How the Sabres moving Eichel is like a Smashing Pumpkins song

Jack Eichel going to Vegas got me thinking about a late-90s soundtrack special

I wrote a little about Jack Eichel’s trade to the Vegas Golden Knights at Die By The Blade and my thoughts there got me thinking in a way I used to in the old blog days.

You see there’s something you may not know about me and it’s that I am corny as anything but really try hard to not be corny and wind up being even more corny than I intended. So I’d think of something, not necessarily an entire scene, that reminded me of a song and lo and behold the Buffalo Sabres trading the best player they’ve had since Ryan Miller did the trick. Miller makes me think about music because he’s huge into it and would talk about bands and singers with as much knowledge and authority as he would goaltending.

So that’s a real roundabout way to say that the Sabres tearing it all down officially to try to build it up again for the second or third time in eight years made me think of the Smashing Pumpkins. It got me saying in my head, “The end is the beginning is the end is the beginning is the end…” in relation to the cycle of operations the Sabres have adopted. So obviously I had to think back to 1997.

Hope you enjoyed the Batman & Robin visuals as well as Billy Corgan’s alabaster cranium.

The thought of starting and restarting and restarting again and again is exhausting and a little bit all too real which puts a real gloomy spin on things when you think of it in terms of Sabres hockey. That’s like an ouroboros of depression waiting to happen. It’s a little different when it’s sports and you’re Jack Eichel and your new beginning will happen in Las freakin’ Vegas.

Thinking about what it means for Buffalo though… the hope of a new beginning leading to something other than another sorry end makes for one hell of a high. What the Sabres got in return with Peyton Krebs and Alex Tuch is pretty damn good. Krebs was drafted the same year as Dylan Cozens and like him he’s really just getting his pro career started.

Tuch is from Baldwinsville, NY near Syracuse so he’s already getting regional love. That Tuch’s younger brother Luke lived with Andrew Peters when he played for the Buffalo Junior Sabres gives all kinds of local love to appreciate. It also helps he’s a pretty good player who should do well playing up in the Sabres lineup.

Looking back at the deals they made sending Sam Reinhart to Florida and Rasmus Ristolainen to Philly and now Eichel, as far as teardowns go Kevyn Adams did respectably well. Time will ultimately decide how well or not he did, but at first blush it’s not a bad result. He’s gotten three first-round picks, a top prospect center in Krebs, a veteran defender with Robert Hagg, a wild card in goalie Devon Levi, and assorted other draft picks.

There’s so much to be determined down the road, but when it’s the beginning after an end that means optimism and I don’t think quoting Red from The Shawshank Redemption when it comes to hope is necessary here. The last piece of a tragic era is gone and now it’s their time to actually move on. The Sabres hopes now are that the new beginning won’t end so unfortunately soon.

Listen To Me - I Mean It

A couple of podcasts to share today and both very Eichel centric. My weekly appearance on That Hockey Show with Paul Cuthbert (Soundcloud) got us sorting through what the trade means for Buffalo and how things are shaping up now.

Pat Moran hit the alarm for an Emergipod to talk a bunch about Eichel. Since you’re reading this Friday morning, head here for our weekly Casual Friday show. Plenty of Buffalo goodies to discuss and our Starting Five centers around Adam Sandler movies.

Coming Soon

I like to think I know what I’m talking about when watching hockey but I think I miss things sometimes or don’t understand what I’m looking at (I’m special, ok?) so I asked Jack Han (check his Substack here) to help me figure out what the heck the Sabres are actually doing differently. Keep your eyes peeled for that in the near future.