{"id":87978,"date":"2020-10-10T17:00:17","date_gmt":"2020-10-10T21:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=87978"},"modified":"2020-10-10T16:59:45","modified_gmt":"2020-10-10T20:59:45","slug":"cody-eakin-signs-with-buffalo-sabres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2020\/10\/10\/cody-eakin-signs-with-buffalo-sabres\/","title":{"rendered":"Cody Eakin Signs with the Buffalo Sabres"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/sabres\/\" target=\"_self\">Buffalo Sabres<\/a> have signed free-agent forward<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/e\/eakinco01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> <strong>Cody Eakin<\/strong><\/a><strong>\u00a0<\/strong>to a two-year $4.5 million contract, equalling $2.25 million per season. Eakin&#8217;s new contract carries him through the 2021-22 season.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Cody Eakin to BUF 2x $2.25.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FriedgeHNIC\/status\/1315029649890725889?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 10, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Cody Eakin Signs with the Buffalo Sabres<\/h2>\n<p>Drafted by the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/capitals\" target=\"_self\">Washington Capitals<\/a> in the third round of the 2009 NHL Draft, Eakin&#8217;s played for four NHL teams and most recently his hometown <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/jets\/\" target=\"_self\">Winnipeg Jets<\/a>. Eakin, 29, spent the end of his 2019\u201320 season with Winnipeg, coming home via a trade that sent a conditional fourth-round pick back to the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/vegas-golden-knights\/\" target=\"_self\">Vegas Golden Knights<\/a>. Eakin had one goal and four assists in eight games with the Jets, followed by four pointless qualifying round games.<\/p>\n<p>In 586 NHL games, Eakin&#8217;s managed to score 103 goals and add 134 assists, totalling 237 points. His career-high in goals and points came in 2018\u201319 with Vegas, where he scored 22 goals and had 41 points. This was Eakin&#8217;s only 20-goal season in nine NHL campaigns.<\/p>\n<p>Eakin&#8217;s suited up for 50 playoff games, scoring eight goals and tallying 11 assists. He was a member of the Golden Knights during their Stanley Cup run in 2017\u201318, played 20 postseason games.<\/p>\n<h3>What This Means for the Future<\/h3>\n<p>Eakin can play anywhere as high as a second-line centre or can drop down to a third or fourth-line checking role. Eakin held down the second-line centre spot for the majority of his stint in Winnipeg but is best suited in the bottom-six of a fully-healthy lineup. After Vegas plucked Eakin from the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/stars\" target=\"_self\">Dallas Stars<\/a> in the expansion draft, Eakin seemed to thrive as a role player with a change of scenery \u2014 so another fresh start could be beneficial for Eakin.<\/p>\n<p>Despite nearly 600 NHL games under his belt, Eakin still has a lot left in the tank. He&#8217;s shown to adapt to new roles on different teams and is typically a player who can chip in at least 15 goals while contributing on the penalty kill and checking units too. Eakin&#8217;s also played in at least 78 games in six of his last eight seasons. Given Eakin&#8217;s durability, the Sabres now has a versatile centre to look forward to for the majority of next season.<\/p>\n<p>Main photo:<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"eGa4en_tRSpsSavSYFKuMA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.ca\/detail\/1213296981\" 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:'eGa4en_tRSpsSavSYFKuMA',sig:'jt61rAiUGeXqdcg6GVTxa1zXO6M2s1RNYAi6nm2bYuk=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1213296981',caption: true ,tld:'ca',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 signed free-agent forward Cody Eakin\u00a0to a two-year $4.5 million contract, equalling $2.25 million per season. Eakin&#8217;s new contract carries him through the 2021-22 season. Cody Eakin to BUF 2x $2.25. \u2014 Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) October 10, 2020 &nbsp; Cody Eakin Signs with the Buffalo Sabres Drafted by the Washington Capitals in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2619,"featured_media":87985,"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":[34,3,4547,4548],"tags":[182,1021,662,357],"class_list":["post-87978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-sabres","category-hockey","category-nhl","tag-buffalo-sabres","tag-cody-eakin","tag-nhl-free-agency","tag-winnipeg-jets"],"modified_by":"Colton Osmond, Dept Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87978","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\/2619"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}