Post 2013 Lockout Forward Tournament Tier 1, Round 1: Jack Eichel Versus Aleksander Barkov

[GlitchMarner]

Since the players involved are at different stages of their careers, the best way to vote is probably by answering this question: If I was a General Manager and I could draft one player for my team (having the knowledge that I have about each player at this point in time), which player would I choose?

Some are more accomplished than others and some have been more injury-prone than others, but under different circumstances, how different could things have been?


Tier 1, Round 1:

Connor McDavid (52 votes to 4 - 92.9%)
Connor Bedard

Nathan MacKinnon (25 votes to 21 - 54.3%
Nikita Kucherov

Auston Matthews (62 votes to 33 - 65.3%)
Leon Draisaitl

Elias Pettersson (32 votes to 27 - 54.2%)
Jack Hughes

Jack Eichel
Aleksander Barkov

Kirril Kaprizov
Mikko Rantanen

David Pastrnak
Artemi Panarin

Mitch Marner
Brayden Point

Click to read more...

 

[Felidae]

Aleksander Barkov has a virtually identical career PPG to Eichel. In fact, It was really only during the start of their careers when Eichel had the offensive edge. Since 2017, Barkov has had the higher PPG in 5 of the last 7 seasons (tied this year).

And if you were to rank their highest PPG seasons, Eichel's best ties Barkov's 4th best.

All this while being the clearly better defensive player. This should be a definitive win for Barkov

 

[banks]

It's Barkov.

Maybe it would have been different if Eichel hadn't had the health issues he had, or if Buffalo had been more successful when he was there. He certainly had more hype/potential when he was drafted, and we've seen a bit of why with his recent play.

But the way it really happened? It's Barkov, without the slightest hesitation.