Buffalo Sabres captain Jack Eichel didn't mince words when speaking about missing the playoffs for the fifth straight season since entering the league in 2015.

"Listen, I'm fed up with the losing and I'm frustrated. It's not an easy pill to swallow right now," Eichel said on a conference call Thursday, according to Postmedia's Michael Traikos. "It's been a tough past couple of months and a tough past five years."

After being selected second overall in the 2015 draft, Eichel quickly transitioned into an MVP-caliber player with the Sabres. In the 2019-20 season, he recorded 36 goals and 42 assists in 68 games.

Despite his individual success, the Sabres have failed to break free from the bottom of the league's standings. Since his rookie season, the team has finished in sixth place in the Atlantic Division twice, seventh once, and eighth twice.

The 23-year-old pointed to the newly developed 24-team playoff format as even more reason for his frustration. The Sabres narrowly missed the cut, sitting at 25th place.

"It adds to the frustration that you can't get to a 24-team playoff," Eichel said. "Our goal at the beginning of the season wasn't to make the 24-team playoff. It was to make a 16-team playoff."

He added: "In a situation like this, a lot of the teams that are going to continue to play. They probably thought they were going to be out of it. They’re going to gain valuable experience. Now we're not one of them. It adds to the frustration. It adds to it a lot."

Eichel has led his team in points over the past four seasons. He's recorded 137 goals and 200 assists in 354 career games.

Copyright © 2020 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

Boston Bruins captain Zdeno Chara understands that the 24-team playoff may not be 100% fair, but also recognizes there are bigger things to worry about than the postseason format.

"You can’t really blame anyone or feel that it’s unfair. For us, we have to be grateful for the opportunity we're getting," Chara said, per Sportsnet. "When you kind of look at the real-life perspective, what other people's families, businesses go through … Not everybody is getting the same chance, lots of people lost a lot of financial support, businesses went down and they will never get the same opportunities, so we have to be grateful for the opportunity."

The Bruins were in the driver's seat to win the Atlantic Division prior to the season's pause. At the time of the stoppage, they sat eight points ahead of the Tampa Bay Lightning with 12 games left on the schedule.

Under the new playoff format, the Bruins will need to partake in a three-game round robin to determine their seeding. Bruins president Cam Neely said Wednesday that he felt the format was "disappointing" for his team.

Chara added that while the situation to return to play isn't guaranteed, players will need to accept certain risks to compete for the Stanley Cup.

"There is going to be risk involved," Chara said, according to NBC Sports' Joe Haggerty. "We just have to manage what kind of risk we are willing to accept.”

Copyright © 2020 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

Rod Brind'Amour says the Carolina Hurricanes believe the 24-team playoff format the league announced Tuesday dismisses the success they achieved throughout the majority of the season.

"I think the bigger issue felt like, and especially our guys, was like 'what was the 68 games we played for?'" the head coach said Wednesday on the "ESPN on Ice" podcast.

"What did we grind for? The bulk of the season was completed, and they just threw that out, and I think that's how (the Hurricanes) felt," he added. "I think that's justifiable in a way."

The Hurricanes, who occupied the first Eastern Conference wild-card berth with 81 points through 68 games when the season was suspended March 12, were one of two teams - along with the Tampa Bay Lightning - to vote against the expanded playoff format.

"For where we were and where our team thought we could get to, it hurts our odds," said forward Jordan Martinook.

Under the arrangement, Carolina will meet the New York Rangers - who earned 79 points in 70 games and sat outside the traditional playoff field - in a best-of-five play-in series.

Brind'Amour thinks instead of a play-in, the league could have played out the remaining games normally to decide the postseason seeding for a typical 16-team format.

"Why not carry the points over that you have?" he said. "If we're playing in, I think the thought was if you're playing in, five, six, seven games, however, we could easily have all had the same amount of games, figured that out and that would have been your play-in, and take your points with you and see how you end up."

On the plus side for the Hurricanes, Brind'Amour says defensemen Dougie Hamilton and Sami Vatanen, who were injured when play was paused, will be back in the lineup. Blue-liner Brett Pesce is "more of a longshot" to return.

Copyright © 2020 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

Montreal Canadiens forward Jonathan Drouin will be back in the lineup for the club's play-in series against the Pittsburgh Penguins, general manager Marc Bergevin announced Wednesday.

Drouin was limited to only 27 games in 2019-20 after battling a series of injuries. The 25-year-old most recently played Feb. 25 and missed the Canadiens' final six contests with an ankle injury before the league suspended the season on March 12.

The 6-foot winger tallied seven goals and 15 points while averaging 15:42 of ice time this season.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announced the 24-team, two-city playoff format Tuesday.

The Canadiens, who were all but eliminated from postseason contention under the traditional format, own the 12th and final Eastern Conference playoff spot under the restructured conference-based seeding. Montreal will play the fifth-seeded Penguins in a best-of-five qualifying series with the winner advancing to the 16-team bracket.

Copyright © 2020 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas is excited for his club's opportunity to see its season through with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman officially announcing the league's 24-team playoff format Tuesday.

"I think we're certainly going to embrace it as a unique experience, but also as a tremendous opportunity for our team and for our group," Dubas said Wednesday in an interview with TSN.

