Weekly Player Recap #1: Jack Eichel.

[Randall Flagg]

The offseason is a long, boring, sad time. Last year I did a jersey number countdown thread that was pretty fun, and helped stave away the bleakness of the pounding sun and suffocating heat. I had an idea for this summer, to do an in-depth analysis of every major Sabres player and the season they had. I’m off of work 85% of all Mondays, so that would be a good day to do this. I have about 20 Mondays before school starts kicking my ass, so I can get in everyone, with a double post or two.

Today I’d like to start with Jack Eichel.

Stats at a glance

Last season: GP: 81 G: 24 A: 32 PTS: 56 P/GP: 0.69

This season: GP: 61 G: 24 A: 33 PTS: 57 P/GP: 0.93

 

If Jack had continued scoring at this rate to finish off the season, he would have increased his point total by about 20. That's as good a jump as any reasonable fan was asking for. Combining this with the injury and general team performance woes, the season was pretty impressive production-wise. 

He also increased his shots on goal from 238 to 249 despite playing in 21 fewer games. His shooting percentage dropped a hair. He scored the same number of PP points as last year, so both his 5v5 and power play production experienced growth on a per-game basis. PA, avert your eyes: Jack's CF% dropped .1%, but his Fenwick rose 2.4%, and both were above zero relative to the team unlike last season (1.2 and 2.7 % respectively). What this may tell us is that he's shooting a lot more and maybe even getting a little better in his own zone too. But we'll get to possible reasons behind these numbers later.

 

Here are Eichel's splits this season, from hockey-reference.com.

 

 

It is good news for us that three of the more notable sets of performances occurred versus divisional opponents. 

 

For more Eichel stats like this, here is the link to his hockey reference page: http://www.hockey-reference.com/players/e/eicheja01.html

 

Jack's Usage

What did Bylsma see in Jack, and how did he place him on the ice accordingly? 

First, here is how Jack's usage compares to other players. I picked random centers and other young stars. The size of the circle correlates with how many minutes the player gets. The shade of the circle gives CF% relative to the player's team. The x-axis describes their zone starts (yes, this often gets over-played because many shift changes happen on the fly) and the y-axis measures the quality of competition the player faced when on the ice, measured by those players' relative CF% to their teams. Lower right players are more protected, upper left are brutal. Of the young budding NHL superstars, Jack has the toughest usage, though it's not by too much. Dan puts him out there in the d-zone a little more often than some other players get used (like specialist Matthews over there) probably because it's fun to watch Jack go coast to coast. Other notes: Poor Larsson, and Kadri is a beast.

 

Above, we have the same chart with the same things, but only looking at the Sabres team. Jack is the middle circle in that little triangle of circles. He appears to have gotten middling usage, leaning a bit towards the "easy matchup" side to take advantage of other teams being in potentially vulnerable situations, as expected. I don't think this chart tells us too too much about Jack and his performance, but it's interesting enough that I feel like putting it here.

 

Jack's heat maps

Above is Jack's shot distribution at even strength. Interestingly, he gets more shots off from in close than I would have guessed. I pictured that most of them would be from the upper slot and circle areas. That hole by the right faceoff dot makes sense, he's always looking to get rebounds from that area, off the goalie's right pad. 

On the power play, Dan's got Jack's location figured out. Most of his shots come from the exact place they should, and the results of this positioning have helped to propel the power play up the rankings.

 

Reader's note: I am not done with this, and that's why the thread is locked. I will keep it locked until I have all the pictures added, like I had to do with the System thread for that one big post. I promise this will get more qualitative soon.

[Randall Flagg]

The two heat maps above show that when Jack Eichel is on the ice for the Sabres, the team sees a pretty significant increase in shots taken from the right side. When he rushes from this side, I notice that his first choice is often to shoot. When he rushes from the left he likes to open his hips to the middle and pass, or to lock up as soon as he crosses the line to wait for the play to develop, where he'll then pass. Another possible explanation for the chart looking like this - his RW, Reinhart is competent with the puck and can get it on net when Jack dishes from the center, where much of his season was spent with LWs Foligno and Moulson, who are probably worse at doing this at even strength. Overall, it doesn't appear that Jack can overcome the plague of slot-avoidance that this team has. 

