Speculation: Eichel Megathread VIII

[smoneil]

Seriously??? Basketball is a completely different sport. Only 3-4 guys per team get meaningful minutes (and usually only 2 of those get designed shot attempts... maybe comparable to being a forward in hockey?). KP has a career average of <19 points per game despite being a top two option on every team he has played on. He shoots 44% on his career and <8 rebounds/game on his career (not exactly strong results). His best season was this past season (25 - he did not play his 23 season because of an ACL injury) and his career comparables include Morris Peterson and Taj Gibson.

Say what you want about Eichel, he is, in relation to his sport, a much bigger star than Porzingis. Quite frankly the PLD comparison seems far more fitting at this point (top 50 in points in hockey is probably comparable to top 10-15 in basketball by the nature of how the minutes flow... 6-9 forwards play similar minutes on any given team, where as basketball usually has 2 that play significantly more minutes and get shot attempts like a forward might).

Me: Literally provides multiple articles placing 2017-18 Porzingis in the MVP conversation.
Buffalo fans desperate to maintain their narrative that Eichel is really one of the top 5 players in the game: No, no, he's like Taj Gibson* and shit.

You are all trying WAY too hard to inflate Eichel and deflate Porzingis in this comparison. It's almost like you realize the comparison is right on and illustrates why teams should be VERY wary of trading for Eichel. And to be fair, at the time of the trade, I thought moving KP (and especially for that return) was a horrible mistake. In retrospect, making the move, and doing so before KP was able to make the situation publicly toxic, was the best move the Knicks could have possibly made.

* For people who don't follow basketball, in a 13+ year NBA career, Gibson has never put up more than ~half of what Porzingis does every year. For comparison purposes, it would be like trying to claim that Artemi Panarin's "career comparable" was Jason Zucker or Jakob Silfverberg.

 

[smoneil]

The biggest X factor is Sabres basically got shutout of goalie derby on draft day and any thought of competing this year is almost completely gone when Craig Anderson is your starting goalie at 40 and Aaron Dell is a likely backup. This is a lost season now. Did they plan it that way? Maybe. But we are here now and it doesn't matter.

Bottom line for Sabres and Eichel is the urgency is almost zero for the team to do anything. He saves them $10 M if he sits and they'll get to the cap floor of $60 M putting contracts in front Dahlin and few other players.

Any interest in Georgiev in a smaller deal? There have been conflicting reports out of the Rangers beat writers that he would prefer a move to a team where he'd have a better chance to be the starter at some point in the next decade (he's pretty much locked behind Shesterkin on the Rangers).

 

[Rabid Ranger]

Me: Literally provides multiple articles placing 2017-18 Porzingis in the MVP conversation.
Buffalo fans desperate to maintain their narrative that Eichel is really one of the top 5 players in the game: No, no, he's like Taj Gibson* and shit.

You are all trying WAY too hard to inflate Eichel and deflate Porzingis in this comparison. It's almost like you realize the comparison is right on and illustrates why teams should be VERY wary of trading for Eichel. And to be fair, at the time of the trade, I thought moving KP (and especially for that return) was a horrible mistake. In retrospect, making the move, and doing so before KP was able to make the situation publicly toxic, was the best move the Knicks could have possibly made.

* For people who don't follow basketball, in a 13+ year NBA career, Gibson has never put up more than ~half of what Porzingis does every year. For comparison purposes, it would be like trying to claim that Artemi Panarin's "career comparable" was Jason Zucker or Jakob Silfverberg.

it's almost as if you have an inflated ego and can't deal with the fact that your comparison is garbage. Keep spamming though.

