Thorner

Jack isn’t “my boy” anymore. (On a side note why isn’t Dahlin “my boy”? I went back and forth for months with the names of Sabres twitter like Chad and Kevin who, very uncharacteristically for them, were way wrong when asking if we had “already seen Dahlin’s ceiling” during the Krueger years. Plenty of the board was down on him too, let’s be real. I’ve talked as much or more about him, seeing as how I ramble on and on about just about anything even this very sentence in fact, that annoyingly just keeps going.) I’ve “defended” Jack (See: take a stance different to many on the board, on various Eichel related discussions) because I’ve believed in the arguments I’ve wanted to make. I’ve felt certain things were being misrepresented based only on my personal opinion. I didn’t wage an interwebs conquest in service to proving he was great - wasn’t my intention. I can only hope to not present a hypocritical argument - if at any point it appears im shifting the goalposts due to bias, I’d like to be called out on it. I think / hope I’m being fair - the same principles that caused me to argue on “his” side of the argument have me saying he hasn’t been good enough this year. It is what it is - I’m an open book. In reality, I’ve said this before, it was always when the attacks got really vulgar and personal that I truly was off put by it. YMMV. - - - I’d love to give a more detailed opinion on his effort or lack thereof in this recent stretch but it truth I don’t care enough to pay close attention. Seems dumb for quotes to go to the media from coach but what do I know. I’m the results guy. If he’s not hurt, he hasn’t been good enough. Full stop.

Received but not heeded, me thinks

Right I know, I’ve accepted your stance that’s why I said the first thing in that post. My point was that a great overarching argument doesn’t make a singular point within beyond the scope of contention, in the effort of objectivity. I digress.

Oh I asked you a question just now I suppose I should answer yours, if I want one to mine: - I wouldn’t make a statement about being “disappointed” or “not disappointed” with his career to date. I was satisfied with his career the first 5 seasons. I am disappointed in the current trend line of his career. Trend line here is fundamental to me rather than an overarching statement devoid of context. This is Sabrespace, for jeepers sakes. I am disappointed in his last 3 seasons. I am disappointed he has not been able to shake off the injury prone mantle within them. I was disappointed *for* him the 2 previous to this, for that reason. And I was disappointed to see that continued this season - he’s missed games. Finally, (assuming health now): I am disappointed in how he has played this season since returning from injury. He should be much better.

The conclusions you draw are reasonable, fair, but most importantly have an intrinsic logical consistency. I think I just felt the need to key on the “no multiple 80 point seasons” thing because it’s in effect misleading and truly represents a case of it needing to be pointed out in an effort to be fair to the player. I would say the claim he hasn’t been an 80 point player twice is objectively misrepresenting the truest nature of the discussion- the circumstances by way of which he failed to reach the total that season are truly meaningless re: an evaluation of the player he was that season. McDavid wasn’t magically not a 100 point player that year because he didn’t hit the total. The relevance of “80 point player” is the specific connotation we all know it represents - 80 points over an *82 game frame*, injuries or not. ie There are still players akin to 80 point players in lockout seasons. What happened was an anomaly that deserves special consideration. It must be pointed out, imo, to retain the pursuit of objectivity. Furthermore, as you are framing by way of YOUR specific disappointment, I do not believe it to be the case that you, yourself, were disappointed, that season, with him in not hitting 80. At the time you would have accepted the circumstance and considered the goal satisfied. Is this incorrect?

Hey ya lost me at Button

True

For the record this all makes a lot of sense

Ya. That’ll happen.

A lot of your designations are too arbitrary for me. “He needs to have multiple top 20 finishes”. Well he has a top 10 and a top 23. Ok. He “hasn’t had” multiple 80 point years. Really? That’s a pretty surface level claim that evaporates as soon as you see you can’t even slag him for missing the mark in ‘20 due to “injuries” - the league *literally stopped*. I cannot stress this enough that that doesn’t fall under *for one reason or another*. No, it was an “act of god” anomaly. Framing it as “one reason or another” *is* in fact willfully skewing Jack WAS an 80 point guy that year. To suggest otherwise is a meaningless technicality. He has literally no bearing on the fact he didn’t reach 80. He was going to come in well above

Wait, your barometer is Perreault? He’s not Perreault. Coulda saved me a ton of words Yes, I agree, his last 3 years have been disappointing. The first 2 due to injury, the latest due to the recent stretch which, for me, represents the first undeniable, “well wait just a second, here.”

