Name the centres better than Eichel today

[93gilmour93]

So in a nutshell, Eichel doesn’t make the players around him better.

That’s gonna be a minus from me dawg.

Haha

 

[Guttersniped]

This is tough because I think Eichel is better than his point totals suggest, due to his lack of supporting cast.

And he played hurt a lot recently, his point totals have taken noticeable significant hits right after he’s been injured but the Sabres kept running him out there. (Which is real questionable to me.) It happened last season and it happened pretty much all this season. He played all 21 games hampered injury this season and it got worse with multiple injuries as it went on. No wonder he thinks the team has zero interest in his physical well-being. He’s scored a ton in first half of 2019-20 before his upper-body injury. Whether Buffalo or another team will actually get a fully healthy Eichel anytime soon is a different question.

 

[Sypher04]

McDavid, MacKinnon, Matthews, Crosby, Draisaitl, Barkov.

I'm not even sure if he's behind four of those players. I am sure, though, that Buffalo is a morale-sapping trainwreck.

Eichel's output relative to his teammates is absurd. McDavid and Draisaitl* are the only players that I can think of offhand who are comparable in that regard.

* Yes, I am aware they are teammates. Treat them as a set.

I don't think output relative to teammates is overly relevant to discussions of who is better than who.
Players in these rankings should not be penalized by the fact their team has quality forwards and depth.
When you have issues in these regards an inordinate amount of your offense has to run through a smaller number of players, whereas deep teams spread it around

 

[Sweetpotato]

Here's a question. All hypothetical.

Let's say Eichel goes to the Rangers like rumored.

He plays a full season with Panarin-Eichel-Buch(maybe Rangers fans can chime in if those wouldn't be his linemates)

What does he finish at for point totals?

I'm hearing he has no support in Buffalo so I'm curious where people think he lands in a full season with that line.

 

[McFlash97]

McDavid, MacKinnon, Crosby. Eichel is fourth on my list.

He can't hold Draisaitls jockstrap.

 

[Black Kevin]

He can't hold Draisaitls jockstrap.

He holds Draisaitl by the balls.

 

[Taluss]

Off the top of my head I’d go with:
Matthews
Mackinnon
Crosby
Drai
Mcdavid
Barkov

 

[SnuggaRUDE]

Here's a question. All hypothetical.

Let's say Eichel goes to the Rangers like rumored.

He plays a full season with Panarin-Eichel-Buch(maybe Rangers fans can chime in if those wouldn't be his linemates)

What does he finish at for point totals?

I'm hearing he has no support in Buffalo so I'm curious where people think he lands in a full season with that line.

With Fox on the back-end? Panarin and Eichel each finish the season with 110+ points in 82 games.

 

[LMFAO]

McDavid, MacKinnon, Crosby. Eichel is fourth on my list.

well your list is horrible lol you gotta had at the very least Draisailt Matthews and Malkin.

 

[malcb33]

For me it goes in tiers. Eichel is currently in the third tier but has the ability to move into the second tier if he has a good season.

T1- McDavid
T2- Matthews, Barkov, Draisaitl, Mackinnon
T3- Crosby, Kopitar, O'Reilly, Aho, Petterson, Point, Eichel, Scheifele, Bergeron

Others in that third tier are either towards the end of their career or don't have the abilities necessary to move up, Eichel absolutely does IMO.

 

[Panda Bear]

These are very good numbers, no doubt.

However, they are 1) a bit misleading and 2) skirting around the other issues people have brought up, since not a single person said Eichel wasn't an extremely gifted offensive player.

1) Yes he outscored the next highest teammates on his team. However (and you are picking 1 single year to do this for, for some reason) they weren't the "worst" offensive team in the league. They were the 6th worst. Eichel was on a team that scored more goals than Barzal's NYI. ES ppg Eichel was .74 and Barzal was .71. Now let's do this year: Eichel's BUF is STILL outscoring Barzal's NYI. Eichel ES PPG- .43, Barzal- .67 That said: Eichel is a better offensive player than Barzal. When healthy he most likely will put up more pts than Barzal (especially since Barzal is playing on a team with far tighter defensive systems that require more D commitment... I mean if you are going to throw Eichel's poor coaching in as an excuse, then you also have to include that while Trotz is a great coach, his numbers will absolutely deflate pure scoring).

2) Speaking of Defense- The knock on Eichel isn't that he's not a great point producer. He is. The question, and it's been there since before BU (I live in the Merrimack Valley and have heard about Eichel since he was pretty young) is whether he's a "winning" player. Now I tend to poo poo those kinds of criticisms because a lot of it is totally team dependent... but Eichel does have an "attitude" or "ego" that does affect how he plays. He plays "Hard" but he doesn't play disciplined or smart and that shows up in the defensive numbers.

Looking at last season, since you want to cherry pick that one.... and since you are very hung up with comparing Eichel's numbers with the Fs on his own team.. here are the F's on BUF last year who had a lower Goals Aganist/60 than Eichel:

Michael Frolik
Jimmy Vesey
Johann Larson
Kyle Okposo
Zemgus Girgensons
Vlad Sobotka
Victor Olofsson
Casey Mittelstadt

Eichel was deadsmack in the middle... meaning on a really bad team, he was mediocre in stopping goals. Of course, that's even worse when you consider that he's facing other team's best defensive players, trying to stop him from scoring, while opposing teams are saving their scoring lines for BUF's weak (as you admit) rest of the roster.

