Buffalo Sabres: It is almost time to rename the Jack Eichel Trade

The Hockey News came up with an interesting take regarding the Buffalo Sabres involvement into acquiring Peyton Krebs and Alex Tuch. 

Ian Kennedy of The Hockey News was correct in a remarkable article about Buffalo Sabres center/winger Peyton Krebs. In the article, he implied a day could come where everyone referred to the November 2021 blockbuster as “The Peyton Krebs Trade.” 

And while that would be a great start, I’d like to elaborate on that and call it The Krebs-Tuch Trade, or something along those lines. Of course, the trade still warranted a first round draft pick this season that turned into Noah Ostlund, and a second round pick for 2023, giving the Sabres even more opportunity to stack their prospect pipeline.

Given the performance from Alex Tuch and Peyton Krebs for the Buffalo Sabres, it may be time to rethink the entire Jack Eichel Trade labeling.

Last season, Jack Eichel was supposed to be the missing link to a Vegas Golden Knights team that had made several deep playoff runs despite being in existence for five seasons. Instead, the Knights look as though they’ve regressed with Eichel.

Flip over to the Queen City, and Krebs was an unknown commodity. One of many reasons those all over the NHL universe believed the Knights won this trade. And Krebs’ statistics didn’t help matters, as he spent most of his time in the AHL while seeing just 13 games for Vegas. In those contests, he recorded one assist.

Then, Krebs had about just as good of a 48-game stretch with the Sabres that you could ask for, logging a 15.2 shooting percentage, 22 points, seven goals, and 15 assists. He made his mistakes and had dry stretches, but overall, he proved to be a dynamic puzzle piece for the future.

We also can’t forget about Alex Tuch, who had a decent but unspectacular outing during his time in Vegas. Upon returning to his hometown team, Tuch responded with 38 points in 50 games, logging a career-high 0.76 points per outing.

Tuch also found himself playing on the first and second line, but mainly on the first with Jeff Skinner and Tage Thompson, the Sabres two best scorers in 2021-22. They formed a lethal trio and one fans could get excited about for the first time in an age.

Given Krebs’ and Tuch’s success and Eichel’s struggles, perhaps the time has come to think about changing how we refer to this trade. If the Sabres continue to rise and the Knights keep heading south, especially if Eichel continues to struggle getting it together – his 0.74 points per game were his lowest since 2015-16 – then we definitely need to rename what we know as the Jack Eichel Trade.

Article Source: PEYTON KREBS IS THE SABRES’ SHINING KNIGHT by Ian Kennedy

(Statistics provided by Hockey-Reference)