 

The shots allowed with Eichel on the ice at even strength is a little more interesting. We've noticed that our team in general is pretty good at limiting scoring opportunities from the slot and from the crease area relative to the rest of the league, while we allow more shots than usual from the point area in exchange. (Good eye, We've.) Well, that ability breaks down with Jack on the ice. Teams shoot a ton from the slot while he's out there, which is often a spot that you see the center. Either Jack is cheating, or he just doesn't know how to effectively pick up players and take away their shot or tie them up. Perhaps he has trouble reading the play, or is unwilling to engage physically. Just going off of my memory, I'd say that it's a little of everything. He also is very interested in turning up the ice for the breakout chance the second we recover, and the defensemen aren't very good at getting the puck out, and the ensuing turnovers allow guys who are uncovered by the exiting Jack to take free shots from that juicy area, which Lehner isn't particularly good at stopping shots from. 

 

[spndnchz]

No fair!

[Randall Flagg]

I don't even really understand how to interpret this bad boy. The one below is a little easier for me:

Here, you want to look particularly at an individual player's red box versus his black box. His black box is his performance with Jack, and his red is his performance without. Random notes - Kulikov is a much worse player with Eichel on the ice than he is with Eichel on the bench. Same thing for Gionta. Gionta plays the chip n chase game pretty effectively but is not good with possession and holding the puck to make plays, so that makes a lot of sense. Ristolainen and Moulson also see dips. Gorges has a better time with Jack on the ice, and Samson gets a little better and a lot more "fun", as in a lot more things are happening on the ice, usually good, when Sam is with Jack versus when Sam is not with Jack. Jack's play in his own zone in particular, however, generally causes him to be a drag that happens to score a lot of points in the short bursts of offense he gets. This is part of the reason why I'm so high on him - that defensive stuff will never be great, but it will certainly get better, and when it catches up, he'll have that much more time and energy for offense. 
 
And now for the charts that I'm mad True introduced, and that made PA grumpy. Here's what they do - for different statistics (Secondary/tertiary shots and assists, zone entries/entry assists, shots from the slot or near the net, total shots, etc) the different circle radii represent the percentile the player falls in relative to all other players of his position in the NHL. If you're at radius 1(R1) you're at the 25th percentile. R2 is 50th, R3 is 75th, and if you're touching the outermost circle, you're basically the best in the game at doing that.

This first one compares Jack (pink) to Matthews (blue) and McDavid (yellow). he falls slightly short of McDavid in the passing categories,and blows him away with shots on goal. He's more well-rounded than Matthews, in that he starts the play with carry-in possession, passes a lot, and shoots just as much as well, where Matthews likes to pick up the garbage mostly. (Srsly, 29 assists in 82 games on a team that scores that much? Bruh). 
 

 
These two players are Marner and Laine. Laine is the smaller guy I had to trace most of.
 

Here we have Kucherov (pink), Kane (black) and Crosby (Green). Jack's chart is more reflective of these guys', which is a good sign. I guess if I had to describe what this chart measures, the more well-rounded your offensive game is, and the more you dictate and drive the play, the bigger and closer to a circle your shaded area will be. If you're good at one thing only, like E. Kane is at shooting, you'll see something predictable and kind of funny. Here's the link if you wanna mess around, and to give citation credit: https://public.tableau.com/profile/ryan.stimson#!/vizhome/shared/9BQD5BWZR
 
And most of the previous charts used above came from hockeyviz.com.
 
Enough of the stats and charts
Yeah, that's all a little crazy. What did you guys think of Jack's season? I'll reiterate what I've said already, I'm very impressed and excited by his offensive development. I think his points ceiling will be as high as anyone's in the league. if he can continue to develop his 2 way game and keep lowering the number of games he disappears/doesn't try (the latest stretch and one January chunk of games are the only ones where he disappeared from the scoresheet/looked lazy this season, as opposed to several such stretches last season) we'll have exactly what we wanted when we tanked. This kid is the franchise, and we need to do everything we can to build a team around him IMO. Everything he does and says gets magnified, which means that his straight-backed long-stride skating style does him no favors, but when I take a step back from that magnifying glass, those possible "character concerns" evaporate. I think he's a tremendous player and has a burning desire to win and to lead, and he'll get us to where we want to be even if it takes longer than expected. 