 

[PatLaFontaineASMR]

The half a year thing matters less in the NBA, where stats are based on averages rather than cumulative like the NHL. Porzingis finished 16th in scoring that year, and not a whole lot separated him from those in the 10-20 range (much like Eichel was part of a group in the 10-20 range in 2019/20). The whole "MVP votes" argument is where things get really amusing. In 2019-20, Eichel's best year of his career, he got 0.82% of the vote for the Hart. Less than one percent. All of that built on two 4th place votes and eight fifth place votes. That doesn't mean that Eichel was an MVP candidate. It literally means that nobody thought he was even in the top three and only a tiny percentage thought he was in the top 5.

Porzingis was a top 4 center in his 23 year old season. And before his injury, he actually was touted as a player who not only could win an MVP, but would do so:

Kia MVP Ladder: Nothing mystical about Kristaps Porzingis' rise to stardom

NBA MVP rankings: Knicks' Kristaps Porzingis a legitimate candidate

Dubois? His best season he finished outside the top 60. Even AFTER his injury, Porzingis routinely finishes considerably higher than that.

I literally just posted the bit about Porzingis because it struck me that there were a lot of similarities. The more you challenged it, the more similarities popped up. I have no idea why you are so dead set against the comparison, and your counter-comparisons (VC for Eichel and Dubois for Porzingis) are WAY out in left field (why not bring a metaphorical third sport into this, haha).

It's just not a good comparison. You're just using half of a season to say he's just like a top young center signed long term.

Of course playing half a season matters lmao. What a terrible take. Plenty of guys have hot starts to the season and go cold in the second half. It's like saying a NHL player that had 55 points in 40 games is top 10 in scoring with other guys that have 100 points in 80 games. We have no idea if he would've been able to continue his scoring pace for another half of the season.

Your MVP articles are like 2 weeks / 8 weeks into the season. I'm talking about a guy actually getting MVP votes, not some talking heads speculating only a few weeks into the season because of a hot start. That's very different. He didn't even play center either. He was at the 4 and Kanter was the center.

If Eichel had only a half of season stretch where he was good his whole career and only played for 3 years, then they would be comparable. That's not the case though.

 

[Ygo]

Me: Literally provides multiple articles placing 2017-18 Porzingis in the MVP conversation.
Buffalo fans desperate to maintain their narrative that Eichel is really one of the top 5 players in the game: No, no, he's like Taj Gibson* and shit.

You are all trying WAY too hard to inflate Eichel and deflate Porzingis in this comparison. It's almost like you realize the comparison is right on and illustrates why teams should be VERY wary of trading for Eichel. And to be fair, at the time of the trade, I thought moving KP (and especially for that return) was a horrible mistake. In retrospect, making the move, and doing so before KP was able to make the situation publicly toxic, was the best move the Knicks could have possibly made.

* For people who don't follow basketball, in a 13+ year NBA career, Gibson has never put up more than ~half of what Porzingis does every year. For comparison purposes, it would be like trying to claim that Artemi Panarin's "career comparable" was Jason Zucker or Jakob Silfverberg.

Comical... both articles you cherry picked are from the first month of the 2017 season where KP was averaging 29 ppg (people got excited). It is not hard to find articles to support your point...

https://thehockeywriters.com/jack-eichels-emergence-as-a-hart-trophy-candidate/
Jack Eichel making a compelling case for the true definition of MVP
Hart Trophy Watch: Jack Eichel is dominating and keeping Sabres alive, but is he the MVP so far?
Why ‘heart and soul’ Jack Eichel is building a case for MVP - Sportsnet.ca

That is four articles in a matter of minutes, should I keep going?

KP, doesn't really matter on a hockey board, just funny that you made the JE comparison and dismissed with JLD comparison which is actually more accurate.

BTW, nothing delusional about it, a lot of people think JE is a VERY GOOD hockey player. Some rankings going into last season below, and there are many more. Bottom line, he was/is injured and that impacts his value. Most of us get that... There is a reason he is not traded yet and that is because the return is not great and his current value (due to injury) is uncertain/low.

NHL's Top 50 players going into 2020-21 season - ranked 13 on this list
https://drive4five.blog/2020/12/16/ranking-the-top-50-nhl-players-2021-season-shawn-daversa/ - ranked 11 on this list

 

[The Marquis]

29 ppg? That's a hell of an average.

