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Jack Eichel is quietly becoming a top-5 player in the league

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Top 5..... soon Top 2/3 with McKinnon.

It feels like Jack realizes now that he is the best player on the ice. I wouldn't trade him
for any player in the league, less McJesus.
 
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umma gumma said:
Eichel and Matthews are a lot closer than people think.
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It was foolish to ever consider that Matthews was leaps and bounds better than Eichel. Eichel is now scoring at the same rate that he is, plus he will always be the better playmaker and transition player due to his speed.
 
In all fairness, he was hugely hyped and drafted immediately after McDavid. He's supposed to be this good.

Then again it looks like he's taking the MacKinnon path which is cool. 50 points, 60 points, ok 80 points, holy shit 38 in 28 games
 
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He's a really good player on a heater. Olafsson should owe him royalty checks next season.
 
SnuggaRUDE said:
He's a really good player on a heater. Olafsson should owe him royalty checks next season.
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MSG mentioned last night during the game that Eichel spoke about Oloffson in an interview and said he has the best shot out of anyone that he's ever played with. Easy to see why they mesh so well.
 
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The biggest change over the last few weeks is that Eichel is using his speed as a weapon way more consistently. He's one of the best skaters in the league, but for some reason he'd always try to slow the game down and rely on his stick handling and vision. Now that he's FINALLY using speed + stick handling + vision he's approaching the McDavid levels that was always expected of him.
 
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Outside of #'s 97 and 29, I'm not sure there's a more valuable player in the National right now. And I think there's a chance Eichel surpasses MacKinnon in near future.
 
JoeSchmoeJr said:
The biggest change over the last few weeks is that Eichel is using his speed as a weapon way more consistently. He's one of the best skaters in the league, but for some reason he'd always try to slow the game down and rely on his stick handling and vision. Now that he's FINALLY using speed + stick handling + vision he's approaching the McDavid levels that was always expected of him.
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I looked up McDavid and Eichel's PPG per season:

McJesus:

Year 1 (45 games): 1.07
Year 2 (82 games): 1.22
Year 3 (82 games): 1.32
Year 4 (78 games): 1.49
Year 5 (29 games): 1.76

Eichel:

Year 1 (81 games): 0.69
Year 2 (61 games): 0.93
Year 3 (67 games): 0.96
Year 4 (77 games): 1.05
Year 5 (28 games): 1.36

Eichel is trending up and in the right direction, but McJesus is McJesus for a reason, and I say this as a Sabres fan. I don't think Eichel has reached his offensive peak yet, but neither has McJesus.
 
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Safe to say, he's now perfectly capable of carrying pretty much anyones skates to the rink :D

Good for him and even better for Buffalo. He's a lot of fun to watch. I find myself catching more and more Sabres games this year.
 
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seagull said:
I looked up McDavid and Eichel's PPG per season:

McJesus:

Year 1 (45 games): 1.07
Year 2 (82 games): 1.22
Year 3 (82 games): 1.32
Year 4 (78 games): 1.49
Year 5 (29 games): 1.76

Eichel:

Year 1 (81 games): 0.69
Year 2 (61 games): 0.93
Year 3 (67 games): 0.96
Year 4 (77 games): 1.05
Year 5 (28 games): 1.36

Eichel is trending up and in the right direction, but McJesus is McJesus for a reason, and I say this as a Sabres fan. I don't think Eichel has reached his offensive peak yet, but neither has McJesus.
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If you look at the scoring leaders right now, Eichel stands alone as the only one doing things by himself. All the other leaders have one or more star players to compliment their skills. It's too bad Reinhart hasn't lived up to his draft expectations. If Sam equaled Leon, the gap between Jack and Connor would be a lot closer.
 
AvsGuy said:
In all fairness, he was hugely hyped and drafted immediately after McDavid. He's supposed to be this good.

Then again it looks like he's taking the MacKinnon path which is cool. 50 points, 60 points, ok 80 points, holy **** 38 in 28 games
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He actually outproduced Mackinnon by a pretty wide margin comparing their first 4 years, improving steadily while doing so, whereas Mackinnon just seemed to figure it out all at once.

