If you listen to the 32 thoughts, the word is out that they wouldn't let Eichel get the surgery that he thought was best for him as a player and for him post-hockey.
Peguals are PR wary. Bad enough that star players may want to steer clear (as if they wanted another reason) but to not respect a person's choice in a seriously consequential surgery could have been a huge story.
I know there are two sides of this and you mostly get one side in the podcast. Eichels side is putting out in was business and the Pegulas took it personal. The flip is the Pegulas followed their doctors and that is business but Eichel took that personal.
Yet another chapter in bad break ups (Hasek LaFontaine Nolan Drury/Briere OReilly Rigas Kotalik) just kidding Ales.
Re: the bolded, are you intentionally ignoring that Eichel said he didn't want to be in Buffalo, i.e., essentially a personal decision which ignored the business side of honoring his contract? Are you also ignoring all the perquisites or appeasements given Jack which, at the time, were way more personal concessions by the Pegulas than business decisions? Captaincy. Firing Bylsma. Signing Taylor Hall.
Believe what you wish, but I don't find either the "potential bad PR" angle, or in any way painting Eichel as a white knight, as credible. That doesn't absolve Pegulas from the state of the franchise, but the state of the franchise doesn't by default impugn the Pegulas as callous cold bastards for the 2021 Eichel injury saga.
This is again, a really well thought out idea on the temper and tone of the changes to Eichel's trade over the course of the last week to 10 days. A grievance, the possibility of his utter contempt and displeasure over the way they are handling his medical care and liability involved in upper hand use of the CBA to do the right thing for a player. Whether he asked for a trade or not, and the feelings involved in giving a player life changing money, is still rather frill to not allow him to get surgery for pain that he's dealing with every minute. I can understand investing 80 million dollars in a franchise player, who you drafted, and gave the keys to the kingdom of sorts, and the idea that he could be this generation's Gilbert Perreault meant a lot to Terry and Kim. But, always try to look at it from an objective view and see that the fans are pissed and they hold the future to your tenure in a market. If you're not selling well, and the fans stop showing up....you lose. So while "feelings" are involved, and I get it, but you need to do right by the market and the fan base. This did have to end, for sure. However....come on!
Major point: We have absolutely no knowledge of his pain: magnitude, duration, whether it is constant, intermittent, conditional on certain motions, or other physiological changes, manageable vs. intolerable, etc.
In fact, I would argue since he was not in any form of brace/ immobilizer, and his issue was certainly not life-threatening, it's <50% likely his pain was constantly acute to the extent it was debilitating. As vocal as Fish and/or the doctors who sided with Jack's desire to get the ADR were in order to sway public opinion towards Jack's side or to sway negotiation pressure against the Sabres, I think "constant pain" would have been stated at some point, and then repeated over and over again in the court of public opinion. It's what would happen in a courtroom to garner sympathy to a victim in a criminal or civil case. Did we ever hear it? I think not.
Minor point: I don't understand the use of the word/noun "frill" in that sentence; the syntax implies it's an adjective, but it doesn't make sense in context. Typo?
I think PSE would not like Eichel badmouthing the organization.
We are done. Wildly speculating LOL OK guy
I'm speculating PSE is glad to be through with Jack Eichel, and any badmouthing would have been a glad price to pay.
Tuch and Krebs sounds like the evil players me and my brother made up playing hockey in our garden. When the winters still were cold my father watered the whole place, including the trees until everything was covered in ice.
It was pretty much a narnia rink.
Since there only were the three of us we had to roleplay different lines and players. Tuch and Krebs definately would have been checking wingers for Ekesjö Äckel.
You had / have a good dad. With or without plastic sheeting on top of the ground underneath the ice? Sounds like without. They were / are done both ways in USA.
