Sabres: Could 2021 be Jack Eichel’s best season yet?

The tools are in place on the Sabres for this to be Jack Eichel’s best season of his career.

The Buffalo Sabres will have their most high powered offense since acquiring Jack Eichel. They went out and acquired Taylor Hall who will pair very nicely with the Sabres captain. It is silly to say that Jack would not thrive this season, but could we see Eichel have better production this year than any previous season?

Given that this season will be almost 30 games shorter than any other season Jack has played in since joining the NHL, it is extremely unlikely that we will see him set career highs in any stats such as goals, assists, or points. The best way to determine if this season will be his best is to calculate points per game.

Up to this point, Eichel’s highest points per game throughout a season was 1.15 points per game in the 2019-2020 season. He posted 78 points in the 68 games that he played in last year’s slightly shortened season.

I fully expect Jack to put up a higher point per game average this upcoming season than he did last season. There really is not much of a reason to think otherwise.

The entire Sabres top line is going to put up numbers this season. The duo of Eichel and Hall is going to produce a massive number of goals and assists. And it looks like Victor Olofsson will be the third forward on that line. Olofsson has an incredible shot and will just gain more chemistry with Eichel the more ice time they share.

I do not think it is too farfetched to predict Eichel to tally a goal number in the 24 to 28 range and assist numbers in the 41 to 45 range. In the 68 games he played last year he had 36 goals and 42 assists. So I do not think this goal and assist prediction for this season is crazy at all.

In a season where the divisions have been realigned and made it more difficult for the Sabres to make it into the playoffs, it would be very timely for the Sabres captain to put up the most productive season of his career.