient, economic pronouncements, or Kevyn Adams called him into the office and said “it’s going to be 2014 all over again here,” I think Jack’s reason for wanting out was very clear: he was sick of losing and he expected it to continue.

[dudacek]

27 minutes ago, Taro T said:

 

To the bolded in the 1st post, why do you assume Adams had no idea nor inclination to trade Eichel & Reinhart when he took over?  He'd been in Buffalo since retiring & had worked inside the Sabres & along side the Sabres during that entire time.  He had opinions about them before being named GM.  And pretty much everything he has said since being named GM has touched on character.

Still say Eichel's interviews put the idea of moving on from Jack & Sam into the chicken & egg basket.  Eichel didn't want to be part of a rebuild, Adams didn't want leaders that weren't fully bought in.

As to the other bolded, not saying that the front office was purged for a rebuild, there was a huge financial component to it, but it definitely signaled a retooling.  And pretty sure that Eichel, per his own words, saw that retooling as a 1st step towards a rebuild and expressed his dissatisfaction with that.  Which again brings us to the chicken & egg question.  Did the GM who had issues with the character of his young leaders 1st want them gone or did those leaders want to lead an exodus out the door?

Turns out it was way more mutual than yours truly realized.  But make no mistake, Adams was far more in the Gionta camp than you are acknowledging. 

And 2 or more people can each independently arrive at an idea.  (The reason Watson & Crick share the Nobel prize for the identification of DNA is they each independently came up w/ the idea & the research 1/2 a world away from each other.)    After Botterill was gone, Eichel went to the team with an idea.  He probably had thought of that before & it also almost assuredly wasn't the 1st time it broached Adams mind either.

Now, why it didn't go further then will likely be debated here well into the 2030's, there are a lot of possibilities, several of which likely factor in including (but not limited to) the Pegulas not wanting to give up on the sunk costs in their young core due to the fact that almost all the fans costs were emotional investments & having Jack & Sam walk could gut attendance; Eichel was coming off a leg injury and the offers for Jack might have had an injury discount, Adams didn't have a front office to bounce the trade proposals off and a decision that big is best made when there are more than 1 set of eyeballs reviewing it (McDermott traded away from Mahomes and waited a year to draft his quarterback after Beane was brought in), presumably the entire core would be out if that new direction was chosen & there wasn't enough bandwidth to pull the entirety of that one off during a pandemic (kinda stretching w/ that one 😉 ), etc.

To your opening, the best (only?) evidence out there to support Adams wanting to trade Jack and Sam was the fact that he was shopping them. Pretty compelling and I certainly bought in.

Since then it has become indisputable, from their own mouths, that he had to shop them; both players wanted out. Despite that Adams tried to re-sign Reinhart, and tried to get immediately better with Staal/Hall.

You may be right, he may have quietly welcomed it. But most of the pillars to support the argument that was his agenda have been removed. The biggest one was Eichel himself.

I don’t buy the idea that Adams represented a big change in plans for the Sabres. What was this rebuild Jack was so afraid of? Where was this good team and who were these good players that Adams going to purge when he hit the reset? It’s a short list.

My opinion has changed as new information as emerged.

Edited November 9, 2021 by dudacek

[Thorner]

22 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Whether Jack made a knee jerk assumption of what we are watching now, based on the firings and Terry’s efficient, economic pronouncements, or Kevyn Adams called him into the office and said “it’s going to be 2014 all over again here,” I think Jack’s reason for wanting out was very clear: he was sick of losing and he expected it to continue.

Ok but I see no reason to belittle the reasons he specifically gave, as if it wasn’t a good faith statement brought on from his understanding of the direction, rather than an assumption with no backing. The process took forever - I’m sure both sides has a clear understanding of each other. 

Sitting so close to Occam’s razor here leaves me hesitant to go down a road where we get to, “Jack may not even have properly and reasonably formed his opinion, he just made an assumption and as such, drawing such a hard conclusion without real data shows he may had other motives besides what he said.” 

