I don't think Adams has really thought this one through. It's clear that they are not ready to assume the risk of his surgery, but that they want other teams to do so at full freight. Fine, ask for the moon then. But he's also tossed out the obvious deadlines to make this ask possible. First and foremost, the deadline of having him available to his new team for game 1 of the season. That deadline passed about a month ago. The second deadline was the draft since this is when teams had their fullest arsenal of assets. Yes, the assets still exist, but there is no way Mactavish is worth a 3rd overall to Buffalo right now. Quite possible they didn't have Coronado as high either, for example. Then the third deadline was yesterday when teams hadn't blown their wads.
With each of those 3 deadlines, Eichel is going down in value. Teams have drafted their guys, brought in new guys, spent their money and have less desire for a guy who needs a neck surgery and will miss a month or 2 of the season. Adams just chose the, hold out for your price no matter what route and it is going to burn him.
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