Robin Lehner talks about his own medical issues with Sabres while discussing Jack Eichel
One of the most intriguing details in the ongoing saga of Jack Eichel wanting out of Buffalo is a disagreement with the team over neck surgery. Eichel wants to have disc replacement surgery, while Buffalo's doctors are recommending disc fusion. If these types of disagreements are common in the NHL, it's not really public knowledge. However, one former Sabre has his own story of not agreeing with the treatment he was getting while on the team.
In June of 2015, Buffalo acquired goaltender Robin Lehner from the Ottawa Senators. In his very first game with his new team, Lehner went down in the second period with what turned out to be a high ankle sprain. While appearing on the Cam & Strick Podcast Tuesday, Lehner said he basically tore everything in his foot, yet the Sabres medical team had him back on an exercise bike in a special boot within 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
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YESTERDAY
JUNE 6, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Mitch Marner | 3 | 1 | 4 | |
| Tomas Hertl | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Jordan Staal | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Shea Theodore | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Sebastian Aho | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Brayden McNabb | - | 2 | 2 | |
| Taylor Hall | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jordan Martinook | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Andrei Svechnikov | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jackson Blake | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jack Eichel | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Brett Howden | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Seth Jarvis | - | 1 | 1 | |
| William Karlsson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Eric Robinson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jaccob Slavin | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Logan Stankoven | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Frederik Andersen | - | - | - | |
| Rasmus Andersson | - | - | - | |
| Ivan Barbashev | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||