Seattle, WA (WGR 550) – The Buffalo Sabres were in Seattle on Thursday for their first-ever game against the Kraken, but, of course, all the talk was about the Jack Eichel traded to the Vegas Golden Knights earlier in the day.
Related
Eichel was never a real distraction to this team, because he told general manager Kevyn Adams when they reported for physicals he didn’t want to be a distraction to his teammates and that he’d stay away.
Many of the players, of course, are happy that Eichel can now go get the artificial disk replacement surgery that Adams and the Sabres wouldn’t let him get. Eichel has never been around this team at all, so there hasn’t been a distraction.
With Eichel gone, Zemgus Girgensons and Kyle Okposo are sharing the captaincy.
“It was mixed emotions for me," Okposo said of the Eichel trade on Thursday. "I’ve become pretty close with Jack, especially in the last three years, so that part of the business is never going to be easy. But I think it was time, and there wasn’t going to be an amicable ending to this thing. So I’m happy for him on a personal level.”
In situations like this, we, of course, don’t get much of the information that somebody like Okposo would.
“I’ve been privy to more information than most people, but you always want it to work," Okposo said. "He’s my friend, but I think it was pretty clear that things were deteriorating from a relationship standpoint and it probably wasn’t going to mend itself.”
After Thursday's trade, new Sabres forward Alex Tuch tweeted out how excited he is to be coming to the team that he cheered for as a kid in Syracuse.
“I’ve known Alex probably since he was 15-years-old," Sabres head coach Don Granato said on Thursday. "He’s a New York guy, and when I spoke to him, he’s excited. He said he can’t wait to put the jersey over his shoulders, and he grew up a Sabres fan. That’s really nice, and those intangibles mean so much. They make you fight harder. They make you go to bed at night thinking of resolutions and solutions.”
Defenseman Colin Miller was teammates with Tuch back in Vegas. He said he's excited to suit up with him once again.
"He was a big part of our team when I was with him for two years, and he’s a big, strong power forward,” Miller said.
Dylan Cozens has spent a lot of time playing on Team Canada with Krebs. They even got the chance to play on the same line.
"'Krebsy’s' a great guy, and obviously a great player," Cozens said on Thursday. "I was real excited to see that he was coming back in the trade.
“I played on Team Canada with him maybe four or five times, and I’ve played on a line with him too. He’s very smart, a two-way player and very responsible, so I’m excited to have him.”
Cozens talked about Krebs being a hard worker, and he said he has another unique quality: his hockey IQ.
"The way he sees the game and reads the game, he’s a great playmaker, and he always finds the open guy," Cozens said. "He’ll be a real good player here.”
Krebs was taken 10 picks after Cozens was in the 2019 NHL Draft, going 17th overall to the Golden Knights.
Dustin Tokarski was the only player that played well on Thursday, as Seattle dominated the Sabres. In the first 40 minutes, Buffalo wasn’t even in the same league as the expansion team, getting outshot 30-11, yet the score was 2-2.
With just two minutes left in the second period, the Sabres took a 2-1 lead, but it only took 26 seconds for Seattle to tie it.
Related
The Sabres struggled on this trip, going 1-3-0 against four mediocre teams. I find it amusing that most people commenting to me put a lot more stock in 1-3-0 than 5-1-1.
The Sabres stayed over in Seattle and will fly home on Friday. The Detroit Red Wings are already in Buffalo for Saturday’s game. The Red Wings have lost three games in a row and are 4-5-2 this season.
I don’t expect the Sabres to have a lot of legs under them getting back from their trip. It’s usually harder coming back east than it is going out west.
