Jack Eichel directly contradicts his head coach.

You would be hard pressed to find anything positive to say about the current state of the Buffalo Sabres, even if you were inclined to do so, and it is starting to feel like even the players and coaches on the team itself are struggling to find the words to describe what they are currently experiencing.

The team appears to be completely dysfunctional from top to bottom and over the weekend we got yet another example of that dysfunction when superstar forward Jack Eichel appeared to directly contradict his head coach. Fans of course have questioned how much influence Eichel wields over  the team during his relatively short career in the National Hockey League thus far, but from what I can tell this one seems to fall at the feet of head coach Ralph Krueger.

The controversy stems from Thursday's game between the Sabres and the New Jersey Devils, one that it appeared Eichel would play in. The star forward suited up for the pregame warmup, but he was pulled from the lineup after Kruger said he suffered a minor injury during that warmup. That is all well and good except for the fact that when Eichel was asked how he injured himself, he revealed that his coach was either lying or profoundly misinformed about the injuries to his best player.

"I didn’t," said Eichel when asked how he had been injured during warmup. "I hurt myself in New Jersey (on Tuesday)."

As you would expect this left Kruger with egg on his face and arguably made him look like an incompetent coach. Based on just how many calls there were for him to be fired following this revelation I think it is safe to suggest that whatever faith or good will fans in Buffalo had for Krueger has now completely evaporated.

Krueger's explanation when asked about the screw up did not inspire confidence either.

"When I mentioned the specific region that actually took him out of the game... the first time I heard about it was warmup," said Kruger before adding this gem. "That he was injured and that he came out of the Jersey game injured was clear to me, but it turns out that there was multiple lower body injuries and... uh... whatever."

I know it sounds absurd, but you can hear it in his own words right here.