Tag: Buffalo Sabres

NHL fans are furious with goalie Aaron Dell after injuring Senators’ Drake Batherson with reckless hit

Aaron Dell will sit three games for this unnecessary hit.

Aaron Dell has landed himself in hot water in the eyes of the NHL and its fans after this dangerous hit.

On Tuesday, in the first period between the Buffalo Sabres and the Ottawa Senators, Drake Batherson was pursuing a puck behind the visitor’s net when Aaron Dell stepped out of his goal crease to challenge him. Dell got in Batherson’s path to the puck and delivered an elbow to the shoulder, causing the Senators’ forward to crash awkwardly into the boards.

Batherson left the game after that hit, favoring his ankle, and never returned to the game. Dell was not assessed a penalty for interference on the play.

It was later revealed that Batherson suffered a high ankle sprain after the hit and will be out long-term for Ottawa.

Dell was suspended three games on Wednesday after a meeting with the NHL’s Department of Player Safety, but this is not the first time the goaltender has roughed up his opponents out of the crease. Back in mid-January, Dell put a shoulder into Nashville’s Eeli Tolvanen along the boards…

Then back in 2019, Dell caught Mark Stone of the Vegas Golden Knights with a similar elbow to the Batherson play.

NHL fans were absolutely furious with Dell on social media after Batherson’s injury. Partly because the hit was a reckless and unnecessary one, seemingly only made with the intent to injure as there was no reason for Dell to make an attempt on the puck with his teammate right there. And also because Batherson was set to make his first All-Star appearance in February after putting up 34 points in 31 games, an event he’ll have to miss because of his injury.

Senators’ head coach D.J. Smith called the entire situation “ridiculous” and called out Dell for his long history with bad hits.

Here’s how NHL fans reacted to Batherson’s injury and Dell’s suspension.

Jack Eichel finally gets the fresh start he deserves with the Golden Knights

Jack Eichel is finally free.

To say this has been a long time coming for Jack Eichel would be an understatement.

On Thursday, the Buffalo Sabres and Eichel ended their strained relationship after months locked in a stalemate via a trade with the Vegas Golden Knights. There are, of course, hockey ramifications to consider given that this is the biggest trade the NHL has seen this season, but I want to step back and focus on Eichel himself here.

Back in March, Eichel sustained a herniated disc in his neck in a game against the New York Islanders, an injury which knocked him out for the rest of the 2021-22 season. At the time, it was expected Eichel would be ready for Sabres training camp come September should he get the required surgery. That surgery never happened, and still has yet to happen, nearly eight months since Eichel’s original injury, all because the Sabres and their former captain disagreed on what kind of surgery to get.

Tensions were already rising between Eichel and the Sabres back in 2020 when the then-captain of the team told the media he was “fed up” and “frustrated” with all of the losing in Buffalo. Now add Eichel’s unavoidable injury into the mix, alongside the Sabres refusing to let him get the surgery he wanted, and you have quite the mess on your hands.

It’s fair to say that from top to bottom, the Sabres completely mishandled Eichel’s injury. While the procedure Eichel wanted to get, artificial disc replacement surgery, has never been performed on a NHL player before, it has been performed on other athletes. The Sabres, on the other hand, wanted to opt for a more traditional surgery — disk fusion — which carries the risk of having to go under the knife again in the future.

In the end, the Sabres held all the cards thanks to the NHL’s Collective Bargaining Agreement, which states a player’s team has final say on medical procedures. And for eight long months, Eichel had to deal with a herniated disc, which impacted his day-to-day life and sidelined him from hockey.

After everything he’s put up with, it’s no wonder Eichel wanted out of Buffalo.

Vegas had been the long-rumored landing spot for Eichel since the summer, so it’s no real surprise to see him land with the Golden Knights at the end of the day. Though Vegas will have to wait between three to five months to finally get Eichel out on the ice and playing, this is a great move for all sides. The Golden Knights get to add the star center they’ve been looking for, while the Sabres finally can cut their losses and start anew with a new group of young players.

Most of all, Eichel also gets a fresh start to revitalize his NHL career. For the majority of his time in the league, Eichel has been playing second fiddle to Connor McDavid, who went before him at No. 1 overall in 2015 to the Edmonton Oilers. Eichel has always been playing in McDavid’s shadow, and even though Edmonton has problems of their own, the No. 1 overall pick has been raking in the awards and the accolades since.

With Vegas, however, Eichel has the opportunity to start again. We’ve seen glimpses of greatness from Eichel in the past, from his 82-point season in 2018-19 to hitting 36 goals in 68 games in the COVID-shortened 2019-20 year. Eichel won’t be McDavid, and that’s okay! There’s no one like McDavid playing hockey right now.

And yet, Eichel now finally has the chance to chart his own course with the Golden Knights. Eichel might even be able to play for the U.S. Olympic team come February if he recovers from his surgery fast enough! With Vegas, Eichel finally is getting the fresh start he’s deserved and I, for one, cannot wait to see what he does with it.

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Jack Eichel is now on the Golden Knights and the hockey world is ecstatic

Welcome to Vegas, Eichel!