He said his impression was that things were headed for a rebuild. He said he heard it from the team. If the situation wasn’t at least a grey area in terms of timeline to competitiveness, I can’t imagine management would allow Eichel’s woefully mistaken perception to become a self-fulfilling prophecy (it’s clearly a rebuild, now). They would have told Jack otherwise. In fact, last off-season they did decide to do otherwise. Jack *acknowledged* that, yet still maintains the sticking point is “rebuild”, meaning he clearly sees the direction changing, since. 

We did see the direction change. Considering the financial component Taro is mentioning, and the disaster of last season, the idea the team returned to their original plan, from when Adams first took over, makes perfect sense and fits exactly with what Eichel and Adams have said. 

Edited November 9, 2021 by Thorny

[Thorner]

8 minutes ago, dudacek said:

To your opening, the best (only?) evidence out there to support Adams wanting to trade Jack and Sam was the fact that he was shopping them. Pretty compelling and I certainly bought in.

Since then it has become indisputable, from their own mouths, that he had to shop them; both players wanted out. Despite that Adams tried to re-sign Reinhart, and tried to get immediately better with Staal/Hall.

You may be right, he may have quietly welcomed it. But most of the pillars to support the argument that was his agenda have been removed. The biggest one was Eichel himself.

I don’t buy the idea that Adams represented a big change in plans for the Sabres. What was this rebuild Jack was so afraid of? Where was this good team and who were these good players that Adams going to purge when he hit the reset? It’s a short list.

My opinion has changed as new information as emerged.

If it’s indisputable that Jack was the instigator in the deal because he said so, it’s indisputable that the reason he did this is because he felt it was a looming rebuild. 

The “short list” is still wildly significant when your list of “good players who help” is so short to begin with. 

We take Jack at his word here or we don’t. This, “well he’s telling the truth here but clearly lying or misleading here” is wonky 

Edited November 9, 2021 by Thorny

[Thorner]

Adams bridged Reinhart his first offseason, and Reinhart said he was open to a long term deal prior to this summer 

[dudacek]

Just now, Thorny said:

We take Jack at his word here or we don’t. This, “well he’s telling the truth here but clearly lying or misleading here” is wonky 

I don’t think you are hearing me. I don’t think Jack is lying or misleading at all.

You are ascribing a weight to the word “rebuild” that I am not, but that’s moot as far as my point goes.

My point is Jack Eichel instigated the Jack Eichel trade talk because Jack Eichel was sick of losing and did not believe the losing was going to change any time soon.

[Thorner]

4 minutes ago, dudacek said:

I don’t think you are hearing me. I don’t think Jack is lying or misleading at all.

You are ascribing a weight to the word “rebuild” that I am not, but that’s moot as far as my point goes.

My point is Jack Eichel instigated the Jack Eichel trade talk because Jack Eichel was sick of losing and did not believe the losing was going to change any time soon.

I am hearing you, apologies if it’s not coming off that way. 

I agree with your point about who specifically instigated the trade talk - but for me the reason why Jack did so still matters, even if it doesn’t to you: he felt the team was actively not prioritizing winning, aka they wanted a “rebuild” - and that’s why he wanted out. It may be irrelevant to you but to me it holds more weight than “these guys suck, I don’t trust them” being the reason. 

He didn’t deem Adams and management incompetent, he was against their chosen direction. 

This matters to me because as you would know I’ve *frequently* spoken about how how dangerous I believe “not putting the focus on winning” can be, so I can’t belittle that as a legitimate concern in someone 

[I-90 W]

I definitely agree that KA most likely didn’t retain any salary because TP said absolutely not (hard feelings). Just conjecture, but I could see that happening. 

[Thorner]

The alternative is that Jack was lying about his perception of a rebuild, he lied about taking those concerns to Adams and how Adams “to his credit” tried to go with a win-now team, and he just wanted out because, like you said, he completely lost faith in the team’s ability to turn it around. 

It’s possible, but I think most likely is what was said by those involved. Jack wasn’t happy with what he felt (in good faith) was the chosen direction, not merely fed up with all involved on a base level. I see no reason to think he’s being dishonest.  

Edited November 9, 2021 by Thorny