In the final minute of the Golden Knights’ win in Vancouver last week, Jack Eichel raced 160 feet back toward his own goal and dove head-first onto the ice to deflect JT Miller’s centering pass with the blade of his stick.
When the play began in Vancouver’s zone, Eichel was already 45 seconds into his shift. He had just led a rush down the ice toward the Canucks’ empty net, and was behind it when Jonathan Marchessault’s empty-net bid ricocheted off the leg of Vancouver’s Elias Pettersson and started a rush the other way.
Eichel was already winded and well behind the play but dug his skates into the ice, chased it down and sold out to intercept a dangerous pass to help seal the win. It’s a small play that won’t even make the score sheet, and far from Eichel’s most impressive highlight, but that back check was the epitome of what coach Bruce Cassidy asked of Eichel when he challenged him to elevate his game this summer.
That play was winning hockey. It was an example of how, one year after his league-rocking trade from Buffalo to Vegas — and ensuing neck surgery — Eichel is showing why the Golden Knights made such a big investment in him and showed trust in him. One-quarter of the way through this season, Eichel has been dominant with and without the puck.
When Cassidy arrived in Las Vegas after being hired in June, he knew his tenure would be tied directly to Eichel. Both were newcomers to an organization hungry for winning, but one coming off its first playoff whiff in its history. Expectations were high, and Cassidy knew that to reach them would require elite play from Eichel – all over the ice.
Eichel’s offensive talent is unmistakable. He skates past defenders as if their traffic cones, and owns a whippy wrist shot that can beat even the best goalies with a clean look. The question over the last several years was if his obvious talent could lead to winning. Through six seasons in Buffalo, it did not.
“We have to get him playing his best hockey and helping us win, and get those two to meet,” Cassidy said The Athletic in September. “You can be playing your best and your team isn’t winning, and that’s my job to make sure he understands that part of it. Coming from a team that wasn’t in the playoffs (in Buffalo), there’s different things that are required if you’re going to be a good playoff team.”
Cassidy spoke to Eichel in the offseason, challenging him to take another step in his game.
“We talked about that this summer,” Cassidy said on Nov. 12. “I’ve had some very good centermen over the years in our system (in Boston). If you don’t (have them), you’re in a little bit of trouble. They’re one of the key cogs in it.”
Cassidy’s zone defense asks a lot of its centers. Wingers float around the outside of the zone with limited responsibility. Defensemen stay low to protect the area around the net, while the center is asked to patrol the entire slot, from the top of the faceoff circles all the way to the goal line at times. He leaned on strong defensive centers Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci in Boston, and had similar aspirations for Eichel.
Eichel has answered the challenge.
Through the first quarter of the season, he’s on the highest scoring pace of his career with 26 points in 23 games, and he’s been just as dominant without the puck.
“I think he’s been arguably our best defensive forward in terms of closing in our end, being on time and killing plays,” Cassidy said. “He’s bought into what we’re trying to get him to do.”
In the 320 minutes Eichel has been on the ice at even strength this season, the Golden Knights have outscored opponents 21-9. He and linemates Mark Stone and Chandler Stephenson have matched up against opposing top lines and thoroughly dominated, with an 80-44 edge in high-danger chances. Eichel’s on-ice expected goal share of 63 percent is second in the NHL among forwards with at least 300 minutes of ice time.
“I’ve had good conversations with (Cassidy),” Eichel said The Athletic. “I’m always trying to improve my game and get better. I like a coach who’s going to push you, and push the group. I know that he had a lot of expectations for me, and wanted to see me take my game to the next level. As did I.”
Eichel’s quick burst is second-to-none, and he uses it to close on puck carriers and overwhelm them. He’s rangy and strong with his stick, poking the puck to create a mini race to the loose puck, then uses his acceleration to come away with possession.
“I don’t know how to describe it, but when he’s at a standstill, the way he gets going maybe looks a little unorthodox, but he’s just gone,” said Stephenson, who has played on Eichel’s wing most of the season. “He’s already at full speed at three strides, which is something that as a hockey player you can work at your whole life and never be good at it.
“That’s something that I think separates guys from being a really good skater to an unbelievable skater, is those three strides. He’s just so explosive. Even in the fitness testing, his numbers on the explosive stuff were through the roof. He jumps higher than everybody. He’s just built to be a hockey player.”
This chart by Evolving-Hockey shows visually how dominant Eichel has been in all three zones. Not only has he been one of the league’s elite generators of offense – with 10 goals and nine primary assists – but his defensive goals above replacement (the red portion of the bar) is the highest of any forward in the NHL.
