Jack Eichel: Trade rumors and speculation

[Pimlach]

34 minutes ago, Hoss said:

He's got six years left, not two.

Ugh. I thought it was 2, six would be a too much for too long.  No Zegras is a non starter.  
 

Good non trade Adams. 

[thewookie1]

2 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:

No assets is soooo much better. 🙄

In this case they likely would. Refusing to cave in would give Adams clout and a proven history of not backing down from a challenge. If teams are only offering their 7th prospect or lower and a bunch of conditional picks then we are better off just waiting.

[steveoath]

6 hours ago, pi2000 said:

He's probably gonna be USA's starter in Beijing.   

Not Hellebuyck?

[pi2000]

20 minutes ago, steveoath said:

Not Hellebuyck?

My source says the starter will in fact be Gibby.

[steveoath]

2 minutes ago, pi2000 said:

My source says the starter will in fact be Gibby.

Ooft poor decision if so, imo.

[Hoss]

3 hours ago, thewookie1 said:

In this case they likely would. Refusing to cave in would give Adams clout and a proven history of not backing down from a challenge. If teams are only offering their 7th prospect or lower and a bunch of conditional picks then we are better off just waiting.

This is possible, but I also think there is a greater than zero chance of this whole ordeal reflecting poorly on Adams across the league.

Edited September 9, 2021 by Hoss

[Buffalonill]

2 hours ago, pi2000 said:

My source says the starter will in fact be Gibby.

That's impossible to say when the season hasn't started 

 

[thewookie1]

1 hour ago, Hoss said:

This is possible, but I also think there is a greater than zero chance of this whole ordeal reflecting poorly on Adams across the league.

How exactly? I'd guess he certainly looked pigheaded but also steadfast. The likely people who disliked Adams would be those looking to screw him over. Many would question his asset management while simultaneously understanding Adams isn't going to capitulate if you try to wait him out.

Effectively it would boil down to what sorts of offers were on the table. If Vegas offers Krebs, Smith and 2 1sts for Eichel and we refuse to budge from Eichel for Krebs, Smith and 3 1sts then Adams is being overly greedy or unwilling to compromise. If Anaheim refuses to offer Zegras, Drysdale, MacTavish and continues to offer only secondary pieces; then Adams is steadfast and difficult to rip off.

[Hoss]

1 hour ago, thewookie1 said:

How exactly? I'd guess he certainly looked pigheaded but also steadfast. The likely people who disliked Adams would be those looking to screw him over. Many would question his asset management while simultaneously understanding Adams isn't going to capitulate if you try to wait him out.

Effectively it would boil down to what sorts of offers were on the table. If Vegas offers Krebs, Smith and 2 1sts for Eichel and we refuse to budge from Eichel for Krebs, Smith and 3 1sts then Adams is being overly greedy or unwilling to compromise. If Anaheim refuses to offer Zegras, Drysdale, MacTavish and continues to offer only secondary pieces; then Adams is steadfast and difficult to rip off.

I don’t think GMs are sitting there texting each other “oh my god, Adams didn’t accept when I offered X, X and X” but I believe GMs around the league can be frustrated by the bad press this situation has brought to the team and, more importantly, the league. I also think they can view it as a sore mishandling by the Sabres. I know the general vibe on this board has been that Adams is playing this masterfully and that what has transpired over the last year or so is not his fault but I think he’s being let off the hook purely because of how green he is.

Until this deal is done and until the team moves forward successfully I will continue to believe the team is failing harshly here and I believe many executives in the league have a similar thought.

[Curt]

9 hours ago, thewookie1 said:

There's the key in this.

I refuse to take a ROR deal where we get utterly humiliated.

Give us great assets or no assets.  I'm not going to settle for garbage.

Also, even if the Sabres make a decent Eichel trade, if they continue to suck, your friends will still laugh at you, the Sabres will still be the butt of jokes, and you’ll still feel that defensive inferiority complex.

Sabres are not going to ok a surgery that their doctors recommended against just because, “it will make us look good, and Eichel will look stupid instead of us.”  That’s an absurd proposal and outside the realm of reality.

[tom webster]

1 hour ago, Hoss said:

I don’t think GMs are sitting there texting each other “oh my god, Adams didn’t accept when I offered X, X and X” but I believe GMs around the league can be frustrated by the bad press this situation has brought to the team and, more importantly, the league. I also think they can view it as a sore mishandling by the Sabres. I know the general vibe on this board has been that Adams is playing this masterfully and that what has transpired over the last year or so is not his fault but I think he’s being let off the hook purely because of how green he is.