 

[MarkusKetterer]

Any interest in Georgiev in a smaller deal? There have been conflicting reports out of the Rangers beat writers that he would prefer a move to a team where he'd have a better chance to be the starter at some point in the next decade (he's pretty much locked behind Shesterkin on the Rangers).

Sure. Would offer no more than a 3rd or late 2nd for him tho.

 

[Volica]

2016-2020

Auston Matthews 1.01 ppg
Jack Eichel 1.03 ppg

Yes, Jack Eichel was never an elite player Eichel+Power for 2024 and 2025 conditional 7ths.

Hockey is a weird sport like that.
One down season and everyone's like 'This guy's replacement level, worst contract in the league, overrated'.

On the flip side, people trade for a guy 5 years removed from a 25 goal season and it's like 'I think he can get back to that here, we have the right pieces to make it work.'

 

[smoneil]

Comical... both articles you cherry picked are from the first month of the 2017 season where KP was averaging 29 ppg (people got excited). It is not hard to find articles to support your point...

https://thehockeywriters.com/jack-eichels-emergence-as-a-hart-trophy-candidate/
Jack Eichel making a compelling case for the true definition of MVP
Hart Trophy Watch: Jack Eichel is dominating and keeping Sabres alive, but is he the MVP so far?
Why ‘heart and soul’ Jack Eichel is building a case for MVP - Sportsnet.ca

That is four articles in a matter of minutes, should I keep going?

KP, doesn't really matter on a hockey board, just funny that you made the JE comparison and dismissed with JLD comparison which is actually more accurate.

BTW, nothing delusional about it, a lot of people think JE is a VERY GOOD hockey player. Some rankings going into last season below, and there are many more. Bottom line, he was/is injured and that impacts his value. Most of us get that... There is a reason he is not traded yet and that is because the return is not great and his current value (due to injury) is uncertain/low.

NHL's Top 50 players going into 2020-21 season - ranked 13 on this list
https://drive4five.blog/2020/12/16/ranking-the-top-50-nhl-players-2021-season-shawn-daversa/ - ranked 11 on this list

The difference is that I never discounted the fact that Eichel has the talent to be in the Hart conversation. I don't think he's had the production to be a legitimate candidate (his best season saw him get less than 1% of the votes, and considering 5 players had demonstrably better years--15+ points better--I'd guess that the 5th place votes Eichel DID get came from Buffalo writers). My post was in response to someone who was arguing that Eichel has MVP chops and KP didn't. Both players do (as the articles from BOTH of us indicate), but neither has ever come remotely close to actually being an MVP.

You say the JLD comparison is "more accurate," even though JLD's best season (in terms of scoring rank) would have been worse than almost every season KP played. I gave half a dozen reasons for comparing KP to JE. Other people responded by just tossing out names that, on the surface, make no sense at all. If you have reasons for seeing a similarity between KP and Dubois, or seeing Taj Gibson as a similar player to KP, I'm more than willing to listen (it's not like there's been any real news on the Eichel front in ages, so it would at least be more interesting than the repetitive sniping that's characterized this megathread all summer), but no reasons were ever given, and the comparison really doesn't seem to fit based on any obvious factors.

And yes, Eichel is a very good hockey player. The question is whether or not he's a top player in the league. I tend to see him--like Porzingis--as part of that tier below the top, with injury concerns that could knock his value down to even the tier below that. Your two articles don't really dispute that. The first one ranks him 13th, but doesn't include Kucherov at all. It also says that Eichel was "sneakily" in the Hart conversation (again, no, he wasn't. He played a full season and FIVE players had 15+ more points than he did). The second article has Eichel ahead of Pastrnak, Matthews, Ovechkin, Patrick Kane, and talks about how he's going to put up god-like points with Taylor Hall on his team.