If I even bother turning in next season, he will be most of the reason why.
 
Noteworthy highlights

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSZw6qf-VYI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSN4lxKmQS0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSn2eMH7YRM&t=15s

Chz, killing my flow! :P

[papazoid]

  A person with direct knowledge of Jack Eichel's contract confirmed to The Associated Press that the Buffalo Sabres forward missed out on a $2 million performance bonus in his contract by a mere decimal point.

 

 http://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/19129861/buffalo-sabres-jack-eichel-misses-2-million-bonus

[TrueBlueGED]

This post is basically erotic fanfiction for Sabres fans...except it's real. I stand fully behind what I said in the other thread: Eichel is one of the premier offensive forces in the game. And he's going to get better. Think about that.

[That Aud Smell]

A person with direct knowledge of Jack Eichel's contract confirmed to The Associated Press that the Buffalo Sabres forward missed out on a $2 million performance bonus in his contract by a mere decimal point.

 

http://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/19129861/buffalo-sabres-jack-eichel-misses-2-million-bonus

Oh man. That stings.

 

Motivation!

[Taro T]

A person with direct knowledge of Jack Eichel's contract confirmed to The Associated Press that the Buffalo Sabres forward missed out on a $2 million performance bonus in his contract by a mere decimal point.

 

 http://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/19129861/buffalo-sabres-jack-eichel-misses-2-million-bonus

  

Oh man. That stings.

Motivation!

It should be.

[pi2000]

We've noticed that our team in general is pretty good at limiting scoring opportunities from the slot and from the crease area relative to the rest of the league, while we allow more shots than usual from the point area in exchange. (Good eye, We've.) Well, that ability breaks down with Jack on the ice. Teams shoot a ###### ton from the slot while he's out there, which is often a spot that you see the center. Either Jack is cheating, or he just doesn't know how to effectively pick up players and take away their shot or tie them up. Perhaps he has trouble reading the play, or is unwilling to engage physically.

 

I can sum it up for you in one individual statistic....

 

-13

Edited April 11, 2017 by pi2000

[qwksndmonster]

If only we had a defensively awesome player that could play center in the defensive zone and had the skill to keep up with Jack offensively.  Ideally this player would be a center with experience playing wing with a talented young center.

 

Ugh. It just sucks that no such player is on our roster.

[DarthEbriate]

If only we had a defensively awesome player that could play center in the defensive zone and had the skill to keep up with Jack offensively.  Ideally this player would be a center with experience playing wing with a talented young center.

 

Ugh. It just sucks that no such player is on our roster.

No, they can't play together. It's because they're on different pairs, you see.

Something about the Sith, something... something...

  :angel:

 

But it could be neat to see if Reinhart could successfully center his own 2nd line and see if ROR/Jack could do something together.

If only we had some meaningless 15 games at the end of a season for experimenting with....

Edited April 11, 2017 by DarthEbriate

[dudacek]

When Jack watches his interview from today 10 years from now, I wonder if he will be embarrassed.

[ubkev]

When Jack watches his interview from today 10 years from now, I wonder if he will be embarrassed.

1. What makes you think he'll ever watch it again.

2. Everyone is embarrassed over sh!t they said 10 years ago.

[qwksndmonster]

1. What makes you think he'll ever watch it again.

2. Everyone is embarrassed over sh!t they said 10 years ago.

Oh god even two years ago I was a disaster.

[Doohicksie]

Oh god even two years ago I was a ###### disaster.

 

Just wait till you read this post ten years from now.  :P

[Trettioåtta]

Another good post.

 

Hrm, I think you may have made me change my mind on Eichel. He is an exciting and offensively dominating player, that's obvious. I have been unfairly harsh on him, and he is really the least of our worries at the moment. I just hope he isn't our Taylor Hall and that his stretches of half-heartedly playing disappear.

 

Cheers!