Eichel: “I told Buffalo that if they'd let me get the surgery that I'd come back and play there.”

Newly acquired Vegas Golden Knights forward Jack Eichel was on the Spittin' Chiclets podcast with former NHLers Ryan Whitney and Paul "BizNasty" Bissonnette today where he talked about exactly what went down between him and the Buffalo Sabres that necessitated a trade out town.

Eichel, of course, requested a trade after it was clear that Buffalo's medical staff would not allow him to the have neck disc replacement surgery that he was seeking. Instead, Sabres management was insistent that Eichel receive a more traditional disc fusion surgery, which Eichel says he was adamantly against.

While we don't need to get into the weeds too much on this differences between these two surgeries, it's worth noting that Eichel will be the first NHLer to undergo this procedure, but it has been proven successful with other athletes in the NFL and the UFC. For Eichel and his medical team, the idea of having any procedure other than disc replacement surgery was a non-starter and the team's insistence that he get disc fusion surgery is ultimately what lead to last week's blockbuster trade.

What's interesting to note though is that Eichel was fully prepared to stick things out with the Sabres had then allowed him to get his preferred surgery.

Here's what Eichel had to say on the podcast earlier today:

"I hope that the fans in Buffalo they understand I was adamant about getting the surgery before anything else. And, you can talk about some of the things that have happened in the past... I wanted to get healthy and I wanted to play hockey. So I said to them, 'If you want to move me, that's fine. If you don't, okay but I just want to get the surgery and move on. If you allow me to get the surgery I'll come back and play in Buffalo and prove to people that I'm healthy.' They stood their ground and they still weren't comfortable enough with allowing me to get the surgery and here we are... Vegas is obviously more comfortable with it than the Buffalo organization."

- Jack Eichel

Either the Sabres were so afraid of Eichel getting that surgery that they felt he had to be traded or the relationship had become so fractured that they felt it was time to move on anyways. It could have been a case of the old 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' scenario from the team's perspective.

In any case, it appears that both parties have gotten what they wanted out of this scenario... everyone, of course, except long suffering Sabres fans.