Also, you critique me for picking articles before Porzingis's injury, and then counter with two lists from...before Eichel's injury?

 

[smoneil]

Sure. Would offer no more than a 3rd or late 2nd for him tho.

That'd be fair. Does Buffalo have a 2nd that is likely to be later in the round? Their own 2nd (no offense intended) is likely to be near the top of the round, which would probably make it too valuable for Georgiev. If Buffalo had an extra second projected to go later, I'd be fine with that or with Buffalo's natural 3rd rounder. Geo is a good, but inconsistent goalie. When he's on, he's a world-beater. When he's off, he beats up Tony DeAngelo. He's still young for a goalie, though, so it could be worth a try to see if he gets his consistency issues ironed out (which might happen just from a regular workload).

 

[smoneil]

It's just not a good comparison. You're just using half of a season to say he's just like a top young center signed long term.

Of course playing half a season matters lmao. What a terrible take. Plenty of guys have hot starts to the season and go cold in the second half. It's like saying a NHL player that had 55 points in 40 games is top 10 in scoring with other guys that have 100 points in 80 games. We have no idea if he would've been able to continue his scoring pace for another half of the season.

Your MVP articles are like 2 weeks / 8 weeks into the season. I'm talking about a guy actually getting MVP votes, not some talking heads speculating only a few weeks into the season because of a hot start. That's very different. He didn't even play center either. He was at the 4 and Kanter was the center.

If Eichel had only a half of season stretch where he was good his whole career and only played for 3 years, then they would be comparable. That's not the case though.

Porzingis very much was a top young center with some years of team control left. The KP trade pretty much broke the internet.

As to the bit about playing half the season, I have two responses. First, again, it matters less (not completely, but less) in the NBA, where stats are per-game averages (you don't see people talking about such and such player scoring 4,934 points per season. It's always listed in ppg). In hockey, players are ranked by cumulative points scored. The Hart doesn't go to the player with the best ppg.

The second response is this--if partial seasons need to be discounted, and only actual production over a full season matters, why do Buffalo fans pitch Eichel on his ppg rate rather than his actual scoring totals? If you look at him based on actual scoring totals, he never finished higher than tied for 10th overall, his next best finish is in the mid-20s, and after that, he had finishes in the 50s or lower. You're completely biased on this player, to the point where you rail against a means of evaluation (ppg over a partial season) to knock one player, only to embrace it for Eichel because it suits your pre-held view of his value.

Eichel is a very talented player. He's never been quite as talented as his hype machine (again, in his best season, five other players had 15+ more points), but for the most part he is a player who--before the injuries--could have challenged for the Hart at some point in his career. We're now looking at that player after a major injury and after some questions about his mindset have come into the picture. Just like KP, he's still got a ton of talent. But some of the shine has come off, and there's legitimate concern that that shine isn't going to come back.

 

[smoneil]

it's almost as if you have an inflated ego and can't deal with the fact that your comparison is garbage. Keep spamming though.

I made a post as a side comment noting several similarities to a player in a different sport. Buffalo fans swarmed, making absurd and completely unsupported counter-comparisons. Not sure how that is "spamming" in any way (or should I stick to the same cycle of nonsense that this megathread has been going through for weeks?). Let me guess, you're in the "Acquire Eichel at all costs" group of Ranger fans?

 

[Ygo]

The difference is that I never discounted the fact that Eichel has the talent to be in the Hart conversation. I don't think he's had the production to be a legitimate candidate (his best season saw him get less than 1% of the votes, and considering 5 players had demonstrably better years--15+ points better--I'd guess that the 5th place votes Eichel DID get came from Buffalo writers). My post was in response to someone who was arguing that Eichel has MVP chops and KP didn't. Both players do (as the articles from BOTH of us indicate), but neither has ever come remotely close to actually being an MVP.

