Eichel sustained his injury during a collision with Bruins defenseman Matt Grzelcyk, his former teammate at Boston University. The forward had his right leg extended toward the end boards when he was hit by the defenseman, forcing him to fall awkwardly on his ankle.
"He felt bad about the incident," Eichel said. "You can't fault him. He's a very good friend of mine and somebody who plays the game hard. He's trying to make a play and we end up getting tangled up. You can't fault him for that."
This is the second high-ankle sprain of Eichel's career. He missed the first 21 games of last season after sustaining the same injury in his left ankle during the final practice of training camp. Eichel said he benefitted from that experience this time around, having the knowledge of what to expect in terms of recovery.
Eichel said he'll continue to look for ways to avoid similar injuries in the future. Last offseason, he implemented activities in his training regimen focused on strengthening his ankles.
"I think you look into everything," he said. "Your skates, edges, whatever you're doing. I think I'll do a lot of digging this summer on how to help myself. I think that most things are preventable. In that situation, it's unfortunate that it happened like that.
"… It's a freak accident so I'm just going to continue to do the best I can to be healthy as long as possible and be on the ice every time I can."
Despite missing the last 14 games since his injury, Eichel still leads the Sabres with 22 goals and 31 assists. He's four points shy of the career-high 57 points he scored in 61 games last season.
The Sabres had a particularly heavy practice on Tuesday, coming on the heels of back-to-back off days. The team will practice again on Wednesday, then begins a string of seven games in 12 days against Toronto on Thursday.
"It was a pretty good practice," Housley said. "There was a lot of pace to it. You could tell that he's been off for a while, but I think halfway to three quarters of the practice, I thought he looked pretty good. As the practice went on you could tell that he's been off for a long time."