Eichel thrown under the bus by Vegas HC Bruce Cassidy

[Thorner]

You don’t have to live up the tag of “generational” to live up to reasonable expectations. It’s a ridiculous burden to put on someone. This is my case in point:

Rasmus Dahlin. Dude is the best defenseman in the NHL. Dahlin has lived up to expectations where Eichel could not, thus far. Dahlin was touted as a generational defenseman. Is he generational? 

The answer?

It’s not relevant.

[mjd1001]

There seems to be some things in common between Jack Eichel and Sammy Watkins:

Both Drafted by a below average/bad Buffalo team....both considered to have 'elite' talent for their position coming into the league. Both had VERY good first couple years on their Buffalo team while not being good enough to get the team to the playoffs...both then had injury issues...Both traded shortly after that major injury in Buffalo...

Watkins after his injury was never the same. NFL receiver, but bumped around the league.  Eichel?  since his injury he has fallen down the scoring charts of league leaders.  Not sure Eichel will turn into the journyman that Watkins has become, but his career seems to at the very least not be rising.

[PerreaultForever]

In my opinion it's not really about Jack not living up to the generational label. It's not about his points production. It's not about his injuries. It's not even about his comparisons to McDavid. It's about his attitude, how he conducts himself, his personality and his lack of leadership. 

He got a lot of slack for being a "young man" and "immature" and all that but the dude is now old enough and should be smarter (even if it's fake) but he hasn't changed much at all. Guy has an ego bigger than the building but doesn't have a work ethic to match it. Has he ever taken on the burden of responsibility? If so it's rare. Even in this Cassidy situation he puts the blame on the team as a whole and not on himself. The real great ones always take the blame and spread the credit out, and that's not Jack. The snipe at Buffalo fans last year was just a flagrant example of his personality coming out. 

The man is, simply put, unlikeable. 

[K-9]

2 hours ago, DarthEbriate said:

Yay! More Eichwalker talk.

Looking at tonight's stats vs. NYR... he only skated 15 shifts (hopefully not injured). If not injury-related, then the demotion is in full effect (12 minutes 5 on 5 and 3 minutes PP time).   -3 for what it's worth.   Cassidy's message was received loud and clear.

It’s not like Eichel is in it alone and I suspect more than a few of his teammates aren’t happy with Cassidy’s public calling out, either. They may be sending a loud and clear message right back.

[Pimlach]

57 minutes ago, K-9 said:

It’s not like Eichel is in it alone and I suspect more than a few of his teammates aren’t happy with Cassidy’s public calling out, either. They may be sending a loud and clear message right back.

Maybe you’re right.   If a few of his teammates are pissed at the coach then you have factions.  The Sabres had them and they are bad.  Cassidy should know better.  I don’t care for Eichel, but Cassidy is using old school techniques on a guy that won’t respond to them.  

[steveoath]

Is anyone else slightly upset that this didn't happen with Eichel and  cassidy in Boston? That could've been an entertaining soap opera.

[Quint]

Lately he hasn't done Jack. Wonder what's wrong? Lingering injuries? Chemistry problems? Motivation? Another coach to kill? I do hope he gets back to normal soon. But a $10 million player he is not.

From Vegashockeynow.com (Golden Knights Star Forwards Simply Not Producing With Stone Out 1/27).

Quote

The biggest standout is Jack Eichel, the star centermen the Golden Knight's paid a hefty price for to acquire last season. This season he has gone through scoring slumps and is also just coming off a eleven-game injury. In his last nine games, Eichel has just a goal and an assist and is a -12. 

He has had his moments in games where he tries to take over and generate chance, but nothing has resulted of it as Eichel looks unmotivated. One has to wonder if he is still dealing with some sort of pains from his leg injury.

 

Edited January 28, 2023 by Quint

[LGR4GM]

What if Eichel is a talented inconsistent mess?

[Cascade Youth]

To be somewhat fair - Cassidy was a very odd choice and many of us predicted that he was the worst possible coach to get the best out of Jack.

But whatever.  I can’t imagine a Sabres team without Tuch.  It feels like he’s been here for years and I can’t wait to watch him be part of this team’s impending success.  Onward and upward.

[Night Train]

 The trade needed time. Sabres made out well.

They were going nowhere with players like Eichel, Reinhart and Risto. They fetched assets with a good return. Seems like they were welcoming a change and the feeling was mutual. The Sabres were stuck in mud, far from a playoff spot. Didn't help having a string of confused GM's and coaches. Not surprising, since Pegs is a well intentioned owner. Yet has the sports acumen of my wifes cat. 

 I'm pleased with our current direction and hold no ill will towards any former player or Coach/ GM. The past is just that. A learning experience. Our current GM and coach are doing a good job of properly building something from the bottom. I can embrace this team without feeling I'm being fooled. 

