The Buffalo Sabres made it official: they signed Jack Eichel to an eight-year, $80 million extension right before the opening of the 2017-18 season.
Note that Eichel still needs to burn the final year of his entry-level contract, so that $10M cap hit kicks in starting in 2018-19.
Rejoice, Sabres fans. You won’t need to spend more time in suspense regarding the future of this franchise’s most important player.
🚨 We've agreed to terms with @Jack_Eichel11 on an 8-year extension with an AAV of $10 million. pic.twitter.com/9L8hLcVFzP
— Buffalo Sabres (@BuffaloSabres) October 3, 2017
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Hockey Twitter was abuzz after NBC Sports’ Kathryn Tappen stated that the Buffalo Sabres are about to announce a long-term deal with Jack Eichel, with a wide variety of reporters quickly backing Tappen up. As updates have shown, that tweet turned out to be correct.
Here’s the Tappen tweet of note:
The @BuffaloSabres are about to announce a long term deal with Jack Eichel! How exciting for the future of this franchise! 🙌🏻🎉
— Kathryn Tappen (@KathrynTappen) October 3, 2017
Eichel, 20, is about to enter the final year of his entry-level contract, so that extension wouldn’t begin until 2018-19. Cap Friendly projects Buffalo’s 2018-19 cap spending to about $46.56M as of this moment, so Eichel would bump them to somewhere in the area of $56-58 million.
It’s easy to see this price tag for Eichel and wince, yet there’s a strong chance he’s worth it, from both and on-ice and PR standpoints. The Sabres might also note cases like those of Leon Draisaitl, imagining that waiting could cost them even more money.
In other words, no perfect comparable. The bar goes up on second contracts for star players. https://t.co/Pq8ucG1oTa
— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) October 3, 2017