Until this deal is done and until the team moves forward successfully I will continue to believe the team is failing harshly here and I believe many executives in the league have a similar thought.

Oh please, this league has done nothing to diffuse the situation in Chicago, allowed Montreal to draft a scumbag and they are worried about bad press over Jack Eichel?

[Thorny]

34 minutes ago, Curt said:

Also, even if the Sabres make a decent Eichel trade, if they continue to suck, your friends will still laugh at you, the Sabres will still be the butt of jokes, and you’ll still feel that defensive inferiority complex.

Sabres are not going to ok a surgery that their doctors recommended against just because, “it will make us look good, and Eichel will look stupid instead of us.”  That’s an absurd proposal and outside the realm of reality.

Where do you think most of the goodwill towards Adams is coming from thus far? The last place finish? The top-to-bottom weakest current on paper NHL roster? Eichel being perceived to be frustrated/unhappy with the process seems to matter more than most other things, to a fair few.

[PromoTheRobot]

7 hours ago, thewookie1 said:

In this case they likely would. Refusing to cave in would give Adams clout and a proven history of not backing down from a challenge. If teams are only offering their 7th prospect or lower and a bunch of conditional picks then we are better off just waiting.

Oh I agree that KA is right not to back down. I just can't get over people, some who accuse Adams of being incompetent, just going to pieces over the lack of Eichel action. It's true that nature abhors a vacuum.

 

 

 

 

[LGR4GM]

58 minutes ago, tom webster said:

Oh please, this league has done nothing to diffuse the situation in Chicago, allowed Montreal to draft a scumbag and they are worried about bad press over Jack Eichel?

And they barely commented on Tony DeAngelo's racism and he is also still in the league and sat out for the NYR for an entire season basically. 

Adams giving a crap about some ego hurt GM who wanted to trade crappy contracts like Gibson and secondary pieces for Eichel is a moron who's opinion I could care less about. The put of the NHL is to win, not be liked by everyone. 

[Curt]

44 minutes ago, Thorny said:

Where do you think most of the goodwill towards Adams is coming from thus far? The last place finish? The top-to-bottom weakest current on paper NHL roster? Eichel being perceived to be frustrated/unhappy with the process seems to matter more than most other things, to a fair few.

(1) There is hope in change.  Simple as that.  People have a new team direction to put hope in.

(2) Hope that Adams is a good GM who won’t be taken advantage of like what happened with the ROR trade.  People grasping at an indication that this is true.

(3) Mix in a fair amount of disdain for “entitled” successful, rich, young people.  They should be grateful to be in the NHL. Any indication of displeasure can be perceived as a character flaw.

[LGR4GM]

3 hours ago, thewookie1 said:

Effectively it would boil down to what sorts of offers were on the table. If Vegas offers Krebs, Smith and 2 1sts for Eichel and we refuse to budge from Eichel for Krebs, Smith and 3 1sts then Adams is being overly greedy or unwilling to compromise. If Anaheim refuses to offer Zegras, Drysdale, MacTavish and continues to offer only secondary pieces; then Adams is steadfast and difficult to rip off.

The fact that McTavish is on the untouchable list is hilarious. Just say you don't want Eichel and stop wasting everyone's time Anaheim. 

[Huckleberry]

1 minute ago, LGR4GM said:

The fact that McTavish is on the untouchable list is hilarious. Just say you don't want Eichel and stop wasting everyone's time Anaheim. 

Yeah I don't get it, when you trade for a player like this, no one should be untouchable in your prospect pool.

[LGR4GM]

55 minutes ago, Thorny said:

Where do you think most of the goodwill towards Adams is coming from thus far? The last place finish? The top-to-bottom weakest current on paper NHL roster? Eichel being perceived to be frustrated/unhappy with the process seems to matter more than most other things, to a fair few.

My tiny amount of goodwill comes from him... 

1) Hiring Karmanos which gets you Ventura

2) Adding another 2 ppl to the analytics department (we went from 1 to 4)

3) Trading Ristolainen away FINALLY. Not only that he got good value for him. 

4) Drafting shift. There is a clear and obvious shift in the type of players and the way they are drafting. I don't know if it is good yet but it seems to be much better.

5) Not listening to all the ppl who have been on the "just trade Jack for whatever and move on" bus while also playing high stakes poker with the rest of the league and Jack's agent. This could easily be a ROR trade and yet even though the NYR offered nothing, Eichel did not get traded there. Botterill would have caved.

[Thorny]

2 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

My tiny amount of goodwill comes from him... 