[Buffalonill]

3 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

What if Eichel is a talented inconsistent mess?

Rick nash 2.0 

[Porous Five Hole]

27 minutes ago, Buffalonill said:

Rick nash 2.0 

Nah, Nash was actually a good hockey player 😉

[Carmel Corn]

11 hours ago, nfreeman said:

Yes -- Tuch is a major, and almost unique, weapon on the forecheck.  That, combined with very good puck skills (albeit not quite elite) and hockey IQ makes him a fixture on the top line for as long as he has his legs IMHO. 

 

We can go back and forth on 80 points, development track, etc. but the fact remains:  for a guy who was supposed to be generational, Eichel has been a top-5 NHL player one out of his 8 seasons (and even that one was debatable, although not by me -- I thought he was awesome that year), and well outside the top 20 for the rest of them, including this year.

 

The injuries are very relevant, both in the evaluation of Eichel's career and for that matter in the circumstances surrounding his trade, but either way they are an undeniable fact:  he gets hurt a lot, and availability matters.

What also matters is attitude.  We don't know for sure, of course, but there were plenty of reports, for attribution, from guys close to the team like Hammy and Rivet that Jack was a major DB here.  When he started playing for Vegas last year they immediately fell off the table and missed the playoffs, which was a pretty surprising and disappointing outcome.  Now, after his return from yet another injury, his new coach in Vegas is publicly unhappy with him.

BTW, they got dusted again tonight (in a game in which Jack was a minus-3 with zero points) and have now lost 7 of their last 9.

In many cases, talent isn't nearly enough.

Tuch's speed for a power forward is sometimes overlooked as well!  Personally, I think Tuch is the glue or secret sauce that makes the TNT, Tuch and Skinner line so effective.

I don't think anybody questions Jack's talent, but I've always been skeptical about his durability and motivation.  He is not the energizer bunny and he sometimes tends to float too much IMHO.

[nfreeman]

11 hours ago, Thorny said:

You don’t have to live up the tag of “generational” to live up to reasonable expectations. It’s a ridiculous burden to put on someone. This is my case in point:

Rasmus Dahlin. Dude is the best defenseman in the NHL. Dahlin has lived up to expectations where Eichel could not, thus far. Dahlin was touted as a generational defenseman. Is he generational? 

The answer?

It’s not relevant.

This is fair and I totally agree that "generational" has become well overused.

However, even if we scale expectations back to "elite" -- which I would say is in the ballpark of top-10 NHL player -- Jack has fallen well short of that standard other than in one of his 8 NHL seasons.

That shortfall, plus injury frequency, plus DB behavior, plus suffering by comparison with Tuch/Krebs/Östlund/#2 pick equals "I'm glad KA made that move."

[Pimlach]

47 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

This is fair and I totally agree that "generational" has become well overused.

However, even if we scale expectations back to "elite" -- which I would say is in the ballpark of top-10 NHL player -- Jack has fallen well short of that standard other than in one of his 8 NHL seasons.

That shortfall, plus injury frequency, plus DB behavior, plus suffering by comparison with Tuch/Krebs/Östlund/#2 pick equals "I'm glad KA made that move."

I have seen two generational players. Orr and Gretzky.   Both changed the game during their careers. 
 

There are special “great in their era” players - Mario, Sid, Ovie, to name a few.  But that is not generational in terms of impact to the game. 
 

McDavid needs a few Cups before talk about putting him with 4 and 99.  
 

 

[DarthEbriate]

"Generational" just means that the player is able to generate clicks online when mentioned as a possible pick for your team in upcoming mock drafts.

[LGR4GM]

16 minutes ago, DarthEbriate said:

"Generational" just means that the player is able to generate clicks online when mentioned as a possible pick for your team in upcoming mock drafts.

Conor Bedard has 16pts in 5 games, 12 goals. 

[DarthEbriate]

13 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

Conor Bedard has 16pts in 5 games, 12 goals. 

I hope he falls to 20th. You know... only one pull-up at the combine, tells the Ducks he hates Disney, tells Vegas he hates sand, and will only play for a city known for a specific preparation for chicken wings.

[SwampD]

I don’t even care about Eichel anymore, but when @dudacek and @Thorny”argue” about hockey, I’m reading every word.

[mjd1001]

57 minutes ago, Pimlach said:

I have seen two generational players. Orr and Gretzky.   Both changed the game during their careers. 
 

There are special “great in their era” players - Mario, Sid, Ovie, to name a few.  But that is not generational in terms of impact to the game. 
 

McDavid needs a few Cups before talk about putting him with 4 and 99.  
 

 

Different Discussion...but I would put Mario and Hasek in that list with Orr and Gretzky.  When Mario was at his best he was unstoppable, Literally, if he was going to score, no one was going to prevent it.  

