A Knights Tale: From Sabre to Knight; one man’s failure to make the playoffs AND how it benefits the Sabres draft position

[kas23]

20 minutes ago, Norcal said:

Ticker on NHLN and Weekes just spoke it out loud says Lehner out for season ending surgery. And it continues. 

…And he quits on the team. Hope this doesn’t provide them a spark. 

[LGR4GM]

3 minutes ago, kas23 said:

…And he quits on the team. Hope this doesn’t provide them a spark. 

The guy had shoulder surgery, how's that quitting?

[kas23]

1 minute ago, LGR4GM said:

The guy had shoulder surgery, how's that quitting?

The guy has been playing for weeks on said injured shoulder. When his coach starts to criticize his lackluster play, suddenly he needs surgery, a few games before season is going to conclude and they are pushing for a playoff spot. Your turn, how is this not quitting?

[Flashsabre]

I’m just thanking our lucky stars that we are no longer putting our eggs in the Eichel-Lehner basket to bring this team any success.

Vegas made their bed, they can lay in it.

[PerreaultForever]

2 hours ago, K-9 said:

Importing a star can work as long as he’s the right kind of star. 

Fair enough, but they are harder to find. Most of the really good team guys stick with their teams and their teams recognize their value and sign them before free agency. That's a generalization obviously and if you find a guy that's the right fit it can work, but off the top of my head I can't think of many cases where that worked. More often big name free agent signings bust or are merely okay for their new teams. 

[PerreaultForever]

47 minutes ago, kas23 said:

Probably a bad example. All the Vegas Knights were “imported” on those teams. Otherwise, I agree. 

Well fair enough, but I think that first roster all felt like they were cast offs and played with chips on their shoulders. It was a different sort of import. 

[Flashsabre]

https://deadspin.com/maybe-jack-eichel-just-isn-t-that-guy-1848837660

Lets see how Jack handles the negativity if Vegas gets bounced this week.

Edited April 25, 2022 by Flashsabre

[PerreaultForever]

18 minutes ago, Flashsabre said:

https://deadspin.com/maybe-jack-eichel-just-isn-t-that-guy-1848837660

Lets see how Jack handles the negativity if Vegas gets bounced this week.

I love this. 

10-1 he says he's not 100% from his surgery.

[PerreaultForever]

You might have to be a member to read this, but this thread is a fun read from the sidelines.

https://hfboards.mandatory.com/threads/is-the-golden-knights-problem-jack-eichel.2879670/

[Kr632]

 

Edited April 26, 2022 by Kr632

[HumanSlinky39]

24 minutes ago, PerreaultForever said:

You might have to be a member to read this, but this thread is a fun read from the sidelines.

https://hfboards.mandatory.com/threads/is-the-golden-knights-problem-jack-eichel.2879670/

There's a guy in there that says when Jack was healthy he was a top-3 player in the league. I hope that's just shitposting and not an actual opinion. 

Edited April 26, 2022 by HumanSlinky39

[Huckleberry]

13 minutes ago, HumanSlinky39 said:

There's a guy in there that says when Jack was healthy he was a top-3 player in the league. I hope that's just shitposting and not an actual opinion. 

There was a season, he was going to put up close to a 100 point season.   Think injuries happened or something.

Also find it funny how everyone saying how Vegas overpaid for Eichel.   Pretty sure we all wanted even more coming back.   In the end he is still a top 10 player in the league when healthy, right now I just want a draft pick around 15 spot.

[SDS]

2 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

There was a season, he was going to put up close to a 100 point season.   Think injuries happened or something.

Also find it funny how everyone saying how Vegas overpaid for Eichel.   Pretty sure we all wanted even more coming back.   In the end he is still a top 10 player in the league when healthy, right now I just want a draft pick around 15 spot.

How often is he “healthy”?

[HumanSlinky39]

26 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

There was a season, he was going to put up close to a 100 point season.   Think injuries happened or something.

Also find it funny how everyone saying how Vegas overpaid for Eichel.   Pretty sure we all wanted even more coming back.   In the end he is still a top 10 player in the league when healthy, right now I just want a draft pick around 15 spot.

His best season ppg wise was the COVID shortened 2019-20 season when he was pacing 94 pts in a full 82 game season.

Not gonna sour grape it, Jack is a very talented hockey player who was stuck on bad teams. But, at best I'd have him (when healthy) as a fringe top-10 player, which is still VERY good. But I don't see him anywhere near the same league as McDavid, Draisaitl, Matthews, Huberdeau and those types. I'd argue Calgary Tkachuk and Kaprizov are better. If we're not limiting it to Forwards, hell, Makar, Josi and Fox are better players IMO. Maybe we just haven't seen enough of Jack healthy, but that's part of the knock against him. On top of the that, I don't think it's a coincidence that the Sabres have begun to show signs of life and rapidly brewing chemistry in the locker room has happened when Jack was dealt. The guy seems like a chronic malcontent who doesn't have an ounce of leadership in his body and is allergic to accountability. 

Very talented guy, but on the whole I just don't think he's a guy that improves a team in the aggregate when he's on it. Pairing him with a shitbird like Lehner might've been an inadvertent act of hare kari by Vegas.

