With his friends and former teammates in the throes of an 82-game NHL season, and the stalemate with Buffalo Sabres management dragging on, Jack Eichel turned 25 years old Thursday.
This isn’t how Eichel would prefer to celebrate. If healthy, Eichel would be weeks into his seventh NHL season and, if he had his choice, playing for a different team. Instead, Eichel is still awaiting an artificial disk replacement that Sabres doctors won't approve.
Not much is known about Eichel’s whereabouts since he failed a physical at the start of Sabres training camp last month. He’s been spotted at Red Sox games in Boston’s Fenway Park and, recently, Sportsnet reported that Eichel has been assessed by various doctors to try to sway the Sabres into allowing him to decide how to treat the neck injury that’s prevented him from competing in a regular-season game since March 7 in Long Island’s Nassau Coliseum.
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Eichel has played only 21 regular-season games since the pandemic shut down professional sports across the globe in March 2020, a span of 19 months. Meanwhile, Connor McDavid, the superstar center drafted ahead of Eichel in 2015, continues to assert himself as the top playmaker in the league.
Entering Thursday, McDavid led the NHL with 15 points in six games. He had a league-best 105 points during the abbreviated 56-game 2020-21 season and ranked second with 33 goals.
Since having his season cut short by the herniated disk last March, Eichel revealed to reporters that a stalemate was occurring, fired his longtime agent Peter Fish and replaced him with Pat Brisson, learned that his captaincy was stripped by the Sabres, and left Buffalo last month without a resolution.
It was only three years ago that Eichel became the youngest captain in Sabres history, a beacon of hope for a franchise that hasn’t made the Stanley Cup playoffs since 2011. During his time wearing the ‘C,’ the Sabres totaled the third-fewest points (181) in the NHL and fired two head coaches: Phil Housley and Ralph Krueger. In 375 career regular season games, Eichel has 139 goals and 216 assists.
Eichel ascended into the Hart Trophy conversation from 2018-20. During that span, Eichel ranked 18th in goals (64) and 12th in points (120). He totaled a career-high 36 goals in a 2019-20 season that was cut short by the Covid-19 pandemic, a performance that led Mark Scheifele of the Winnipeg Jets to declare Eichel as worthy of MVP honors.
Eichel’s second season under Krueger in 2019-20 went awry before it even began. He broke a rib during a drill at LECOM Harborcenter shortly before training camp and played through a lingering abdominal injury that he could not address during the summer of 2020 because of the pandemic. This contributed to Eichel shooting a career-low 3.3%, as he totaled only two goals and 18 points in 21 games.
Five years remain on Eichel’s contract that carries a $10 million annual cap hit. His no-movement clause begins in July, which would allow Eichel to nix any trade. Sabres General Manager Kevyn Adams is valuing Eichel as a healthy, elite centerman with a track record that includes five seasons of 20 goals and three appearances in the NHL All-Star game.
Teams interested in acquiring Eichel are evaluating risk versus reward, as they must approve a surgery that’s never been done on an NHL player and comes with a long recovery.
According to the NHL’s Collective Bargaining Agreement, the team doctor determines the course of treatment after consulting with second opinions and a “third physician expert.” During negotiations in 2012-13, the NHLPA attempted to obtain language in the contract that would it make it mandatory for the club to proceed to the “third physician expert,” whose decision would be binding to the club. The NHLPA was unable to get the league to agree to this during bargaining.
Now, the team doctor is only obligated to give second opinions due consideration.
It wasn't until this latest round of bargaining in 2020 that players obtained the right to receive a second opinion from a physician of their choice. Previously, players had to see a physician on a list of doctors agreed upon by the league and NHLPA.
The next step for Eichel could be a grievance in which his camp would present opinions from multiple medical experts that the disk replacement is a viable alternative to the fusion surgery.
