Is Buffalo Sabres Jack Eichel Meeting Expectations?
Make no mistake: Buffalo Sabres rookie Jack Eichel has been having a decent premier season in the National Hockey League. He’s registered five goals and two assists, all at home on First Niagara Center ice.
Some of his goals have been absolutely beautiful, wherein the 19-year-old swirls around his opponents, dekes out defenders and manages to slap the puck in.
Take, for instance, the beauty of a goal he scored earlier this season against the Columbus Blue Jackets, where he he squirms out of the reach of Boone Jenner and fires a nice one past Sergei Bobrovsky.
Then there’s the shorthanded tally he put up against the Toronto Maple Leafs, taking off on a breakaway and really getting a fantastic chance to show off his speed.
Or the very nice moves he made, most recently, in last Thursday’s game against the Tampa Bay Lightning to shove off Andrej Sustr, power his way through and pop it in?
Many of his goals so far in this season have come as a result of an incredible move, or two, or three. But my question is this: can Jack Eichel do more?
Seven points in 14 games isn’t bad, especially for the guy’s first season in the NHL. Expectations were incredibly high coming into the season, but were they realistic?
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Among rookies, Connor McDavid remains the favorite to win the Calder Trophy – despite an injury and resulting surgery that is expected to keep him out of the lineup for several months. Of course, this isn’t meant to be an “Eichel vs. McDavid” bout; the two are, in reality, very different players, coming from different backgrounds, and what they do at the NHL level should be looked at on an individual basis, not on a basis of comparison.
After going most of the season without an assist, Eichel finally notched his first this past weekend — which is a good sign.
Great players, the really outstanding ones, aren’t just great in and of themselves. They also make the players around them greater: a key component to being the kind of young leader that the Buffalo Sabres can hope Eichel develops into. He’s only 19, but he’s one of the most-hyped Buffalo Sabres players in recent years, and there’s no denying fan expectations of him.
Next: Will Eichel Win The Calder?
According to ESPN’s Fantasy Hockey Rankings, Eichel is projected to put up 66 points for the Buffalo Sabres — 24 goals, 42 assists, they say. The folks there say he could reach a ceiling as high as 75 points. Either way you spin it, Eichel hasn’t performed at quite that level yet; he’s averaging 0.5 points/game which, if kept up, would put him at 41 points on the season — not accounting for a mid-season burst, injury, etc.
We’re still only about a month into the 2015-2016 season, but what do you think of Eichel’s performance to date? What else do you hope to see from the young potential superstar? Is he living up to what you’d hoped so far, or not?
Personally, and perhaps realistically, I think there’s room for improvement in every player – even the likes of Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin. Eichel’s done just fine so far, but for a player of his potential capacity, he could do so much better – and he probably will. We don’t know just what he’s capable of, but if the moves we’ve seen so far are any indication, he has a lot more up his sleeve.