You say the JLD comparison is "more accurate," even though JLD's best season (in terms of scoring rank) would have been worse than almost every season KP played. I gave half a dozen reasons for comparing KP to JE. Other people responded by just tossing out names that, on the surface, make no sense at all. If you have reasons for seeing a similarity between KP and Dubois, or seeing Taj Gibson as a similar player to KP, I'm more than willing to listen (it's not like there's been any real news on the Eichel front in ages, so it would at least be more interesting than the repetitive sniping that's characterized this megathread all summer), but no reasons were ever given, and the comparison really doesn't seem to fit based on any obvious factors.

And yes, Eichel is a very good hockey player. The question is whether or not he's a top player in the league. I tend to see him--like Porzingis--as part of that tier below the top, with injury concerns that could knock his value down to even the tier below that. Your two articles don't really dispute that. The first one ranks him 13th, but doesn't include Kucherov at all. It also says that Eichel was "sneakily" in the Hart conversation (again, no, he wasn't. He played a full season and FIVE players had 15+ more points than he did). The second article has Eichel ahead of Pastrnak, Matthews, Ovechkin, Patrick Kane, and talks about how he's going to put up god-like points with Taylor Hall on his team.

Also, you critique me for picking articles before Porzingis's injury, and then counter with two lists from...before Eichel's injury?

JE has unanimously been a top 20 player... Being a KP fan boy, does not make him better. As previously mentioned, in Basketball, far fewer players get the minutes and shot opportunities to be super stars. Being top 25 in NHL is akin to being top 10 in Basketball. And yet, JE is pretty unanimously a top 15 player going into last season and KP has never been that - FACT!

No more basketball for me on a hockey board.

For the record, I didn't write the articles, only summoned them because you called out that you had a strongly referenced cased because of two articles you cherry picked - I didn't read them lol, just demonstrating that the internet puts out a bunch of junk for fanboys to click on.

 

[drw02]

The injury and the disagreement and the trade are two different things.

There has been a lingering feeling that Adams wanted to move Eichel and that Eichel wanted out since last year. I would bet that if Eichel had been healthy by the end of the season, he would have been traded already.

And I get the general take that the team should lean towards letting the player decide their treatment. But, there are ethical issues if you have a team doctor that is an expert in a treatment that a player wants and the doctor feels it is unsafe for the player to have that surgery.

Should the Sabres OK a procedure that increases the risk of paralysis for a player if that is what their surgeon is telling them?

Increased risk of paralysis? Even if that's true it's like a .0000001% increase. If Eichel is willing to take on the "increased risk" of paralysis then the Sabres should follow suit. He'd obviously stand to lose far more than the Sabres

 

[bernmeister]

RE: Geo in a separate deal...

Sure. Would offer no more than a 3rd or late 2nd for him tho.

That'd be fair. Does Buffalo have a 2nd that is likely to be later in the round? Their own 2nd (no offense intended) is likely to be near the top of the round, which would probably make it too valuable for Georgiev. If Buffalo had an extra second projected to go later, I'd be fine with that or with Buffalo's natural 3rd rounder. Geo is a good, but inconsistent goalie. When he's on, he's a world-beater. When he's off, he beats up Tony DeAngelo. He's still young for a goalie, though, so it could be worth a try to see if he gets his consistency issues ironed out (which might happen just from a regular workload).

a late 2nd is a tad light.
late 1st/early 2nd
or
mid 2nd or later +.

Rangers do not have a 3rd next yr
what about

Geo + Hajek + NYR + LV 2021 4ths
for
Laaksonen + BUF 2021 2nd

if no room for Laak on RD, we can try him at RW if nec...

 

[smoneil]

JE has unanimously been a top 20 player... Being a KP fan boy, does not make him better. As previously mentioned, in Basketball, far fewer players get the minutes and shot opportunities to be super stars. Being top 25 in NHL is akin to being top 10 in Basketball. And yet, JE is pretty unanimously a top 15 player going into last season and KP has never been that - FACT!

