It’s crazy to think that we’re roughly a month away from the Buffalo Sabres opening training camp. The majority of the work has been done by Kevyn Adams, but the big move is still on the board. Jack Eichel remains on the Sabres roster.

We’re officially in the “dead season” of the NHL offseason as most clubs have put their rosters together for next season. Sabres fans are now just sitting around waiting for the Eichel trade to drop. Of course, it’s more likely at this point than it was a few months ago that he is on the roster when training camp rolls around. Having said that, the odds remain in favor of him being moved before camps open.

It’s difficult to analyze what this roster will look like until that trade comes through. This also makes it difficult to come up with topics surrounding the Sabres until the final piece of the puzzle falls into place.

I’m honestly tired of writing about Eichel trade scenarios, but there is one idea I’ve pondered lately that I’m curious to get some feedback on. I’ll warn you upfront that this ends up with Eichel playing for the New York Rangers.

Allow me to break it down.

Finding Fair Value

The Sabres are clearly still not getting the value they feel is right for their captain on the trade market. Interested parties are trying to make this move without giving up their key prospects and Adams is sticking to his value. Since they can’t find fair value from one team, perhaps the Sabres should look to get multiple teams involved to get the required assets.

There is actually some precedence to look back on that involved moving a high-end centerman in a three-team deal. This trade took place back in 2019. It was the deal that was centered around Matt Duchene being dealt to the Ottawa Senators. The Colorado Avalanche managed to get two teams involved to meet their value. Here’s a quick refresher on that initial Duche trade to the Senators:

Senators receive: Matt Duchene

Predators receive: Kyle Turris

Avalanche receive: Shane Bowers, Andrew Hammond, Vladislav Kamenev, Sam Girard, 2019 conditional first-round pick, 2018 second-round pick, and 2019 third-round pick.

The Avalanche walked away with seven pieces in this deal for a player that is not as good as Eichel. The also found some luck with the first-round pick from the Senators turning into a top five pick in the 2020 NHL Draft. 

The Sabres can offer teams something that makes them the perfect candidate to be involved in a three-team deal; cap space. They currently sit with $28.6 million in cap space and are $7.4 million under the floor, according to Cap Friendly. With another $10 million going out the door when Eichel is traded, they’ll need to take some kind of money back in the trade to reach the $60.2 million floor. 

The Deal

In my opinion, there is logic behind a three team trade involving the New York Rangers, Vegas Golden Knights, and the Sabres. As I said, the final result is that Eichel ends up in Manhattan. However, it opens up a path to them to receive a great return for their disgruntled star. 

The Rangers have been after Eichel for two years and the Golden Knights are looking for another top six center to hopefully get the over the hump. The problem in Vegas is they have limited cap space to work with. Which would obviously make it difficult to add a $10 million player to their roster without multiple cap dumps. 

Another option is that they can find a team to act as a broker to retain salary on a centerman to help this player fit into their cap situation. This is where the Sabres enter the picture. The Rangers have a center in Mika Zibanejad that could be of interest to the Golden Knights. He has one more year on his deal and the Rangers could be open to moving him if they’re getting Eichel back in return. 

If these three teams did decide to come together on a deal, here’s how it could look:

Rangers receive: Jack Eichel

Golden Knights receive: Mika Zibanejad (Sabres retain 50%)

Sabres receive: Peyton Krebs, Lucas Elvenes, Filip Chytil, Braden Schneider, and two conditional first-round picks (one from each team). 

The Rangers and Golden Knights get the two centers that they covet. Zibanejad only costs $2.675 million on the cap for Vegas for this season. This also allows them to discuss the possibility of signing an extension to remain with that club moving forward.

The Sabres walk away from this with six pieces in total. They get the big center prospect in Krebs that is crucial to any path of this trade working out for them. Elvenes is an NHL-ready prospect that could grow into a nice middle-six winger. Schneider is a right-shot defenseman that was a first-round pick in the 2020 draft. I know that he has been mentioned as one of the “untouchables” but the Rangers need to give in somewhere to make this work.

Chytil is the final interesting piece in this scenario. The 21-year-old center had his best NHL season last year with the Rangers. His production was up scoring at a 43 point per 82 games pace. That isn’t a production rate that is going to wow you, but his ceiling is a 45-50 point middle-six center.

In Micah McCurdy’s model, his isolated impacts show him as a positive impact offensive player with neutral shooting ability that won’t hurt you in their own end of the ice. In theory, that’s a great player to have down the middle playing behind Dylan Cozens, Casey Mittelstadt, and Krebs in the future.

If you want to see what this team would look like if this happened, you’re in luck. I put this potential lineup into JFresh’s WAR lineup builder and you can see the results below.

This model projects a 77-point team with how I have it laid out, but there are some potential pockets for growth with all of the young players on the roster. There is a lot of uncertainty with a handful of players in wins-above-replacement models because of how few NHL games they have played to this point. The best-case scenario for a roster like this is a mid-80’s point team, which would be an improvement.

The logic behind this type of trade happening makes sense for everyone involved. Admittedly, the one area that I do get tripped up is the Golden Knights including Krebs. If they won’t add him to the trade mix right now for Eichel, why would they do so for Zibanejad? The only answer I could come up with is that they may see Zibanejad at a similar level to Eichel and a player that could fit better into their cap moving forward. That and desperation could push them over the edge.

Hopefully, something happens soon so that we can all move our focus to next season.

Data via: Hockeyviz.com, Cap Friendly, and JFresh

Photo credit: Jared Silber/NHLI via Getty Images