As per NHL insider Elliotte Friedman on Friday: “A development in the Jack Eichel situation: hearing he is now going to be represented by Pat Brisson.” There’s a lot of reasons this change may have taken place but the consensus seems to be that Eichel wasn’t happy with his relationship with Peter Fish and figures a change could help move things forward as far as a trade out of Buffalo goes.
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Eichel had previously been represented by Fish and Peter Donatelli of Global Hockey Consultants and will now be moving over to Pat Brisson of CAA Sports. It shouldn’t really come as a surprise that the move was made as the Eichel situation has dragged on all summer and there doesn’t seem to be any positive developments when it comes to him either getting surgery, rejoining the Sabres roster or being traded.
Perhaps the straw that broke the camel’s back was when Eichel set up his own Twitter only to have Fish say it wasn’t actually Eichel. It was, and it was clear there was a real disconnect between the player and the agent. Not long before that, Fish blasted the Sabres publicly for how long it was taking to facilitate a trade and that made other references to poor decisions by the organization that likely didn’t aid in Eichel’s ultimate end goal of being traded.
Eichel is currently injured and the belief by both sides (the Sabres and the player) is that he needs surgery. The problem is that neither agrees with the other on what type of surgery would be best. This change in agents doesn’t necessarily mean there’s been any developments between Eichel and the team, but the timing is interesting.
What’s also interesting is that Brisson doesn’t benefit from the current contract Eichel is signed to. He represents big names like Sidney Crosby, John Tavares, Jonathan Toews, Nathan MacKinnon, and Patrick Kane but because Eichel won’t be signing a new deal for some time, this is a move that either a) was done simply to help the player b) to pad Brisson and the agencies resume and stable of NHL players c) includes revenues for future endorsements or contracts.
Does This Suggest Any Possible Trade Destinations?
With the news, connections are being made to who Brisson is friends with, also represents and might have close ties to. The idea is that there might be a link between the agent and a GM of another team to which a trade could be expedited.
Some are joking that Brisson also represents Brodzinski and Gauthier, so Eichel to the New York Rangers is an option, while others are saying that Brisson is good friends with Marc Bergevin so everyone should watch for a trade to Montreal.
While agents might steer their clients towards considering a certain team, at the end of the day, the job of an agent is to help his/her player in the way that best benefits the player.
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