1) Hiring Karmanos which gets you Ventura

2) Adding another 2 ppl to the analytics department (we went from 1 to 4)

3) Trading Ristolainen away FINALLY. Not only that he got good value for him. 

4) Drafting shift. There is a clear and obvious shift in the type of players and the way they are drafting. I don't know if it is good yet but it seems to be much better.

5) Not listening to all the ppl who have been on the "just trade Jack for whatever and move on" bus while also playing high stakes poker with the rest of the league and Jack's agent. This could easily be a ROR trade and yet even though the NYR offered nothing, Eichel did not get traded there. Botterill would have caved.

I said many times I thought Risto would be much more useful in a second pair role, but moving him certainly wasn’t something I was against. That in itself isn’t much of a positive for me, however: the organization obviously thought he was most deserving of all the minutes he got, and after moving him they didn’t even bring in a capable top 4 RHD to adequately replace any of those minutes. 

Re: drafting - Adams moving away from the odd Botterill drafting bias is indeed, imo, a significantly positive development. 

[Scottysabres]

He's still here?

It's over, go home.

[Huckleberry]

Just now, Scottysabres said:

He's still here?

It's over, go home.

3 more weeks at least 😛

[Weave]

3 hours ago, Thorny said:

Where do you think most of the goodwill towards Adams is coming from thus far? The last place finish? The top-to-bottom weakest current on paper NHL roster? Eichel being perceived to be frustrated/unhappy with the process seems to matter more than most other things, to a fair few.

Shiny new toy

[Doohickie]

Here's where the good will comes from:  It was apparent that the Sabres needed a change of direction.  Hiring KA has been such a change.  Will it work?  Will he be successful?  Jury's still out, but a defensible narrative can be constructed from what we've seen so far.  Acknowledging the constraints that make the NHL and NFL different, this "feels like" the early McBeane era:  Assembling a front office and coaching staff that can work together, turning over the front office, jettisoning players that while very good, are not part of the team's future, and bringing in players that project traits compatible with the vision of the future team. 

I'm not so much rooting for the Sabres at this point, I'm rooting for the rebuild.  It's in progress; there's no turning back.  There are steps along the way that piss off the fans, but Adams & Granato, like McBeane, are forming the team in the desired image.  There may come a point when it becomes apparent that this build is gonna fail just like all the rest and the team needs to be cleaned out again, but so far there seems to be a progression toward something different, and after 10 years of crap, something different is what's needed.

There are two aspects of Adams that I like in particular:  one is that he's been with the team for years but not in a major decision-making role.  He's been watching and he seems to have a strong opinion on why the tank and subsequent Eichel era didn't work.  An experienced GM was what many wanted, but I think there's value in having a GM that's intimately familiar with where the team has been. 

The second aspect is that, without causing drama he removed the coach he inherited.  I think this points to a deeper understanding/relationship between GM and ownership than we've seen in the past.  Previous GMs under the Pegulas were hired hands to be commanded by Terry and Kim.  I see Adams as more of a trusted partner.  I think he earned the trust by bringing in Krueger's players, faithfully executing the existing plan of trying to get a team that was considered "close" over the top.  At some point I think he told the Pegulas he would get Krueger what he wanted but that he also didn't think it would work, and when the wheels fell off the Pegulas decided to throw their trust behind Adams who successfully assessed the situation but didn't butt heads with the owners to try to force "his way" prematurely.

So my hope is that Adams has a master vision that the ownership trusts him to plan and execute and they will back him, at least for now, and I'm hoping that the vision plays out as Adams wants it to.

Edited September 9, 2021 by Doohickie

[SabresVet]

4 hours ago, Thorny said:

Where do you think most of the goodwill towards Adams is coming from thus far? The last place finish? The top-to-bottom weakest current on paper NHL roster? Eichel being perceived to be frustrated/unhappy with the process seems to matter more than most other things, to a fair few.

I think much of the instant credibility assigned to Adams is just plain homerism combined with him being a new entity.  He's got almost no track record leading an organization aside from being the in-effect #2 while Krueger was HC.  Now, if he turned Jack into those 4 assets including top prospects then I'll give him the benefit of the doubt - for a while.   

At this point, the major moves aside from naming a HC have not been made.  It's hard to judge Adams until he re-signs Dahlin and trades Eichel.  He's got a lot to prove.

 

 

[Hoss]

4 hours ago, tom webster said:

Oh please, this league has done nothing to diffuse the situation in Chicago, allowed Montreal to draft a scumbag and they are worried about bad press over Jack Eichel?

Yes. They can worry about more than one thing at once. I know from experience. I worry about hundreds of things simultaneously.