Under the format, the Leafs are slated to take on the Columbus Blue Jackets in a best-of-five play-in series. After a wildly inconsistent 2019-20 campaign that comes on the heels of three straight first-round playoff exits, Dubas knows how important it is for his club to take the next step.

"I think we have a lot to prove. ... If we really want to take advantage of the talent and the potential that we have, it's a great opportunity now for us to individually during Phase 2 go about our own business and get into the best condition and fitness level we possibly can get into, and then for (head coach) Sheldon (Keefe) and our management group to have the team as ready as possible once we get into Phase 3," Dubas said.

Maple Leafs captain John Tavares, who was one of five player representatives on the NHL/NHLPA Return to Play Committee, says he's satisfied with the plan after some people expressed their concern about the integrity of awarding the Stanley Cup in a non-standard postseason after an abbreviated regular season.

"Any team that's got to win possibly five rounds and probably - obviously not for sure, but probably four rounds of best of seven ... I think considering what we're all going through and what it's going to take to get this done and be able to play ... it's going to be a very, very worthy and deserving Stanley Cup champion," Tavares said.

The Leafs will likely welcome forward Ilya Mikheyev - who's been out with a wrist injury since December - back into the lineup, along with defensemen Morgan Rielly and Jake Muzzin. Dubas also said Wednesday that prospect Nick Robertson will be included on the club's expanded 28-man roster.

Copyright © 2020 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

After they held an eight-point advantage atop the Eastern Conference standings at the time of the NHL's pause, the Boston Bruins may be a tad irked that the NHL's top seeds will play in a round-robin format in an eventual return to play.

"With what the team was able to accomplish in the first 70 games, to have three (round-robin) games dictate our playoff position is disappointing," Bruins president Cam Neely said Wednesday, per NBC Boston's Joe Haggerty.

The NHL announced its plans for a 24-team playoff on Tuesday. The format allows byes for the top four teams in each conference while seeds 5-12 battle in a best-of-five play-in tournament.

However, in order to avoid the league's best teams entering the playoffs cold, they'll play a small round-robin tournament first. Each team with a bye will play its conference's other top three teams once to determine seeding when the real playoffs begin. That means the Bruins could potentially drop from the No. 1 spot to No. 4 with a poor showing after the lengthy layoff.

The Tampa Bay Lightning, Washington Capitals, and Philadelphia Flyers are the teams Boston will need to overcome in order to stay in the top spot.

The Bruins finished the regular season with a 44-14-12 record, good for a league-leading 100 points.

Copyright © 2020 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

Find out the latest on COVID-19's impact on the sports world and when sports are returning by subscribing to Breaking News push notifications in the Sports and COVID-19 section.

Columbus Blue Jackets captain Nick Foligno had some strong words Wednesday about how the NHL's return-to-play plan needs to consider players' families.

"If somebody tells me I can't see my family, there's going to be a fight at some point," Foligno told Sportsnet's Luke Fox while discussing players being quarantined in hub cities.

Commissioner Gary Bettman confirmed Tuesday that the NHL plans to stage a 24-team playoff split between two hub cities. However, there are still plenty of logistics to sort out, such as timelines, specific locations, COVID-19 testing, and the self-isolation limitations for players, staff, and their families.

While Foligno shared his concern, he also stated he's ready to play under the proper parameters.

"There's a bigger thing going on in the world than hockey," Foligno said. "But if we have a chance to be able to play the game, then we owe it to our fans, to ourselves."

The Blue Jackets qualified for the play-in tournament as the Eastern Conference's ninth seed and are slated for a best-of-five clash with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Foligno, 32, posted 31 points in 67 games this past season. He's captained the club since 2015-16.

Copyright © 2020 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

Steve Yzerman says Jeff Blashill will remain head coach of the Detroit Red Wings.

"I have no plans of making a coaching change at this time," the Red Wings general manager told reporters Wednesday, according to WXYZ's Brad Galli.

He added, "I think Jeff has done a good job. The Red Wings are in a rebuild."

Yzerman wouldn't say whether the club picked up Blashill's option for next season, but made it clear he wants the bench boss to stick around for now.

"Jeff's gonna be the head coach of the team and we're gonna do everything we can to make sure he's the head coach of the team," the GM said.

Yzerman emphasized that the Red Wings' primary problem is roster construction as opposed to who's behind the bench.

"Quite frankly, we need to improve the team for anybody to truly critique or assess the coaching staff," the GM said, according to The Athletic's Max Bultman. "We need to improve the team."

This past season was Blashill's fifth with Detroit. The Red Wings made a first-round playoff exit during his first season in 2016, but they've been among the NHL's worst clubs since then, missing the postseason in all four subsequent years while ranking near the basement of the league standings.

The team was by far the NHL's worst in 2019-20, going 17-49-5 with a minus-122 goal differential - 70 goals worse than the 30th-ranked Ottawa Senators.

Detroit named Yzerman GM in April 2019. He returned to the franchise with which he starred as a player and replaced Ken Holland, who left the Red Wings and ultimately assumed the same role with the Edmonton Oilers.

Copyright © 2020 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.