I do agee with Sid and Ovie ( and everyone else) being that step behind 'generational' though.

[Thorner]

2 hours ago, nfreeman said:

This is fair and I totally agree that "generational" has become well overused.

However, even if we scale expectations back to "elite" -- which I would say is in the ballpark of top-10 NHL player -- Jack has fallen well short of that standard other than in one of his 8 NHL seasons.

That shortfall, plus injury frequency, plus DB behavior, plus suffering by comparison with Tuch/Krebs/Östlund/#2 pick equals "I'm glad KA made that move."

Again, I’m not haggling with you over him failing to live up to even elite, of late, in fact I made that point in another post: that he’s not generational because he’s not generational, but if he doesn’t solidify as “elite”, that’s on him: he has the talent for that.

As I explained to dudacek, my position isn’t swayed/your argument isn’t made stronger, relative to the point I’m making, by saying “8 years” when I didn’t reasonable expect elite within the first 4. You could just as soon say “Jack Eichel hasn’t stabilized as elite within his first 26 years on earth”. Adding years to the total to make it look more impressive isn’t relevant to me, cannot stress this enough: if that’s your preferred method of framing, go for it. But it stuck out like a sore thumb within the presence of dudacek’s usually excellently formed arguments and I’m saying the same to you. 

Under the prism of not expecting generational (you can grant me this stance, yes?) but rather elite, Jack’s development curve over his first 4 years, linear upward trajectory, culminating in a 5th year, staring at age 22 (you know, the age Dahlin is) where he *did* amount to elite is exactly what I wanted to see. I cannot stress enough that what’s interesting to me is the most recent stretch where he very clearly needs to find a way to get things back on track. 

- - - 

If he never does, and just remains a “good” player in need of the right fit, of course I’d reframe my stance on his overall career over time: it would become a disappointment relative to what I think he could have been. This isn’t the terminology I’d use thus far. When the majority of his career thus far has been on a satisfying trajectory and then reached what appears to be a significant rocky stretch/chance of plateau, my view incorporates exactly that: he has had a disappointing stretch since exactly the onset of covid. Whether he can salvage his “elite” career needs to be seen. The burden of proof is squarely on him, but I’m not casting judgement on his career so far, labelling it “disappointing”, I’m just not close to there. He’s 26. 

Edited January 28, 2023 by Thorny

[Thorner]

36 minutes ago, SwampD said:

I don’t even care about Eichel anymore, but when @dudacek and @Thorny”argue” about hockey, I’m reading every word.

Putting “argue” in quotations shows you are my kind of people 

[LGR4GM]

40 minutes ago, mjd1001 said:

Different Discussion...but I would put Mario and Hasek in that list with Orr and Gretzky.  When Mario was at his best he was unstoppable, Literally, if he was going to score, no one was going to prevent it.  

I do agee with Sid and Ovie ( and everyone else) being that step behind 'generational' though.

Feel like y'all are missing the common thread of why "generational" players according to your definition don't exist anymore. 

[Thorner]

1 hour ago, Pimlach said:

I have seen two generational players. Orr and Gretzky.   Both changed the game during their careers. 
 

There are special “great in their era” players - Mario, Sid, Ovie, to name a few.  But that is not generational in terms of impact to the game. 
 

McDavid needs a few Cups before talk about putting him with 4 and 99.  
 

 

The thing about Crosby is he’s such a worker. Speaking of motivation. No one more driven. He’s the greatest grinder of all time. We can haggle on talent all day but the career Crosby is putting together, it’s top 10. Generational, whatever: he’s just Great. To me you measure greatness by career output, that’s why Brady is the GOAT but he’s like, the furthest thing from a generational talent.

You raise a good point with McDavid. To me, he’s clearly a generational talent. No one has ever played the game at the level he has, as good as he has (not saying relatively, I’m not saying he’s the greatest ever) but athletes these days are better, they just are. Quicker, faster, stronger, better trained. Every sport. Jim Brown today would be an average running back. You’d have to time travel Gretzky forward and have him be born today with today’s advancements in health and training for him to compete on the ice surface with McDavid, but if you time travelled McDavid backwards, as is, he would quite literally destroy everyone out there. Again, this isn’t greatness, just talent. 

McDavid is more “purely talented” than Crosby, but Crosby has had the better career. In a list of top 100 players ever, Crosby still finishes ahead right now and it’s not close to changing for me. Tough pill to swallow being such a team game but championships are a prerequisite for greatness in perception, always have been. 

Edited January 28, 2023 by Thorny

[Thorner]

1 hour ago, LGR4GM said:

Conor Bedard has 16pts in 5 games, 12 goals. 

4 assists in 5 games? #notgenerational

😸