Free washer | The Jack Eichel exchange, 15 months later

Fortunately, the Vegas Golden Knights are having a good season.

Because their managing director, Kelly McCrimmon, and chairman George McPhee would no doubt hear more criticism for the acquisition of Jack Eichel, in November 2021.

There are concerns about Eichel’s performance in Vegas this week. The second overall pick in 2015 has just two points in his last ten games and is -8; streak in which the Golden Knights have only won two.

The Knights still occupy a rather comfortable position in the standings, after missing the playoffs last year. They are third in the Pacific Division, two points ahead of Edmonton, the first of two teams drafted with the Avalanche. The only threat of a playoff exclusion comes from Calgary, five points behind, with a game in hand.

The brilliant start of Eichel, 26, nevertheless allows him to show an acceptable record of 34 points in 38 games (for a player of his status).

Eichel is the third-highest scorer in Vegas, but he’s missed 13 games. The very underrated Chandler Stephenson leads the scorers with 44 points.

The only concern for Vegas at the time of the transaction was Eichel’s neck injury, but doctors’ reports reassured them as they closed the deal. This chapter on his state of health is closed. The concern is now linked to his performance in relation to his salary. Maybe he’s still bothered by his December injury.

Hopefully for Vegas, because acquiring it was expensive, in every sense of the word. Eichel receives 10 million this season. He will collect the same amount during the following three seasons. His salary occupies 12% of the team’s payroll.

Vegas sacrificed only one member of its regular roster at the time of the trade, but the trade could have long-term negative repercussions.

Alex Tuch, 26 like Eichel, was considered a third-line winger when he left, despite a promising 52-point-78-game season in his second full year in the National League.

Hailing from Syracuse, just over a two-hour drive from Buffalo, the 6-foot-4, 220-pound colossus has exploded with his new team. Luke’s brother, a 2020 CH second-round pick, has 55 points, including 24 goals, in 50 games so far, en route to producing 89 points, including 39 goals, on the first line with Tagus Thompson and Jeff Skinner.

The young Peyton Krebs is the second piece of the exchange. Drafted in the first round in 2019, two ranks after Cole Caufield, Krebs was still trying to break through the Vegas team during the trade. Krebs, 22, is still slow to establish himself as a top player. With 13 points in 41 games, he is relegated to the fourth line, behind centers Thompson, Dylan Cozens and Tyson Jost, claimed on waivers in November.

The Golden Knights also traded a 2022 first-round pick for Eichel. Buffalo drafted Noah Östlund at 16^e rank with this choice. Östlund, 18, was recovering from injury at the World Junior Championship but has 19 points in 27 games at Djurgardens this winter, including eight points in his last eight meetings.

It is two points more than Liam Öhgren, in three games less, and ten more than Jonathan Lekkerimaki, two other Swedes drafted among the top twenty last summer.

We obviously cannot speak of a failed trade for the Golden Knights, even if they have increased their payroll and mortgaged their future (the trade of Cody Glass, seven points in his last eight games as part of the first line in Nashville, for Nolan Patrick, was otherwise not brilliant).

But the Sabers can already claim victory. They chased a player identified with the team’s failures, excluded from the playoffs during Eichel’s first six years, and further at loggerheads with management.

Tuch, their second offensive scorer behind Tage Thompson, is costing them $4.75 million per season through 2026. Krebs still has time to develop and Östlund, a Canadian favorite heading into the draft, promises.

After another difficult season last year, the eleventh in a row, the Sabers are finally fighting for a playoff spot. With a record of 26-20-4, they are one point behind the Pittsburgh Penguins and the last place giving access to the playoffs, with one game less to play nevertheless.

If they were to speak again, Buffalo wouldn’t even offer Tuch to Vegas for Eichel.

Is Kotkaniemi launched?

Jesperi Kotkaniemi was a fiasco for the Canadian with the qualifying offer from the Hurricanes in September 2021 and his lack of productivity in Montreal, it must be admitted. Marc Bergevin used the compensatory choices offered by Carolina to plug a hole in the center with the acquisition of Christian Dvorak, then 25 years old (Montreal received the 27^e choice in 1^D round and the 92^e choice in 3^e round in 2022 and gave up pick 1^D round and a choice of 2^e round in 2024 for Dvorak).

Dvorak, of which it was the 27^e birthday on Thursday, is a third-line center at best. Montreal wouldn’t mind giving it up, but its value isn’t on the rise with 20 points in 51 games.

After offering him 6.1 million last year to snatch him from CH, the Hurricanes granted a long-term eight-year contract, for 4.8 million per season to Kotkaniemi. So far, this third overall choice by Montreal in 2018 has not given Carolina its money’s worth.

But after scoring just seven points in his first 32 games this season, the 22-year-old Kotkaniemi found the Hurricanes second-line center recently and had 13 points in his last 19 games, including four in as many games in a week.

He is obviously still light years away from having a status that could approach a Brady Tkachuk or a Quinn Hughes, drafted after him, but if he continues on this path, he will be able to convince that his acquisition, initiated by owner Tom Dundon, was a hockey decision and not revenge against the Canadian for his qualifying offer to Sebastian Aho in 2019.