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Buffalo Sabres Buy Or Sell: Jack Eichel Is Buffalo’s Best Rookie Ever

By Richard Spalding

Mar 7, 2016; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Buffalo Sabres center Jack Eichel (15) celebrates his goal in the third period against the Toronto Maple Leafs at Air Canada Centre. The Sabres beat the Maple Leafs 4-3 in a shootout. Mandatory Credit: Tom Szczerbowski-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 7, 2016; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Buffalo Sabres center Jack Eichel (15) celebrates his goal in the third period against the Toronto Maple Leafs at Air Canada Centre. The Sabres beat the Maple Leafs 4-3 in a shootout. Mandatory Credit: Tom Szczerbowski-USA TODAY Sports /
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Time to kick the hornet’s nest!

The Buffalo Sabres may be hanging out with the NHL’s worst teams once again, but it’s certainly not due to a lack of effort from Buffalo’s two dynamic rookies.

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Jack Eichel (20-26-46) and Sam Reinhart (19-14-33) currently rank second and eighth, respectively, among all NHL rookies, and are giving fans in the 716 reason to believe the Buffalo Sabres may actually be a season or two removed from qualifying for the playoffs.

As dynamic as the two of these kids have been, what Eichel is doing is even more impressive, given the fact that he was a mere 18 years-old when the season began.   When Eichel scored his 20th goal of the season against the Toronto Maple Leafs, he became the youngest Sabres player ever to hit the 20 goal mark – nine days younger than Pierre Turgeon was when he scored his 20th goal back in 1989.

Eichel has already topped the rookie efforts of players such as Alexander MoMogilny and Pierre Turgeon, and is fast closing in on the 48 points that Thomas Vanek and Tyler Myers put up in their rookie seasons – let’s not forget that Myers was the last Sabres player to win the Calder Trophy – and the 49 points Tyler Ennis had back in 2010-11.  All this, and Eichel will still be a teenager when the season ends.

The question may quickly become, is Jack Eichel the best rookie the Buffalo Sabres have ever had?  Clearly, in order to anyone to even make that claim, one would have to compare what Eichel is doing to the rookie efforts of two of Buffalo’s greatest players, Gilbert Perreault and Rick Martin.  As a rookie, Perreault set the NHL record for most goals by a rookie with 38 during the 1970-71 season, a number which Martin immediately topped the next season, when he netted 44.  Clearly, Eichel has no chance of reaching the gaudy numbers put up by these two legends, or even the numbers put up by Danny Gare (31-31-62) back in 1974-75 . . .

. . . but let’s not forget that Perreault, Martin and Gare played in an era were scoring was far easier than it is today.  In 1970-71, Perreault’s rookie season, teams were combining to score an average of 6.244 goals scored per game.  That number dipped slightly to 6.132 in Martin’s rookie season (1971-72), but was up to 6.850 by 1974-75.   Compared to last year’s league average of 5.46 goals per game, it is easy to see that goals are harder to come by in the modern era, and this year’s numbers point to an even lower rate of scoring.

With 50 points easily within his reach, it’s clear that Jack Eichel has played well beyond his years.  Buy or sell time: does Eichel’s accomplishments, at such a young age, give him a legitimate claim as the best rookie ever to play for the Buffalo Sabres?

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