Month: May 2021

Another Turn in the Jack Eichel/Sabres’ Saga

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Credit: Timothy T. Ludwig-USA TODAY Sports

Last February, I talked about Jack Eichel needing to be saved from his loyalty to the Buffalo Sabres. Given his exit interview from the 2020-21 season, he may be willing his way out of Buffalo. The long and short of it, if you didn’t see it all over the place Monday, the Sabres didn’t like the opinion of an outside doctor about Jack Eichel needing surgery on his neck and didn’t sign off on his procedure.

Just a reminder, June 30th, 2022 is the last day that Eichel doesn’t have a modifier on his contract for teams that may want to try and sway Kevyn Adams into a deal.

Even with the grudges and Eichel stating that he’s looking at next season “wherever that may be,” you can’t think he will be traded unless something really drastic occurs. I would say it’s hard for me to think that the Sabres would really trade their captain and one of their homegrown guys– but it’s the Sabres were talking about. They haven’t shown a track record of making the wise decision when it comes to the product they put on the ice and how they portray the team off of it.

Though they came around when it came to their on-ice performance after the firing of Ralph Krueger, it didn’t make up for the trials and tribulations they had to endure at the start of the season. Maybe Don Granato is the guy that, given a full season, could be the thing that turned Eichel around when it comes to the Sabres actually improving. But, again, when you have your captain upset with the way his health was handled after he seems overly frustrated with how they haven’t seen the playoffs since he’s been with the team– loyalty can only go so far when something like this happens.

Unfortunately, the Seattle Kraken have no assets to give back to the Sabres or else they’d be able to pull off a huge coup in trading for the Buffalo captain and making him their first player in franchise history. But that’s not likely the case. Plus, a $10M cap hit for the next five years in a flat-cap era doesn’t leave many contenders on the board that would make sense in actually picking up Eichel. Of course, if the the right offer comes along for the Sabres and they are better off in the future from the deal– they’ve got until next June to wheel that deal before Eichel has some say in where he wants to be moved, should that time come.

It’s getting worse before it’s getting better. That sucks for Sabres fans, who are beyond loyal regardless of how they are seemingly treated by the organization they love. If they were to trade Eichel, that could be the last straw for the fans who have held on for dear life to this team, despite their faults from the past.

An Open Letter to Turner Sports

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To the Executives of Turner Sports,

Hey there– I’m Scott Wasilewski, AKA Scotty Wazz. Over the last 19.5 years, I’ve been podcasting about hockey on Face Off Hockey Show. Much more than hockey, it’s a show about life with three hosts who’ve grown up together in life and in the broadcasting world.

Look, I could spout off numbers about how we’re in the top-20 all-time of hockey podcasts on Apple Podcasts or all the events we’ve been a part of whether it be with the NHL, AHL, ECHL, WHL, NAHL, or IIHF. I could tell you I’ve personally have written for FHM Magazine or had articles published on Yahoo!’s Puck Daddy blog in its heyday. But honestly, what does that do other than being self-serving and egotistical.

Let’s get down to brass tacks– we need each other.

You might not know it, but there’s a lot of recycled voices out there in hockey. If it’s not recycled, there’s a lot of parrots out there in the hockey community. Face Off Hockey Show doesn’t have that….okay, we might recycle jokes to death, but that’s a different meeting for a different time. The point is that our outside-the-box points-of-view is something we use to differentiate ourselves from the rest of the other voices out there in the loud landscape. On top of that, our crew all were born in Maryland– an nontraditional hockey market. Turner Sports is, to some, an nontraditional hockey broadcast partner.

With your company starting fresh in the NHL broadcasting landscape, what better way to do it than with some fresh voices on the network?? Not only that, but you look at the chemistry of Ernie, Kenny, Chuck, and Shaq on your NBA property– I’m not saying we’d be that by any means– but we could bring that energy, analyst, and light-hearted banter that people can relate to.

There’s a unique opportunity, TS– can I call you TS?? No?? Okay, Turner Sports overlords. This is a chance to give a different look to normally mundane hockey broadcasts or presentation of the game above the dull, robotic, run-of-the-mill stuff we already get from the game. Plus, it’s a big chance to revamp what the broadcast could look and sound like with this new seven year deal.

ABBA said it best when they said, “You can dance, you can jive…”

Wait…no, that’s not it. Whatever the lyrics from “Take a Chance On Me” that would be poignant in this situation– that’s what I’m going for here.

The point is this– we’ve been at this for a while now. We have the credentials to show for it. All we need now is the backing to prove to the masses what we’ve proved to our loyal listeners/watchers/readers for decades now. Fresh faces, fresh network, fresh presentations. And maybe this is a time for a fan-centric angle to be at the table of some of these broadcasts and be a different voice in the room.

Feel free to slide into my DMs to chat some more.

Take care of yourself and someone else: Scotty Wazz

PS: My co-host Jon Pitonzo and I are big AEW fans as well, so– if that helps any….