Eichel leads all players in total goals above replacement at 11 – nearly two above the next-closest player, Elias Pettersson at 9.3. Going by Dom Luszczyszyn’s Game Score Added Value metric, Eichel’s average of 1.75 per game ranks eighth in the NHL.
“I think our system has benefited my game,” Eichel said. “We have seven really good defensemen and our goaltending has been so good, and I think some of it can be a byproduct of that. They make the job easy for us forwards. It also helps when you’re playing with Stone and Stephenson.”
Eichel is surrounded by his most talented cast of teammates in his eight-year career, and Vegas’ strong overall team play is certainly factoring into many of his eye-popping defensive numbers, but make no mistake – he’s driving the bus for the Golden Knights. in their 16-6-1 start. The chart below by Jason Paul at WaveIntel shows Eichel’s strong, two-way play in relation to his Vegas teammates.
“When you’re that big and that fast, it just makes the game look easy,” Stone said of Eichel. “He makes the hard things look easy. He’s using his speed and his body really well. It makes defense easy when you have the puck most of the game. We’re spending most of our shifts in the offensive zone because of the protection of the puck that he has. He shields it so well.”
Eichel’s speed through the neutral zone has allowed the Golden Knights to turn defense into offense in the blink of an eye. This goal in Buffalo on Nov. 10 (in the video below) is one of many examples.
It starts with a strong back check by Eichel, closing on Sabers forward Vinnie Hinostroza (No. 29) and forcing him to chip the puck deep. Eichel sees his teammate Brayden McNabb (3) skate behind the net and immediately fills in for McNabb in front of the crease. Sabers center Tage Thompson wins a puck battle with McNabb and blindly flips the puck into the slot, where it’s intercepted by Stone.
Eichel recognizes it, drives the center lane hard through the neutral zone and into Buffalo’s end, catches the pass from Stephenson and whips it past Sabers goalie Eric Comrie before he can react. From the moment Vegas gained possession – with Eichel’s heels on his own goal crease – to the moment the puck hit the back of Buffalo’s net, a total of five seconds elapsed.
“I thought he had all of the makeup, from just watching him, to (taking his game to this level),” Cassidy said. “Now it’s the inner drive that you have to get out of him. He’s really bought into it. I think he wants to be considered an elite player.”
Eichel doesn’t just lead the team in power-play ice time, but he’s also taken on penalty-killing responsibilities and Cassidy regularly plays him in six-on-five situations protecting late leads.
In Vegas, Eichel is surrounded by a dressing room full of savvy veterans with experience winning at the highest level. He sits beside the captain, Stone, in the locker room — a player who prioritizes defense and plays every shift like it could be his last. Alex Pietrangelo has captained a team to a Stanley Cup championship. Alec Martinez has won the Cup twice, and scored the series-clinching goal in one. They are all strong personalities who have helped Eichel grow as a player, and they’ve certainly played a part in his hunger for a complete game.
Another part of that inner drive for Eichel is fueled by a heightened appreciation for playing in the NHL. By any measure, he’s been one of the best players in hockey through the first quarter of the season. It wasn’t a certainty he’d ever play at this level again when he became the first NHL player to undergo artificial disc replacement surgery on his neck a little over a year ago.
Eichel went 11 months between NHL games. Those months were filled with a battle with the Sabers organization over what procedure he’d be allowed to undergo, followed by a trade to Vegas, the surgery and a long road back to the ice.
That’s a long time to go without doing something he loves. Something he can hardly remember ever being without.
“When you have an injury like I did, and you’re away from the game for a while, and going through COVID, after all of that I feel like maybe my gratitude for hockey has changed,” he said. “I don’t take anything for granted anymore.”
Eichel enjoys his time at the rink every day. The long flights. The meals with teammates on the road. The practices, and of course the games.
Many mornings at the Golden Knights practice facility, Eichel is the first player to come out of the dressing room. Carrying a stick in one hand and a bag of pucks in the other, he saunters onto the bench. He dumps the pucks out and starts firing shots.
When asked what stands out most about Eichel’s game, Stephenson paused while he scanned the dressing room. Practice had just concluded and the players were all at their stalls shedding their gear.
“That’s it,” he said, looking over at Eichel’s empty stall. “Right now, he’s not even in the room.”
Eichel was still on the ice.
“He’s always working on his game,” Stephenson continued. “There’s always something that he’s working on, and that’s one thing that stands out the most to me, is how much he works on his game.”
Eichel is back to making electrifying plays on a nightly basis. For the first time in his NHL career, he’s winning a lot of hockey games, and he’s soaking in every second of it.
“It feels good to be back playing hockey,” he said. “I really enjoy doing this every day. I enjoy being around all of these guys. Getting to play at T-Mobile Arena.”
(Photo of Jack Eichel: Timothy T. Ludwig / USA Today)
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