 

Edited April 26, 2022 by HumanSlinky39

[bunomatic]

52 minutes ago, Kr632 said:

 

Of course everyone forgets to mention we are a bottom feeder thats barely above the cap floor while Vegas is hard up against the cap. I was listening to sports radio out west today and they were laughing at Sabres fans for this take without taking the difference in salaries into account. Its actually very flattering to the Sabres that our record is virtually the same as theirs.

[pi2000]

I don't get what all the fuss is about them making the playoffs.

They'll play COL if they make it, so the pick would likely only move 1 or two spots in the mid-high teens.   Not really gonna move the needle that much honestly.

That said I believe Jack is genuinely a good kid.   He has his faults, but don't we all?   

He did a lot for the community of Buffalo, and for that I respect him and wish him well.   He's not just a hockey player, fans forget that sometimes.

[Doohicksie]

2 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

off the top of my head I can't think of many cases where that worked.

I mentioned this one upthread.  He turned out to be a perfect fit.

5 hours ago, Doohickie said:

Living in the Dallas market in 1998, I remember when they signed Brett Hull and thinking, ooh, they're really going for it. 

[Carmel Corn]

1 hour ago, SDS said:

How often is he “healthy”?

This has been my concern with Jack as a Sabre.  He seemed injury prone (frah-gee-lay) without necessarily playing a hard-nosed, self-sacrificing style.  If he actually played with a high-motor, I think he is a 100 pt. level player....but would end up only playing 50 games or less due to injuries. 

[Doohicksie]

2 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

10-1 he says he's not 100% from his surgery.

This is my guess.  Which means one of two things:

• With an offseason of training and rehab he'll be good to go in October
• The surgery was nominally a success but he'll never be the same player he was.

Either way I'm glad Kevyn converted him into solid assets.

2 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

You might have to be a member to read this, but this thread is a fun read from the sidelines.

https://hfboards.mandatory.com/threads/is-the-golden-knights-problem-jack-eichel.2879670/

I was able to read it without logging in.  I'm going to resist the temptation to log in and troll the thread.

Edited April 26, 2022 by Doohickie

[Doohicksie]

1 hour ago, SDS said:

How often is he “healthy”?

Amplified for emphasis.

I personally feel he's too much of a gym rat and it has affected his flexibility, making him more prone to injury.

[HumanSlinky39]

3 minutes ago, Doohickie said:

 

I was able to read it without logging in.  I'm going to resist the temptation to log in and troll the thread.

Same. It took a lot to not register and start shitposting when i saw the guy say Jack was a top-3 player n the league when healthy. I was as big an Eichel fanboy as there was (I still have 3 of his jerseys hanging in my closet 🥴) and I never made any kind of claim like that. 

[Doohicksie]

57 minutes ago, HumanSlinky39 said:

On top of the that, I don't think it's a coincidence that the Sabres have begun to show signs of life and rapidly brewing chemistry in the locker room has happened when Jack was dealt.

I would say a bigger factor is that Jack was already injured when Granato took over as coach.  We never saw what Jack would have been like on a Granato-coached team.

Granato could have had the same morale-boosting effect on Jack that he did on Tage and Skinner and Dahlin. 

[Marvin]

2 hours ago, Flashsabre said:

https://deadspin.com/maybe-jack-eichel-just-isn-t-that-guy-1848837660

Lets see how Jack handles the negativity if Vegas gets bounced this week.

Daleks conquer and destroy!

According to "Day of the Daleks", this does not work because of the Blinovitsch Limitation Effect.  According to "The Three Doctors", you need extra temporal energy to do this.  In "The Deadly Assassin", we can infer that this energy comes from The Eye of Harmony.

Edited April 26, 2022 by Marvin, Sabres Fan
Explanation of why this fails.

[Doohicksie]

23 minutes ago, pi2000 said:

That said I believe Jack is genuinely a good kid.   He has his faults, but don't we all?   

I will likely never have direct contact with Jack so frankly I don't care if he's a good kid or he has faults or whatever. 

But to me in my lizard brain, he was the fruit of the Tank Curse and became the embodiment of the Tank Curse.  By moving him, the curse was shifted from Buffalo to Vegas. 

There's some kind of a moral there about flying too close to the sun or something.  Both teams reached for Jack and grabbed him as if he was some kind of brass ring that would magically transform their teams into winners, when the only way to do that is to improve the whole team holistically.  There are no easy cures, you have to put in the work.

[PromoTheRobot]

8 minutes ago, Doohickie said:

I will likely never have direct contact with Jack so frankly I don't care if he's a good kid or he has faults or whatever. 

But to me in my lizard brain, he was the fruit of the Tank Curse and became the embodiment of the Tank Curse.  By moving him, the curse was shifted from Buffalo to Vegas. 

There's some kind of a moral there about flying too close to the sun or something.  Both teams reached for Jack and grabbed him as if he was some kind of brass ring that would magically transform their teams into winners, when the only way to do that is to improve the whole team holistically.  There are no easy cures, you have to put in the work.

The Sabres needed an exorcism.