Robin Lehner roasts Sabres' medical staff, empathizes with Jack Eichel

One of the main reasons why star forward Jack Eichel is looking to get out of Buffalo — other than the Sabres not even sniffing the postseason in his six-year NHL career — is a current disagreement about treatment for his neck injury.

The team suggests rehab and rest, while Eichel wants a more modern solution of a disk replacement surgery that has been done on other professional athletes, but not in the NHL.

With the pressure on last year’s 31st-place club and its medical team, former Sabres netminder and current Vegas Golden Knights starter Robin Lehner recently reflected on his health troubles during his 2015-16 season in Buffalo, in which he missed more than three months.

“I had a high ankle sprain, I tear everything in my foot and go through that and there was a bunch of problems,” Lehner told former NHLer Cam Janssen and reporter Andy Strickland on their podcast. “They hired like 12, 13 new people on that team that year that never played, never been around hockey. The medical guys and (physiotherapists) and all that stuff. They took them in from all over the world and none of them had ever seen a puck in their life and I ended up getting a lot worse and ended up getting surgery at the end of that season because they just kept screwing it up.”

Lehner’s experience is eerily similar to Eichel’s recent complaints about how the Sabres have insisted on other treatments that have left the beginning of his 2021-22 season in jeopardy.

“It’s another medical problem there, too,” Lehner said. “I mean the s*** they did to some of the players when I was there – and especially to me regarding my ankle – I mean it was crazy, man. I had a high ankle sprain. They had me on the bike one week after. One week after I had my fully torn everything, worst-grade ankle sprain, one week after they put me on the bike in a special boot.

"I should’ve been walking on it maybe six to eight weeks after (surgery). They had me doing leg presses with 300 pounds three weeks into (rehab) and I re-sprained everything and I had to have surgery.”

It’s not surprising that a club that is now on its fourth general manager in a decade has had problems throughout the whole organization, specifically staff members.

Lehner luckily escaped the hellish clutches of the Sabres organization, signing with the New York Islanders as a free agent in 2018, where he completely rejuvenated his career as a top-tier goaltender. And after a stint with the Chicago Blackhawks and now in Vegas, he hasn’t posted a save percentage lower than .913 since leaving Buffalo.

Meanwhile, the Eichel trade rumors still endlessly swirl and it’s tough to imagine him wearing the Sabre on his chest during Buffalo’s season-opener against the Montreal Canadiens on Oct. 14.

“If there’s a deal out there that we feel is the right thing for the Buffalo Sabres, that we feel will help us improve ... we’d be open to it,” Sabres GM Kevyn Adams said in July. “We’re not in a position where we feel that we’re just going to do something to do it. That doesn’t make any sense.”

There’s no rush, but there kind of is, and Lehner’s comments only add another veiled layer of pressure to get this right.

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