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BUFFALO, NY – The Buffalo Sabers will be without captain Jack Eichel for what coach Ralph Krueger has called “the foreseeable future” as he gave a team another heavy blow in the middle of a nine-game skid.
The injury is not considered an end of the season, although Krueger on Saturday was unable to provide a fixed schedule on how much time Eichel will miss.
“An injury of this nature takes more evaluation and more time to understand,” he said. “We just know that it will take time to move from shorter to what you have already mentioned [season-ending], but it’s somewhere in between. “
The update came after Eichel visited a specialist in the past two days to further determine the severity of the injury. Under the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol rules, Eichel is required to spend seven days in quarantine following the trip, which means he will miss at least Buffalo’s next four games.
He’s already missed two games since being recorded in the end tables by Casey Cizikas in the dying minutes of a 5-2 loss to the New York Islanders on Sunday. Eichel walked over to the bench, where he was seen wincing in pain as he flexed his neck.
The Sabers, who host the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday night, are in free fall. Buffalo (6-15-4) sits last in the league for wins and on a 0-7-2 slippage, already putting the team at risk of extending their playoff drought in a 10th game season record in the NHL.
Eichel’s latest injury is separate from the previous two which have severely hampered his production this season.
He missed the first week of training camp after sustaining an upper body injury during pre-camp ice training at the Sabers’ training center. A person with first-hand knowledge of what happened told The Associated Press on Saturday that Eichel suffered a rib injury during a training session with Matt Ellis, director of player development for the team. team.
Eichel also missed two games last month with a lower body injury.
A year after scoring a career-high 36 goals in 68 games, the five-time scorer of over 20 goals has been limited to two goals and 16 assists in 21 games this year. He hadn’t scored in 13 games before being injured.
Eichel’s scoring issues mirror those of the Sabers, who rank 30th in the 31-team league with an average of 2.24 goals per game, and are the latest to score 34 times in five-on-five situations. .
His prolonged absence represents the latest setback for a team that swung from crisis to crisis in the first two months of the season, and led to questions about Krueger’s job security two years after starting from his work.
Buffalo’s schedule was put on hiatus for two weeks after a COVID-19 outbreak hit the team in early February, in which seven players and Krueger were affected. The break has led the Sabers to face a tight schedule in which they are tight in their last 46 games over 83 days.
Injuries have become a problem.
Starting goaltender Linus Ullmark is still weeks away from recovering from a lower body injury last month. And the Sabers are also missing two key defensemen, including Jake McCabe, who suffered a knee injury that ended the season last month.
Rookie center Dylan Cozens is the latest to be sidelined. Krueger has said Cozens will not be playing on Saturday and is listed day to day with an upper body injury.
Cozens was injured when he crashed onto the boards following a mid-score check by Pittsburgh’s Zach Anton-Reese early in the third period in a 5-2 loss to the Penguins on Thursday. Cozens had just let go of the puck and seemed to hit his head as he hit the boards.
Cozens had three goals and two assists in 20 games and was elevated to Buffalo’s front row player in place of Eichel.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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