Last season Jack Eichel had a career-best offensive season. Eichel scored 28 goals and 66 assists for 94 points with the Vegas Golden Knights in his fourth season with the club. That led Vegas to give him an eight-year extension on October 8th.
Eichel is one of the NHL’s best, but is it fair to worry he won’t be able to replicate that point total? The Golden Knights have a new offensive weapon in Mitch Marner. You can look at it as that’s a shiny new toy to help the Eichel scoring machine, or it may disrupt or take time to develop chemistry. By no means are we saying Eichel will have a “bad” year, but here’s the case for and against him being a point per game player this season.
The Case Against
Last season was only the second season in his career Eichel scored more than 82 points (more on that in a second). He did so with a shooting percentage of 18.50% which was also the best of his career. Eichel has only had one other season with a shooting percentage of more than 15%. That was the shortened 2019-2020 season when he finished at 15.90%. His first three years in Vegas saw him finish with season shooting percentages of 10.50%, 12.10% and 11.20%. His career shooting percentage is 11%.
As for the Eichel and Marner chemistry they’ve recently been broken up and find themselves on different lines. According to Daily Faceoff line projections Eichel is the top line center while Marner finds himself as the second line right wing. The Golden Knights best goal scorer, Ivan Barbashev, rides Eichels’ wing as the top line left winger. Greg Wyshnyski wrote for ESPN about how Eichel and Marner are past first players and there’s only so much Barbashev to go around.
Eichel and Marner have only found themselves contributing in scoring (sharing a goal and/or assist) three times so far this season. Two of those goals were scored at even strength. The one power play goal had Eichel and Marner sharing assists on William Karlsson’s goal against the Boston Bruins on October 16th.
The Case For
Eichel and Marner may not currently find themselves on the same even strength lines but they both are still on Vegas’s top power play unit. It’s a tiny sample size of only five games but Vegas is in the league’s top five on the man advantage. You have to imagine they’ll heat up soon. Eichel already has five power play points (all assists) even if only one of those goals also included Marner.
Eichel is also on a hot start to the season and already has 11 points in five games played. Even more impressive is that all five of his goals have come at even strength. Last season Eichel scored his 11th point in the Golden Knights seventh game so judging by that he’s already scoring at the same pace this season as last season when he finished with his career best 94 points.
Last season was one of only two seasons Eichel scored 82 or more points in his career. Remember we said we would explain that a little more? Eichel’s performed at a point per game pace four separate seasons. Thing is none of them had him play more than 77 games in a season. His best season on a “point per game” standpoint before last season was back with the Buffalo Sabres (they had a messy breakup, if you haven’t heard) when he had 78 points in 68 games.
Perhaps a better title for this article should have been “will Jack Eichel reach 82 points again?” Scoring at a point per game or very close (there have been four other seasons where he missed the point per game mark by 4 points or less) is something he does with ease. The only thing stopping Eichel from reaching 82 points per season every season is number of games played. Yes, he had notable injuries (remember that “bad break up” we talked about from Buffalo) but after his first year in Vegas he has played in at least 60 games per season.