No more basketball for me on a hockey board.

For the record, I didn't write the articles, only summoned them because you called out that you had a strongly referenced cased because of two articles you cherry picked - I didn't read them lol, just demonstrating that the internet puts out a bunch of junk for fanboys to click on.

JE is "unanimously" a top 15 player based on talent. Based on production, he's only been in the to 20 once. This is due to injury and circumstances, but how is that any different from KP (a player I soured on significantly the last couple of years, based on his pouting nonsense in Dallas)?

And fair enough re: the basketball. I never intended it to be a lengthy side conversation. My initial post was intended to be an "isn't it funny how similar these two situations are" kind of thing, and I never expected anybody to react to it as strongly as they did. I was mainly just looking to add something new to a discussion that (because of no new news) has kind of stalled.

 

[smoneil]

RE: Geo in a separate deal...





a late 2nd is a tad light.
late 1st/early 2nd
or
mid 2nd or later +.

Rangers do not have a 3rd next yr
what about

Geo + Hajek + NYR + LV 2021 4ths
for
Laaksonen + BUF 2021 2nd

if no room for Laak on RD, we can try him at RW if nec...

No need to overcomplicate it. In either of the next two drafts a mid to late 2nd rounder is good value for Georgiev (both are supposed to be incredibly deep). If he'd shown more consistency last season, it might have been worth holding out for more, but the player wants to challenge as a starter, and that won't happen in NY.

 

[Dr Quincy]

I understand there’s some details that are different, but at the core, McDavid chose a route that was not only contrary to the opinions of the team doctors, but one that was rather risky if I recall correctly.

Yet management didn’t push their opinions onto him, and if they did they surely backed out before McDavid leveraged them into a trade.

You’re right, neck and knee is entirely different, but I think we can still draw similarities between the two situations. Another glaring hole in comparing the two situations is that if I recall correctly, if McDavid couldn’t rehab without surgery, he had the option to just get the surgery if the rehab wasn’t looking promising.

There are certainly differences in some of the specifics... but to me the biggest one is: in one case the team has decided to do whatever it can for its franchise player and in the other the team and player both want a divorce.

 

[GuerinUp]

was really hoping this would be the last eichel thread in awhile

but its looking like this topic is going to last

 

[MarkusKetterer]

RE: Geo in a separate deal...





a late 2nd is a tad light.
late 1st/early 2nd
or
mid 2nd or later +.

Rangers do not have a 3rd next yr
what about

Geo + Hajek + NYR + LV 2021 4ths
for
Laaksonen + BUF 2021 2nd

if no room for Laak on RD, we can try him at RW if nec...

While I don't entirely hate it, I also don't really like it. Buffalo is deep on LHD prospects and not so deep on RHD prospects. And I'm not entirely sure on what Buffalo's draft pick capital is, and I never worry about that until closer to the end of the season. So I'm currently operating under the assumption that Buffalo has 2 2nds next year, and that Buffalo's 2nd is gonna be 33rd or 34th, and that's too much for Georgiev.

 

[Jim Bob]

 

[Just Linda]

We have news!

Eichel made a tweet with an emoji in it.

This means that (likely nothing but people will take it as meaning something)

 

[topshelf15]

Cant see him being a Ranger ,just seems too obvious...And if was going to happen it would have by now...

 

[DavidBL]

Cant see him being a Ranger ,just seems too obvious...And if was going to happen it would have by now...

I feel like that applies for lile every team interested at this point. Imo teams wont give up unprotected firsts in the upcoming draft unless they already know where it lands. Harder and harder to see a deal done before the end of next season at this stage.

 

[topshelf15]

I feel like that applies for lile every team interested at this point. Imo teams wont give up unprotected firsts in the upcoming draft unless they already know where it lands. Harder and harder to see a deal done before the end of next season at this stage.

I just really dont see them as fit ,they already have an impressive top 9 .....They should just look at improving the defense and watching their young high end wingers grow