{"id":103016,"date":"2021-03-09T11:45:28","date_gmt":"2021-03-09T16:45:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=103016"},"modified":"2021-03-09T22:15:32","modified_gmt":"2021-03-10T03:15:32","slug":"buffalo-sabres-jack-eichel-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2021\/03\/09\/buffalo-sabres-jack-eichel-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Buffalo Sabres Jack Eichel Out"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Buffalo Sabres have ruled star forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/e\/eicheja01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jack Eichel<\/a> out with an upper-body injury. This announcement comes before the team will challenge the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/flyers\/\" target=\"_self\">Philadelphia Flyers<\/a> on the road. Sabres PR provided the original information with Elliotte Friedman providing clarification shortly afterwards.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/FriedgeHNIC\/status\/1369317522009452549?s=20<\/p>\n<p>UPDATE: WGR Sports&#8217; Paul Hamilton relays a message from head coach Ralph Kruger that Eichel will be out for at least a week.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Eichel is back in Buffalo and will be out a minimum of a week and he needs further evaluation to see if it will be more.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Paul Hamilton (@pham1717) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/pham1717\/status\/1369485063331737612?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 10, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Sabres Jack Eichel Out<\/h2>\n<p>Eichel was not scoring goals at his usual rate, but this is still devastating given his overall impact. The 24-year-old is the current scoring leader with two goals and 18 points in 21 games. He is a victim of serious bad luck as he is shooting just 3.3 percent on 61 shots. This is a player who had never shot below nine percent in any of his previous five seasons. The bad luck shows up in advanced stats as well; Evolving Wild&#8217;s model currently has Eichel with .8 expected goals per 60 minutes, but his actual rate is just .28. It is a puzzling year for someone who is typically among the league&#8217;s best and still sports outstanding possession numbers.<\/p>\n<p>The Sabres famously drafted Eichel second overall in the 2015 Draft after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/m\/mcdavco01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Connor McDavid<\/a>. The Massachusetts native isn&#8217;t as productive as his Canadian counterpart, but there&#8217;s little doubt that Buffalo skater is a top talent. He has scored at least 56 points in every full season and might have hit that mark again this season with just a few more lucky bounces boosting the scoring rate. In total, Eichel has 139 goals and 355 points in 375 games and is second in career production from 2015 draftees.<\/p>\n<h3>How Buffalo Replaces Eichel<\/h3>\n<p>This injury certainly damages a campaign that has already gone sideways. The team is last in their division with multiple players playing below expectations. There also isn&#8217;t much depth to call up in the hopes of salvaging the remaining games.<\/p>\n<p>The most logical move might be shifting promising rookie <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/c\/cozendy01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dylan Cozens<\/a> to Eichel&#8217;s spot centring the first line. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/r\/reinhsa01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sam Reinhart<\/a> would move up to Cozens&#8217; spot on the wing with someone back-filling for Reinhart. It&#8217;s also an opportunity for a taxi squad candidate like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/a\/asplura01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rasmus Asplund<\/a> to get more time on the ice. Regardless of what Buffalo does, it&#8217;s safe to say this injury is a bad thing and might accelerate some decisions on a rebuild.<\/p>\n<p>[pickup_prop id=&#8221;2960&#8243;]<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"0iLuvfETTghMQ5qeaqN87Q\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1231603866\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'0iLuvfETTghMQ5qeaqN87Q',sig:'jPEH7ofwiWnPjdX8ltYrXXjC9d6TuLFHpGyxaff1VRU=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1231603866',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Buffalo Sabres have ruled star forward Jack Eichel out with an upper-body injury. This announcement comes before the team will challenge the Philadelphia Flyers on the road. Sabres PR provided the original information with Elliotte Friedman providing clarification shortly afterwards. https:\/\/twitter.com\/FriedgeHNIC\/status\/1369317522009452549?s=20 UPDATE: WGR Sports&#8217; Paul Hamilton relays a message from head coach Ralph Kruger [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3127,"featured_media":103021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4547,34,4548],"tags":[5738,1576,955],"class_list":["post-103016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sabres","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","tag-hockey-news","tag-injury","tag-nhl-news"],"modified_by":"Josh Erickson","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}