Jack Eichel has finally been traded, and not to his hometown Bruins. The Buffalo Sabres officially sent Eichel and a third-round pick to the Vegas Golden Knights on Thursday in exchange for forward Alex Tuch, top prospect Peyton Krebs, a first-round pick and a second-round pick.
By all accounts, the Bruins never got too deep into serious negotiations with the Sabres. But they certainly popped up in rumors often enough, with Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman including Boston on a long list of teams that had at least some interest as recently as a couple weeks ago.
Now that we know what it actually took to finally get an Eichel trade done, what would the Bruins have needed to offer? What would a comparable package have looked like? And is there any chance they could have gotten something done?
Let’s start with just trying to figure out what a comparable offer would have looked like. Right off the bat, we run into one complication, which is that Krebs is probably a better prospect than any the Bruins have.
Just as one example, The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler ranked Krebs as the 26th-best prospect in the NHL entering this season. His highest-ranked Bruins prospect was 2021 first-round pick Fabian Lysell at 43. That may not be a massive difference, but Krebs, a 2019 first-round pick, can also play in the NHL right now, having already played nine games for Vegas this season.
Lysell, meanwhile, is playing in the WHL this season and is two years younger than Krebs. It’s possible he’ll look better than Krebs with two more years of developing, but right now he would be less of a sure thing for the Sabres.
Jack Studnicka is much closer to NHL-ready and is probably the Bruins’ No. 2 prospect, but he’s also two years older than Krebs and doesn’t have as much upside. The Sabres would understandably value Krebs more than Studnicka, so we’ll say the prospect from the Bruins would’ve had to have been Lysell.
Now, who’s comparable to Tuch? Tuch is a solid 25-year-old middle-six forward. His 82-game averages during his four seasons in Vegas have been 20 goals and 25 assists. He had a career-high 52 points in 74 games in 2018-19 and had 33 points in 55 games last season. Tuch is signed through 2026 at $4.75 million per year. He is currently recovering from shoulder surgery and is expect to be out until January or February.
The first name you’re probably thinking of is Jake DeBrusk. DeBrusk’s age and overall career numbers are in fact quite similar, but Tuch is coming off a much better season, as last year was a disaster for DeBrusk. If nothing else, recency bias would favor Tuch.
Looking at a different position, another option would be Brandon Carlo, a middle-pairing defenseman who’s a year younger than Tuch and locked up for a year longer for a little less money per year ($4.1 million). Given that the Bruins just signed Carlo to that deal this offseason, that Carlo has emerged as a team leader, and that they don’t have a ton of depth on defense, they would have been very hesitant to include Carlo.
But matching Vegas’ offer wouldn’t have been enough for the Bruins anyways. The Sabres did not want to trade Eichel within the division or even the conference if they could at all avoid it, so the reality is that the Bruins would have needed to clearly and decisively beat the Golden Knights’ offer. Would a package of Lysell, Carlo and the same picks (a first and a second) have even done that? Would the second-rounder need to be upgraded to another first?
Then there’s the whole financial aspect on top of all this. It’s unclear exactly how the Golden Knights are making all this work. They were already right at the cap, and Eichel is signed for $10 million per year through 2026. The Sabres are reportedly not retaining any salary. The Golden Knights can put Eichel on long-term injured reserve for now (he’s reportedly out until probably March), but at some point they’ll have some maneuvering to do.
The Bruins would be in basically the same boat. Add in Charlie McAvoy’s cap hit jumping up to $9.5 million next year and David Pastrnak being in line for a raise after next season, and the financial gymnastics of dropping in Eichel’s massive contract will give you a headache.
So, could the Bruins have found a way to beat Vegas’ offer and make an Eichel trade work? Sure… where there’s a will, there’s a way. But it was always highly unlikely, and it’s understandable why the Bruins never went too far down that road.
