Lehner: "The sh*t they did up there to some of the players"

PUBLICATION

T. Tadi
August 10, 2021 (2:42 PM)

SHARE THIS STORY

Regarding Jack Eichel's desire to leave Buffalo, the team and Eichel disagreed on neck surgery. Doctors in Buffalo recommend disc fusion, while Eichel wants disc replacement surgery. It's unclear if this is a common occurrence in the NHL. However, one former Sabre has a storey about not liking the way he was treated.

Buffalo acquired Ottawa Senators goaltender Robin Lehner in June 2015. In his first game with his new team, Lehner suffered a high ankle sprain in the second period. Lehner said he tore everything in his foot on the Cam & Strick Podcast Tuesday, but the Sabres medical team had him back on an exercise bike in a special boot in a week.

"The shit they did up there to some of the players when I was there, and especially to me regarding my ankle, it was crazy, man," said Lehner. "I had a high ankle sprain. They had me on the bike one week after," said Lehner."

"I should have been walking on it maybe six-to-eight weeks after I got it," he continued. "They had me doing leg presses with like 300 pounds three weeks into in. And I re-sprained everything and ended up having to have surgery."

Asked if he told the team he didn't think what was happening was right, Lehner referred to what Eichel said recently about the kind of surgery he wanted. The final decision rests with the team. Lehner explained that he was younger than and assumed the professionals he was working with knew what they were doing. Lehner also stated that Buffalo had hired 12 or 13 new medical staff that season who had "never been around hockey."

"They took them in from all over the world and they had never seen a puck in their life," said Lehner.

This is certainly not the kind of reputation the Sabres, or the NHL in general, wants to get. The Eichel situation has been made public by Eichel himself. It makes you wonder how much this kind of thing happens and you never hear about it.

Source: Cam & Strick podcast