You are right though. Without McDavid, Eichel is the clear cut #1 pick that year, and was probably one of the top prospects of the past decade. What a crazy draft that was.
 
JoeSchmoeJr said:
If you look at the scoring leaders right now, Eichel stands alone as the only one doing things by himself. All the other leaders have one or more star players to compliment their skills. It's too bad Reinhart hasn't lived up to his draft expectations. If Sam equaled Leon, the gap between Jack and Connor would be a lot closer.
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Yes, Jack is a fantastic player, but I think a support cast of Reinhart, Olofsson and Dahlin is about equal to Draisaitl, Kassian and Klefbom. Draisaitl is better than Reinhart, but Olofsson and Dahlin are better than Kassian and Klefbom. Just my opinion of course.
 
CoffeyMcMan said:
Yes, Jack is a fantastic player, but I think a support cast of Reinhart, Olofsson and Dahlin is about equal to Draisaitl, Kassian and Klefbom. Draisaitl is better than Reinhart, but Olofsson and Dahlin are better than Kassian and Klefbom. Just my opinion of course.
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Reinhart and Dahlin have both been really bad (or injured in Dahlin's case) this year. Not that Dahlin plays constantly with Eichel anyways, but Reinhart has been carried hard.

Even Olofsson has only started to learn the Even-Strength game at the NHL level the last 10 or so games. As a rookie he had a slow start as expected.

Eichel has had too do it pretty much all alone this season which makes it so impressive.
 
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One area that he really needs to improve upon is faceoffs. Once he starts winning key FOs in important situations (and stops getting kicked out of seemingly every other FO), then he’ll be a complete player who’s also capable of hitting multiple 100pt seasons.

I also like that Krueger is throwing him out there near the end of PKs as well. Once he earns more trust in those situations, I could see him getting deployed earlier and earlier, making opposing teams a bit more hesitant to make those cross-ice passes at the point and limit their options. Especially with that long stick of his :naughty:
 
CoffeyMcMan said:
Yes, Jack is a fantastic player, but I think a support cast of Reinhart, Olofsson and Dahlin is about equal to Draisaitl, Kassian and Klefbom. Draisaitl is better than Reinhart, but Olofsson and Dahlin are better than Kassian and Klefbom. Just my opinion of course.
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Once Dahlin isn't 19 and our PP actually starts scoring again, I can see another bump in his scoring.

As some others have replied, Olofsson wasn't so hot at 5v5 for a while, Reinhart has been on and off.
 
D Wakaluk said:
Too bad they don't play Hutchinson and Domingue every night
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Right because he doesent have 20 points in his last ten games, and he’s scored all his 38 points this year against them.

And a point in all of his last ten. He’s got points vs every goalie in those games.

People try to discredit him every corner, even the people who aren’t saying this are all “so this was expected of him.” Oh well.

Saidin said:
Yep, he's joining all the other 25 players in the top 10 players in the league...
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The salty people who don’t watch him even here
And don’t like him liked this post. Pretty cool.

Oh well better for him to keep remaining underrated. The people Who aren’t blind see that he’s literally making the NHL his personal playground.

Only number one in some of the best
Categories in the league.

Some just don’t want to admit they were wrong about him. Forget the 25 guys who are all in the top ten he’s been a top five player in the league when you look at the other top scorers and the help they have in comparison. Not to mention the areas he’s first in like i eluded too.
 
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Great to see him doing so well, I've always loved watching him play, such a smooth skater that makes it look easy, almost as if he's not trying (he obviously is though).

Point per game rankings throughout his development:

2015/2016: 79th
2016/2017: 11th
2017/2018: 29th
2018/2019: 23rd
2019/2020: 6th

Outside of 2016/2017 being a huge year for him, you can see a nice development curve so far in his career relative to the league. Not too sure if I would call him a top 10 player in the league by the end of the season, but it'll be close for sure, which all Sabres fans should be proud of!
 
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