Jack Eichel talked to Emily Kaplan about his return to Buffalo after he was traded to the Golden Knights. There is a delay of 5:44.
Jack Eichel knows his return to Buffalo will be awkward, but he hopes the fans focus on the positives.
"I think about my time in Buffalo, it obviously ended a little bit messy," said the former Sabres captain, who will play his first game in Buffalo tonight. I hope fans can look past some of the things that happened in the last year and think about the previous 5 years that I was there.
In the middle of an eight-year, $80 million contract, the second overall pick in the 2015 draft by the Sabres, Jack Eichel, had a dispute with management over how to treat a neck injury. The doctors of the Sabres wanted to perform a fusion surgery on Eichel, while his second-opinion doctor wanted to perform an artificial disk replacement surgery, which had never been performed on an NHL player before. The NHL collective bargaining agreement gives teams the final say on how to treat injuries.
The Golden Knights allowed the center to have an artificial disk replacement surgery after the Sabres stripped him of his captaincy.
The general manager of the Sabres called and told him that he was the new captain.
The reason why you took the captaincy away from me was because I did not agree with you medically. You told me not to come for training camp. It felt like they were trying to get me. I was over it.
The NHL season began without him and he said his lowest point was in October and November. He was at home in Boston waiting for a trade.
I tried to stay patient and optimistic, and I will find some positive news at some point. It started to get to the point where I was in no man's land. I was trying to stay in the gym. I was just trying to stay motivated, but it got to the point where I didn't have any real purpose at the time.
I knew that I still needed to get surgery and that I had to do three months of rehabilitation. It was going to be a long time before I played. I wanted to be watching the guys get back on the ice. If the process had played out differently earlier in the summer or last spring, I could have been there.
After undergoing surgery, Eichel made his Golden Knights debut in February. He would have been out for six months if he had the fusion surgery.
Tyler Johnson became the second player in league history to get anaphylactic shock on his neck three weeks after the surgery. The two of them share an agent, and because of the amount of homework that Eichel did, he explained a lot to Johnson on the phone.
There was a baseball player who stood up for what they wanted and went against what their team thought was best for them. Hopefully it will open a new door for players to deal with injuries.
He is not feeling 100 percent yet, but he is getting there. The center has three goals and four assists in 10 games with the Golden Knights, including his first signature moment -- scoring a goal with 5.2 seconds remaining for a 2-1 win over the Senators on Sunday.
"I hope [fans] can look past some of the things that happened maybe in the last year and think about the previous five and a half, six years that I was there and everything that I tried to do for the community, everything that I feel like I put forth on the ice as a hockey player, and know I just tried to do as much as I could for the city." Jack Eichel, on his first game in Buffalo since leaving the Sabres
The team continued to struggle despite the individual success of Eichel. The Buffalo Sabres have not made the playoffs in over a decade, and they had four head coaches and three general managers.
The constant filtering out of coaches and GMs wore me out. There was a lot of pressure to have success. It definitely takes a toll on you when you are not able to do that.
He is looking forward to playing in the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time this spring.
They don't set a bar for making the playoffs. The Golden Knights don't set the bar at winning the division. They do everything they can to give you the best chance to win. You cannot ask for anything more.
If the Sabres had allowed him to have surgery, he would not be playing right now.
I think things in Buffalo have changed over the course of the last year, but I can't say whether I'd be there or not. It seems like they were moving a lot of guys out, and I think there is only one or two guys that are still there. They have had a good turnover and there are a lot of really good players in their organization, so who knows where I would be.
It would have been nice if I had the surgery a little sooner, then I could have had a full training camp, and I probably would be in a better position right now, but everything happens for a reason. I couldn't be happier where I am.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
