Quote:
Originally Posted by TOfan
Wouldn’t lose a dime, how so?
If Eichel went ahead and got the surgery he wanted, I would imagine that puts him in breach of contract. So what are the implications of that? Is it just his contract is terminated? Would the Sabres still own his rights? I would assume Eichel and his legal counsel/agent probably discussed these scenarios long ago, wouldn’t you? Or is this new territory that they have never contemplated?
Then there’s the $50M Eichel is owed. That’s a guaranteed $50M whether it is paid by the Sabres, an insurer, or another NHL team. Saying Eichel should ‘bet on himself’ and walk away from that contract and simply become a UFA seems pretty naive to me. Who in their right mind would walk away from $50M? Unless the Eichel family has a hundreds of millions or billions dollars, he probably intends to see every penny of that $50M. If he were to somehow escape his contract, I doubt he ever gets back to whole. He would have to rebound in a pretty convincing way to see another deal with a $10M/year salary. It might not be totally unrealistic, but if I’m Eichel, that’s not a bet I’m willing to take.
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If Eichel went and got the surgery without the Sabres consent he would have a breach of contract situation. Now if everything worked out with the surgury the team would keep him and they would either reconcile or the Sabres would trade him. Sabres are not going to release him if everything works out fine.
However, if the surgury does not go well or there are complications in recovery than the Sabres could determine then to terminate his contract if it looks like he will not play ever again.
Bigger picture is insurance. If he goes against the team he will not get any money while he is having the surgury or during recovery. If his three months become six months (or 9-24 months) in that recovery period he is not going to get paid. As well even if it does work out and in two or three years he has another issue with his neck and it can be traced back to the replacement disk the insurance companies will not pay him for any lost or down time and whatever team he is on would not have to pay him and could also walk away from his contract at that time.
Very big financial risk both now and in the future for Eichel to goes his own way.