Jack Eichel is no longer a member of the Buffalo Sabres. After six years within the Sabres organization as the second overall pick in 2015, Eichel is now headed to the Vegas Golden Knights as part of the first major NHL blockbuster trade we’ve seen this season.

This was a long time coming for Eichel, who had his captaincy stripped with Buffalo while sitting out due to injury. The major hangup between the Sabres and Eichel was a disagreement on what kind of surgery the 25-year-old should have to repair the disk he herniated in his neck last season.

As a member of the Golden Knights, Eichel will be able to get the artificial disc replacement surgery he wanted, with a recovery time between three to five months. Eichel, who is not a very prolific Twitter user since joining in the summer, even tweeted out his excited reaction to the news with him in a Golden Knights jersey.

Though the Golden Knights won’t get to reap the benefits of this trade for some time, it’s great to see Eichel excited about playing hockey again. Not only that, Eichel will finally be able to get surgery on his herniated disk, an injury that I am sure is not pleasant to have in your daily life.

Here’s how the hockey world reacted to the Eichel trade and the end of an era in Buffalo.

Jack Eichel trade grades: Who won the reported Golden Knights and Sabres deal?

Eichel finally leaves the Sabres.

At long, long last, the Jack Eichel saga in Buffalo is reportedly over.

Per TSN, Eichel is off to the Las Vegas Golden Knights, ending a feud between the Sabres and the star they drafted second overall in 2015 that started last year and has continued until Thursday.

The issues they had came to a head earlier this year when the injured Eichel wanted cervical disc replacement surgery and the Sabres wanted him to go with disc fusion. They couldn’t agree and then Eichel was placed on injured reserved and had his “C” for captain stripped.

Now? He’ll join a Stanley Cup contender, although we’ll see when he actually plays.

In the meantime, let’s grade the reported deal:

Former Notre Dame players on NHL rosters to begin 2021-22 season

Pay special attention to these players this season.

The puck has dropped on the 2021-22 NHL season, and the full 82-game schedule has returned. Besides the usual amount of hockey to look forward to once again, there also is a new team that has taken the ice. One player on that team played collegiate hockey at Notre Dame, as did nine other players who are starting the year on NHL rosters. That number could grow later this season with 15 other former Irish players starting play in the AHL, but for now, here are the 10 you can see at hockey’s top level at this moment:

The Jack Eichel and Buffalo Sabres saga, explained

What’s going on in Buffalo?

Welcome to FTW Explains, a guide to catching up on and better understanding stuff going on in the world. You may have seen a lot of chatter on Thursday about Jack Eichel and the Buffalo Sabres, and a whole lot of drama surrounding the star forward. If you need to be caught up, that’s what we’re here for.

The drama in Buffalo got ratcheted up quite a bit as NHL teams including the Sabres are getting ready to start training camp, with an announcement on Thursday that Eichel was no longer the captain of the team.

But where did this all come from? And why is this suddenly happening now? Let’s break it all down for you:

The Sabres’ Jack Eichel posted a one-emoji tweet that has the NHL world going nuts

WHAT DOES IT MEAN???

The trade rumors about Buffalo Sabres star forward Jack Eichel have been swirling for what feels like forever now, with talk that he may want out of the team that drafted him second overall in the 2015 NHL draft.

The only thing missing this offseason was some kind of message from Eichel that he was unhappy … but it appears we may have gotten it.

Eichel started up a Twitter profile recently and hasn’t said much since his initial tweet.

But on Thursday afternoon, he dropped the ol’ “cryptic emoji that could mean anything” tweet and sent NHL fans into a frenzy:

2021 NHL trade deadline winners and losers

Which teams were the big winners and losers of the 2021 NHL trade deadline?

The music has stopped on the 2021 NHL trade deadline and the players have found their respective chairs. Monday’s trade deadline was not at all an exciting one in the NHL this year, for reasons varying from the flat salary cap to the upcoming expansion draft.

Though deadline day was underwhelming, the last few weeks as a whole have seen some interesting shuffling between the teams as organizations prepare for playoff runs or look toward the upcoming draft.

As such, it’s time to find out which NHL teams were the winners of trade deadline day and which wished they could have gotten another crack at the whole ordeal.

Former Notre Dame captain nets first career NHL goal

Props to Steven Fogarty for his first NHL goal!

Former Notre Dame hockey star Steven Fogarty played for the Fighting Irish from the 2012-13 season through 2015-16 and captained the team for his final two years.

Since graduating from Notre Dame, Fogarty played in the New York Rangers system and skated in 18 games over the past three seasons.  Fogarty signed a free-agent deal with the Buffalo Sabres last fall and was recently brought up to the big-squad.

On Wednesday night with the Sabres taking on the Philadelphia Flyers, Fogarty did something he never had previously in his NFL career:

Scored a goal.

Check it out below:

It’s been a forgettable season for the Sabres who entered play Wednesday just 6-23-5, but it was a memorable moment for the former Notre Dame star.

Odds for all 31 NHL teams to capture the Stanley Cup

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