Friedman: The Rangers are the team everyone is looking at for a Jack Eichel trade
The biggest storyline to follow this off-season is where @Jack Eichel is going to end up.
It appears as though the No. 2 selection from the 2015 draft is finished in Buffalo. Eichel dropped a bomb at the Sabres’ year-end press conference earlier this week, stating that there was a disconnect between him and the team over how his neck injury has been handled.
This situation might end up being the tipping point on multiple years of frustration in Buffalo. Since getting drafted in 2015, Eichel has come nowhere near reaching the playoffs as a Sabre. The team had its worst season in the Eichel era this year, going 15-34-7.
Elliotte Friedman spoke about the Eichel situation on this week’s edition of 31 Thoughts Podcast. He suggested that a handful of teams will be in the mix for Eichel, but the New York Rangers are the major player that everyone is watching…
“LA can do it, Anaheim can do it, Ottawa can do it but I don’t see it. Montreal can do it. You know someone told me that St. Louis wanted to move some of their young pros and he could see St. Louis putting together a package to do it. Winnipeg could do it… but number one on the list has to be the Rangers. Boston’s going to want to do it and Columbus is going to want to do it, but the Rangers is who everyone is looking at.”
The Rangers only have $57 million allocated to their roster in 2021-22 and they boast a wealth of young talent that they could possibly send back to Buffalo in a deal for Eichel. As of right now, the Rangers have @Mika Zibanejad and @Ryan Strome as their top-two centres, so adding Eichel would be a game-changer for their roster.
The team’s most recent top draft picks, @Alexis Lafreniere and @Kappo Kakko, are names that would likely interest Buffalo, along with other high-quality young players such as Vitali Kravtsov, K’Andre Miller, and Filip Chytl.