NEW YORK — The speculation about Jack Eichel refuses to go away, or even quiet down for a while. The Buffalo Sabres captain has been the subject of trade rumors for months, and on his first visit to Madison Square Garden this season, Rangers fans made it known they want in.
Chants of "We want Eichel’’ broke out a few times throughout the game from the crowd of 1,800 Tuesday night, during the game in which the Rangers got off to a quick start and beat the Sabres, 3-2, to close out their three-game homestand. The Rangers (8-9-3) now go to Newark, N.J., for two games against the Devils, Thursday night and Saturday afternoon.
Pavel Buchnevich had a goal and an assist in the game’s first three minutes, and Chris Kreider potted his 10th of the season midway through the second for what turned out to be the game-winning goal. Igor Shesterkin, starting his first game since last Wednesday in Philadelphia, made 22 saves to earn the win after having lost five of his last six decisions. The 25-year-old Russian goalie took a shot to try and score an empty-net goal in the final seconds of the game, but the puck was intercepted by a Buffalo defender.
The Sabres (6-11-3) will stay downstate and play their next three games on Long Island against the Islanders on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday.
Speculation about Eichel has been hot ever since he told The Athletic in an interview last spring that he was "fed up with the losing’’ in Buffalo. The Rangers are one of the teams who have been linked to any and all trade discussions for the 24-year-old center, who played college hockey at Boston University under current Rangers coach David Quinn.
The L.A. Kings, Boston Bruins and Minnesota Wild are among the other teams mentioned in the hunt for Eichel, who had 351 points in 371 games entering Tuesday but has never played a playoff game since being drafted No. 2 overall behind Connor McDavid in 2015.
The Rangers, who have stockpiled a number of prospects in their system since they started their much-publicized rebuild three years ago, certainly would be able to offer a number of young prospects to the Sabres if Buffalo decided it did want to move on from its franchise player. And if the trade was to happen in the offseason, the Rangers also would be able to absorb Eichel’s $10 million cap hit into their payroll.
Eichel, who has been slowed by injuries this season, got an assist on Buffalo’s first goal, scored by Sam Reinhart at 55 seconds into the first period. But otherwise, he wasn’t much of a factor in the game for the Sabres, who are sitting in last place in the East Division. Reinhart’s goal did tie the score, 1-1, after Buchnevich opened the scoring on a breakaway 28 seconds into the game.
The Rangers then re-took the lead at 2:36 of the period, after Buchnevich stole a puck inside the Sabres’ zone and fired a shot that got by Buffalo goalie Carter Hutton and banked in off the leg of Alexis Lafreniere.
The game settled down after that, and the teams exchanged single goals in a less frantic second period. Kreider beat Hutton at 9:32 with a shot from above the left wing circle that seemed to surprise the goalie and went over the glove hand to give the Rangers a 3-1 lead.
But Tobias Rieder’s shot from the right point went through a maze of bodies and snuck inside the far post to pull the Sabres within 3-2 at 16:21.
