Where Those Calgary Flames Rumors Even True For Jack Eichel?

When Gerald Ford became President after the Watergate scandal he told the nation “Our long national nightmare is over”. Following Thursday’s trade of Jack Eichel to the Vegas Golden Knights that same quote applies to Buffalo Sabres fans. Eichel was supposed to be the franchises savior after the team “tanked for McEichel” during the 2014-2015 season. Instead, he ended up being the team’s latest headache.

With Eichel’s value dropping by the day Buffalo knew they would be lucky to get pennies on the dollar for the star center. Vegas sent over a considerable package including Alex Tuch, Peyton Krebs, and a lottery-protected first-rounder in 2022 and a third-round pick in 2023. Then again if Vegas is a lottery team with their roster and their latest acquisition, something went terribly wrong.

Just a day before another package was rumored to have been offered to Buffalo by the Calgary Flames. The Flames were willing to send Mathew Tkachuk, a “former first-rounder”, a first-round pick, and two other prospects. While that trade sounds like a wild speculation, it had enough credibility to be reported by Kevin Weekes of the NHL Network via Twitter.

Jack Eichel has been traded to the Vegas Golden Knights’. It seemed like he was going to the Calgary Flames for an impressive trade package just a day before.

Calgary’s deal was lightyears better than Vegas’, so why did Buffalo opt to send Eichel to Vegas for less? Eichel’s no-movement clause doesn’t kick in until next season so it’s not as if he chose Vegas over Calgary and forced Buffalo to accept their deal. Vegas is taking on Eichel’s complete salary and maybe any potential deal with Calgary included buffalo retaining his salary. Then again with Eichel on the long-term IR the cap implications of his contract won’t be a problem for a few months.

Fans can’t be blamed for believing the news. This didn’t come from some Twitter account “Hockey Insiderrrrrrr15687524559” that had 15 followers. It came from a credible source with a good track record in Kevin Weekes. This also happened at the same time NHL Network was reporting a trade between Buffalo and Calgary was “on the one-yard line” and seemingly imminent.

So why didn’t Buffalo take Calgary’s deal? Maybe the Calgary deal was nonexistent to begin with. Maybe in the rush to report the news at what has been hockey’s biggest and slowest to develop story some “fake news” got caught up in the mix. Maybe it was just a rumor that no one bothered to look into because we have all been on the edge so long waiting for Eichel news no one had the patience and jumped at the first bit of seemingly credible news they got.

Of course, there’s always the possibility buffalo turned down Calgary’s offer in a trade blunder that would make Peter Chiarelli proud. Not only would turning down such a great trade be a fireable offense, but it would also be a “get out of the business of hockey as quick as you can” offense, and buffalo’s front office can’t be that stupid. Here’s another former presidential quote, this time from JFK that pertains to NHL trade rumors, “trust, but verify”.