Jack Eichel is quietly becoming a top-5 player in the league
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Sabresruletheschool
Registered User
- Jul 16, 2012
- 4,670
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The thing with Eichel is it's not just his goal scoring that makes him special. He'll have the puck against the boards with two guys on him and he'll make a perfect pass to a guy across the ice like a Getzlaf. He's so strong, it's almost impossible to knock him off the puck like Lindros or Malkin. Then he can turn it up and burn you with blazing speed like Stamkos. Now he added playing some great defence to his repertoire. I've had doubts about how far his game would go in the past and his captaincy, but he is proving that possibly the best two players in the NHL were drafted in the same draft.
Remember before the season when a certain fanbase came to the conclusion that Marner would go ahead of Eichel in a re-draft? Going back and re-reading those threads is painful. Eichel is incredible
DrRad
Registered User
- Sep 30, 2017
- 87
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Nothing against you, but these types of comments are just unnecessary in general. It's just a never ending cycle with players. When one player starts playing better than another that they've been compared to, it's just "oh, what happened to x being better".
I bet most people would have agreed Mathews was better a year or 2 ago. Things happen, players start to reach their potential, some just start playing better.
Just let players ride out their careers.
lauraP
Registered User
- Aug 4, 2019
- 1,249
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then they try and brush it off as 1 or 2 super homer fans saying that even though there was a lot of those fans claiming marner > Eichel
jc17
Registered User
- Jun 14, 2013
- 11,701
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Yeah, it just increases the stupid back and forth stuff. When Eichel has a bad game/week or something we'll have to hear about it from fans that are annoyed they're getting eichel stuff shoved in their faces now.
I see you have the bills logo in your avatar. Its like when Josh Allen hits a nice throw and everyone does the whole "I thought he wasn't accurate" bit. Then of course when he misses a throw, people see it as proving his inaccuracy. Its just tiring
Eichel is and has been awesome. Epic heaters and down swings are poor times to evaluate players.
Sort of similar to how Matthews can sniff out a play.
MayDay
Registered User
Sure.
My only complaint is when that consensus forms that “most people agree that” young Player A is better than Player B solely because Player A plays in a much larger media market and gets 50x more media exposure, and “most people” haven’t actually watched Player B play, and rely only on a few highlights and glances at stats to form their opinion.
That sort of thing can be a little irritating.
Helistin
Registered User
- Aug 12, 2006
- 4,256
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Tell me about it. Almost two thousand years has passed and we still hear about it.
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Panthaz89
Buffalo Sabres, Carolina Panthers fan
He has been dominant offensively for a long time now just didnt have the amazing production only had great production before. Also he was held back and delayed by injuries he was hot last year too but slowed up after missing a few games and took a bit to recover.
Yeah I get that. But the problem I have is this. To be top 5, you need to have carried a team for a couple years and have some form of playoff pedigree. Eichel has none of those things. Overrated if you have him top 5.
Beukeboom
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- Apr 1, 2007
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So how come you have Draisatil at number five? He has none of those things? And you rank Matthews top ten, who hasn't even had a full length season since his rookie year, and certainly doesn't have any kind of play off pedigree, other than failing to succeed with a stacked team.
Eichel has literally carried Buffalo pretty much alone. He doesn't have a Tavares and Marner in the PP. And what play off pedigree does McDavid have?
Beerz
Registered User
- Jun 28, 2011
- 37,611
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Jack has carried his team since arriving in the league.
And where are these rules written down that you have to have a playoff pedigree?
Hell...the best player in the league doesn't have a playoff pedigree.
Deep thoughts my ass.
explore
I was wrong about Don Granato and TNT
- Jun 28, 2011
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MayDay
Registered User
Yeah, by this logic McDavid isn’t a top five player in the league. Which is obviously absurd.
Unless you consider one short playoff appearance to be a “playoff pedigree.”
- Feb 3, 2015
- 4,885
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In this same vein, for how prolific Jack Attacks posting is he must be in the lead for least amount of his posts actually being read. I’m a buffalo fan and I just skip everyone of his posts.
GOALOFSSON
Game Changer
I'm a huge Eichel fan and I can't read them.
67Leafs67
Registered User
- Nov 8, 2014
- 775
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Has he suddenly become a top five player in the league, or is he just a good player on a hot streak? Not arguing that Eichel is indeed a great player, but I don't think these 34 games change my opinion I've built of him over the last few seasons all that much.
Yeah, he's on pace for a career high 55 goals, a total that would smash his previous record of 28 with ease. But he's also shooting at 18.7% this year, which is 8% higher than his career average of 10.7%. For context, if he'd been shooting at his career average pace of 10.7%, he would have 13 goals this year, for a total of 13-25-38 across 34 games, basically the same rate he produced at last season. It's not like Eichel (or other players for that matter), haven't gone on streaks like this before. Just last season, Eichel had a 31 game stretch early in the season where he produced 12 goals and 33 assists for 45 points. Predictably, the jets cooled off a bit, he had a few less productive patches, and finished with a still great, but not top-five player total of 82 points in 78 games.
Eichel currently has 23 goals on 11.89 expected goals, meaning he's nearly doubled his expected output. Now that can be partially attributed to his shooting talent, but generally, you don't sustain that kind of production. In addition, his most frequent linemates, Sam Reinhart & Victor Olofsson, are outscoring expectations by 5.91 and 4.40 goals respectively, which is probably bolstering his assist totals.
I just don't see this stretch of play from Eichel as indicative of a leap into the top-five of the league, as much as a great #1C who is on a heater, in a league subject to lots of random variance, and dare I say, luck, in small sample sizes, on both team & individual levels.
Yeah, he's on pace for a career high 55 goals, a total that would smash his previous record of 28 with ease. But he's also shooting at 18.7% this year, which is 8% higher than his career average of 10.7%. For context, if he'd been shooting at his career average pace of 10.7%, he would have 13 goals this year, for a total of 13-25-38 across 34 games, basically the same rate he produced at last season. It's not like Eichel (or other players for that matter), haven't gone on streaks like this before. Just last season, Eichel had a 31 game stretch early in the season where he produced 12 goals and 33 assists for 45 points. Predictably, the jets cooled off a bit, he had a few less productive patches, and finished with a still great, but not top-five player total of 82 points in 78 games.
Eichel currently has 23 goals on 11.89 expected goals, meaning he's nearly doubled his expected output. Now that can be partially attributed to his shooting talent, but generally, you don't sustain that kind of production. In addition, his most frequent linemates, Sam Reinhart & Victor Olofsson, are outscoring expectations by 5.91 and 4.40 goals respectively, which is probably bolstering his assist totals.
I just don't see this stretch of play from Eichel as indicative of a leap into the top-five of the league, as much as a great #1C who is on a heater, in a league subject to lots of random variance, and dare I say, luck, in small sample sizes, on both team & individual levels.
Snippit
Registered User
- Dec 5, 2012
- 16,687
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Don't expect Eichel's shot to normalize to his career percentages. He worked on his shot over the summer it appears and he's become elite in that regard. I wouldn't be surprised if his shooting percentage going forward stays above 13-14 percent.
Yes, he probably won't finish with 55 goals and 116 points.
But also note that a lot of the other top guys also have high shooting percentages: McDavid, Pastrnak, Draisaitl, Panarin, Marchand to name a few (all 18-20%)
There is no question that he has been a top 5 player so far this year.
sure it's a breakout of an excellent player into an elite one but it's not like he was chopped liver before this season only injuries really held him back.
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