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Around The NHL Discussion 2021-22 Part II

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Moose and Squirrel

Moose and Squirrel

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ezcreepin said:
I understand that under contract, you can't do certain things or have certain surgeries without the consent of your employer, but Buffalo is ruining this guy's career and life. He wants spinal surgery, let him do it, because he's the only one walking around in that body and should get a say in how he handles this situation. Just trade the dude and let him live his life
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easier said than done.

put yourself in the owners seat. if he has the alternative surgery and something goes wrong, you lose a valuable asset

and the difference in his trade value when healthy vs now is immense. why trade him away for pennies on the dollar?
even army isn't willing to do that with Vladi

agree tho, somethings gotta give sooner or later. have a feeling it ends up in the NEXT offseason
 
MissouriMook

MissouriMook

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Moose and Squirrel said:
easier said than done.

put yourself in the owners seat. if he has the alternative surgery and something goes wrong, you lose a valuable asset

and the difference in his trade value when healthy vs now is immense. why trade him away for pennies on the dollar?
even army isn't willing to do that with Vladi

agree tho, somethings gotta give sooner or later. have a feeling it ends up in the NEXT offseason
Click to expand...
Next offseason his full NMC kicks in and he can veto a trade anywhere, so he has Buffalo in a vise and he and his agent know it.
 
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Stupendous Yappi

Stupendous Yappi

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Moose and Squirrel said:
easier said than done.

put yourself in the owners seat. if he has the alternative surgery and something goes wrong, you lose a valuable asset

and the difference in his trade value when healthy vs now is immense. why trade him away for pennies on the dollar?
even army isn't willing to do that with Vladi

agree tho, somethings gotta give sooner or later. have a feeling it ends up in the NEXT offseason
Click to expand...
True, but he's risking more than the team would be risking. He's risking the remainder of his career earnings. Feels like he has a lot more skin in the game than the team does, even if their 'investment' is significant.
 
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ezcreepin

ezcreepin

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Dec 5, 2016
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Moose and Squirrel said:
easier said than done.

put yourself in the owners seat. if he has the alternative surgery and something goes wrong, you lose a valuable asset

and the difference in his trade value when healthy vs now is immense. why trade him away for pennies on the dollar?
even army isn't willing to do that with Vladi

agree tho, somethings gotta give sooner or later. have a feeling it ends up in the NEXT offseason
Click to expand...
The problem is he isn't going to do what ownership wants. He would rather sit out than have an operation/procedure/therapy different than what he wants. I don't disagree; it's a business and they have to make the best business decision for them. But at some point, you have to set that aside and do what's best for the player. What's better though, an injured Eichel who barely plays half a season, if not less, or an Eichel who had spinal surgery who isn't as good as he once was, but is finally healthy enough to play a full season?
 
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ChicagoBlues

ChicagoBlues

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Moose and Squirrel said:
easier said than done.

put yourself in the owners seat. if he has the alternative surgery and something goes wrong, you lose a valuable asset

and the difference in his trade value when healthy vs now is immense. why trade him away for pennies on the dollar?
even army isn't willing to do that with Vladi

agree tho, somethings gotta give sooner or later. have a feeling it ends up in the NEXT offseason
Click to expand...

Eichel would also lose a valuable asset if Buffalo has their way; range of motion.
 
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Xerloris

Xerloris

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Jun 9, 2015
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Stupendous Yappi said:
True, but he's risking more than the team would be risking. He's risking the remainder of his career earnings. Feels like he has a lot more skin in the game than the team does, even if their 'investment' is significant.
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How much has he made already? It's more than enough to live comfortably on for the rest of his life and screw Buffalo with a retirement.
 

Stelmacki

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May 2, 2017
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Was there any reason why it’s almost a week after opening night before the Blues play their first game?
 

BlueDream

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It will feel great to watch real, meaningful hockey again tonight. Pens-Bolts and then I’m intrigued to see how the Kraken look against Vegas.
 
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stlbluz

stlbluz

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Stelmacki said:
Was there any reason why it’s almost a week after opening night before the Blues play their first game?
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Being a baseball town there typically is consideration for the Cards & the playoffs. Had they won last week & we(Blues) started with the rest of the league we'd be bumped from primetime & losing ticket revenue if at home. Not unusual at all. I actually like the games in hand considering it may very well make a difference at the end of the season as far as playing your top lines to earn a playoff spot or resting your guys because we're already in.
 
Brian39

Brian39

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Apr 24, 2014
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Stupendous Yappi said:
Am I the only one who doesn't want anything to do with Eichel right now? Best case scenario he's going to miss basically 2 seasons and have spinal surgery. I'd be pretty disappointed to see my GM pay a premium for a guy in that situation. I'm curious what the market is really like for him right now. What a mess.
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I'm very squarely in the camp that is highly skeptical of the claims being made by Eichel's doctor. I don't think the surgery he wants is nearly the no-brainer option that is being pushed and (largely) accepted by fans and the media. His doctor's comments about the difference between hockey hits and football hits making this surgery less risky for a hockey player raised an eyebrow with me. He talked about how hits to the top of the head that compress the neck downward are very risky with this surgery but hits driving the head backward aren't. I agree with him that the majority of hits in hockey drive the head back and not down, but guys get caught with their head down or get shoved into the boards pretty commonly in hockey. I don't think the replacement surgery is the miracle solution it is being presented as.

With that caveat, I don't think it is fair to say that him missing the entirety of this season is the 'best case scenario.' His agent is talking about a 3-4.5 month window from the date of surgery to his return to games. An independent doctor on Marek's show last week quoted a 4-6 month recovery window for that type of surgery. That was with the disclaimer that she was speaking generally and without any specific knowledge of his records. I think any receiving team would have to accept that missing this season is a very realistic option. But, I think there is just as good a chance that a trade in the next few weeks could see him ready to return with a few weeks left in the regular season. Or if the team wanted, they could sell a clear Kucherov-like recovery timeline to bring him back just in time for the start of playoffs despite him skating with the team for 2 months before that. Every opinion I've heard about this surgery is that he could resume skating within 4-6 weeks, so it is safe to say that the 4-6 recovery timeline is a true "100% game readiness" timeline.

He only played 21 games last season, but everyone was short on games last season. I don't think I'd call that basically a full missed year. I'm interested to see what his value is and I think a trade only gets done if there are a lot of conditional picks involved. But I don't think the worst case is quite as bad as you are suggesting.
 
Brian39

Brian39

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Apr 24, 2014
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MissouriMook said:
Next offseason his full NMC kicks in and he can veto a trade anywhere, so he has Buffalo in a vise and he and his agent know it.
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I don't think this provides him much leverage. If it gets to that point, then we are at the point where he has been suspended without pay for refusing medical treatment, Buffalo is attempting to toll this year of his contract (pushing his NMC out a year), we're almost certainly in the midst of arbitration/litigation and him trying to exercise a NMC would absolutely be used against him in that arbitration/litigation. Good luck convincing an arbitrator that this is all about medical autonomy after you refuse a trade to a team that would allow you to get the surgery you claim to want. I don't think it gets to this point, but if we do get there then exercising his NMC carries massive risk to Eichel.

He's at very real risk of losing the remaining $50M on his contract before we get to a point where he can use that NMC as leverage to get out of town. And that ignores that Buffalo's response to him exercising his NMC will be "cool, enjoy the next 4 years in Buffalo."
 
mk80

mk80

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Jul 30, 2012
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Thallis said:
Donskoi, Jarnkrok, Johansson,Oleksiak, and McCann were all put on covid protocol yesterday
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Also apparently their radio play-by-play guy couldn't make the trip due to being in covid protocol
 
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