I wouldn’t bet against him playing another 70 game season. We tend to live and die by the moment but there’s a ton of track left. He’s a year older than Tage Thompson - there’s a lot left to be written. He’s not old. He’s not hockey old, even For jeepers sake Skinner is having his best season THIS year

All good stories deserve embellishment

To add: not only is that development, it’s excellent development - it’s not common to see linear increase like that year over year. Again, the trajectory isn’t one telling of “failed promise” all along the way: it’s actually telling a much more interesting story- that of a career that appears to have been going along well, but then hit a huge speed bump. Will be fascinating to see how it goes from here. But I’m not going to re-write what actually happened the first 5. We Sabres fans knew the context, the team context as a whole those years. We didn’t support and defend Jack online (Before things went south, yes, I know) because we are dumb biased fans: we know hockey. @Taro Twas right that the MacKinnon track for long remained in tact. We don’t need to sell out our old good faith arguments. Somewhere along the way, that DID change. I repeat: Jack is not good enough right now. Remains to be seen if he ever gets back to where he should be. Let’s see if he does have a dog in him - cause he better show it now or I’ll have been mistaken about the player he could become. I don’t need to re-write the past to say that

You just keep doing it, though. There’s no unrealized promise in the first 5 years. During the revelation that was the 19-20 season, we were (almost) to a man thrilled with where he was. His improved D game that year. Way better post game interviews. Top 10 league scorer. Go read the GDTs, I beg of anyone. Man just look at the numbers you posted - the clear change is at “287”. His career trajectory isnt a story of “failed promise” so far like you are painting - his career was on a good trajectory until COVID. *Now* things seem to have plateaued, in a sense. It’s up to him to get back to star level and not just “good player” which, to your point, would be a case of failed promise. But the narrative isn’t written yet. And I wouldn’t say his career is half over necessarily, either. Listing “58, 53, 52, 23, 10” with a bunch of disappointing numbers doesn’t serve the argument. Those numbers aren’t alike. Going from 58 (as an 18 year old rookie on a god awful team that tanked to get him by way of scorched earth roster) to 10, over the ages of *18-22*, looks like DEVELOPMENT to me. Any other player that’s what you’d say. To say otherwise is such a weird skew and now that I’ve pointed it out would be an odd choice of willfully blurring the context

We’ve had this discussion before and you know our positions have been/are aligned. I’ll continually be re-evaluating my position, of course. I think I want to say - for the first stretch of this season, the first quarter or whatever, I didn’t see much reason to shift it. Jack *was* living up to what should be expected of him. He was above point a game, scoring about on level with Tuch/top 20 scorer, and regardless of whether people wanted to acknowledge it, his defensive game was excelling. Those who know more than me had him in not just early MVP running but Selke running. But, his play from all accounts (and that of the team) seems to have dropped off of late, and not for an insignificant stretch. Eichel needs to pick up his game. He’s not good enough right now.

There’s no point saying “for one reason or another 8 years into his career” when we know for a fact he can’t “fully realize” his potential when he was still a young player developing in this league during the first big portion - no reason he shouldn’t be afforded the development ground all players are. He was on track. It would be disingenuous to suggest otherwise when we were viewing it that way up until COVID. He DID have his on-schedule breakthrough in 19-20. To make a stronger point I think we should look at the last 3 years, this is when it started to get off track, starting with the year he only played 18 games

I get what you are saying about “fully realizing” but on a per-year basis he’s actually done that a few times, objectively. He lived up to reasonable expectations year 1, played a full season. 56 points as a rookie is outstanding, I don’t care he was tagged as generational, that’s not on him. His 82 point year certainly, he started it 21 and point a game was even more significant even a few years ago. And the 78 in 68 year you mentioned, of course. In truth, as I’m sure you remember, all the development comps were looking good until..well until COVID. It all changed.

Marcus Johansson was our 2C the year Jack had 78 in 68 before the covid shutdown. Marcus Johansson might be ranked 7th out of 7 on that list once Savoie and Kulich are being counted on as NHL players. Ya, a C we might not have room for might be better than the guy we had in the second most important F position 3 years ago. Botterill’s neglect of the C ice position was nothing short of earth-shatteringly bad GMing a farce

Just wait until an NHL team short comes calling for one of our excess centres, the most important position in hockey. If Savoie and Kulich map out and we are left with Thompson/Cozens/Krebs/Savoie/Kulich/Jost down the middle... talk about working from a position of strength

Ya in a manner of speaking. I try to view trades through the prism of the evaluations at the time of the deal. Not saying necessarily as much where the NHL talent in the deal is concerned, as that’s more plausibly predictable going forward re: a GM being like “see, I knew that would happen!”. But more so for draft picks - if a team trades a 7th round pick and the pick goes on to become a 40 goal scoring Olofsson, just as an example, I don’t think it makes the trade better for the acquiring team in hindsight or worse for the dealing team: the dealing team traded in actuality let’s call it the “general expectations associated with a 7th overall pick”. That is to say, personally I view the deal as still inclusive of the value we generally attribute to a 2nd round pick (Edit: whoops, 1st rounder) in a trade, regardless of what Östlund becomes. But 2 things of relevance: 1 the deal looks pretty darn good already, thank-you-very-much. And, 2 It’s not like Östlund becoming really good wouldn’t still reflect great on the GM and his team: it just reflects well on the drafting side of talent evaluation - - - Maybe the distinctions I draw are all semantics to you and if so, I apologize

..and Rohan will answer!

My second favourite prospect in system after Savoie

Would have also been funny if after saying “since” you sort of just turned and walked off briskly