And with all his outscoring his teammates....by far as you know... he was 6th amongst Fs on his team in xGF%. Yup... gets lots of points and very talented. But not even close to Barkov as far as defensive play goes.

I responded to a poster who offered to let me cherry pick any statistic that I wanted and compare it to the players he mentioned.

We were talking about Eichel's suitability as a franchise centre, and he questioned to what extent Eichel had contributed to a healthy, winning environment in Buffalo when they hadn't even made the playoffs once during his time there.

I showed how all the "winning" players he had mentioned just so happened to have teammates who could keep up with them whereas Eichel did not, which indicates that their team did not lack talent.

I then spelled out a conclusion stating that Buffalo's inability to reach the playoffs is best understood from the lens that the team doesn't have enough talent.

I was not using the statistic to showcase how talented Eichel is, but how untalented his team is.

A later post noted that only three players were comparable to Eichel in 19-20, and two of them missed the playoffs too despite being former Cup winners. The other one was MacKinnon, and the gap between Colorado and Buffalo shouldn't need to be broken down.

 

[Panda Bear]

These are very good numbers, no doubt.

However, they are 1) a bit misleading and 2) skirting around the other issues people have brought up, since not a single person said Eichel wasn't an extremely gifted offensive player.

1) Yes he outscored the next highest teammates on his team. However (and you are picking 1 single year to do this for, for some reason) they weren't the "worst" offensive team in the league. They were the 6th worst. Eichel was on a team that scored more goals than Barzal's NYI. ES ppg Eichel was .74 and Barzal was .71. Now let's do this year: Eichel's BUF is STILL outscoring Barzal's NYI. Eichel ES PPG- .43, Barzal- .67 That said: Eichel is a better offensive player than Barzal. When healthy he most likely will put up more pts than Barzal (especially since Barzal is playing on a team with far tighter defensive systems that require more D commitment... I mean if you are going to throw Eichel's poor coaching in as an excuse, then you also have to include that while Trotz is a great coach, his numbers will absolutely deflate pure scoring).

2) Speaking of Defense- The knock on Eichel isn't that he's not a great point producer. He is. The question, and it's been there since before BU (I live in the Merrimack Valley and have heard about Eichel since he was pretty young) is whether he's a "winning" player. Now I tend to poo poo those kinds of criticisms because a lot of it is totally team dependent... but Eichel does have an "attitude" or "ego" that does affect how he plays. He plays "Hard" but he doesn't play disciplined or smart and that shows up in the defensive numbers.

Looking at last season, since you want to cherry pick that one.... and since you are very hung up with comparing Eichel's numbers with the Fs on his own team.. here are the F's on BUF last year who had a lower Goals Aganist/60 than Eichel:

Michael Frolik
Jimmy Vesey
Johann Larson
Kyle Okposo
Zemgus Girgensons
Vlad Sobotka
Victor Olofsson
Casey Mittelstadt

Eichel was deadsmack in the middle... meaning on a really bad team, he was mediocre in stopping goals. Of course, that's even worse when you consider that he's facing other team's best defensive players, trying to stop him from scoring, while opposing teams are saving their scoring lines for BUF's weak (as you admit) rest of the roster.

And with all his outscoring his teammates....by far as you know... he was 6th amongst Fs on his team in xGF%. Yup... gets lots of points and very talented. But not even close to Barkov as far as defensive play goes.

P.S. In 19-20 according to NaturalStatTrick, Barkov posted 47.79 xG% and 2.94 xGA/60. Eichel posted 48.29 xG% and 2.77 xGA/60. #defence

 

[Mats13]

I think it's safe to say that Eichel's all-around problem is the Buffalo Sabres franchise owned by the Pegula family. It's a good thing to be competitive and not numb to losing.

Placing Suzuki above Eichel is one of the stupider things I've read this past month.

For what it’s worth that guy didn’t have Matthews, Eichel or Crosby in his top 22. So what level of intelligence are we dealing with here, right? lmao

 

[summer tooth]

Possibly Ryan Johansen but unlikely

 

[Muikea Bulju]

Interesting how that’s the standard for Buffalo but not Edmonton.

Which team has the longest out-of-the-playoffs streak in the league?

Which of the teams has zero cups?

 

[Muikea Bulju]

Are you serious? Sid is among the greatest playoff performers in the history. He's the definition of winning hockey.

And how many Cups is he going to win in the future? Zero.

 

[Muikea Bulju]

Who do you think is carried the Penguins on his back all season long and got them 1st place in the MassMutual East? Santa Claus?

According to Point Shares, Kris Letang.

 

[BB88]

I feel he has much higher scoring ability. Barkov's two way play is superior but Jack can get there a lot easier than Barkov can have his offensive skill. And bear in mind Eichel plays for the Sabres. He doesn't have Barkovs surrounding cast

Barkov has a career high of 96 and this year had 58 points in 50 games, with 10+ different wingers next to him and none of them were star players.

The beauty of Barkov is that you can put an 4th line winger or a powerforward or a star forward like Huberdeau next to him and he will produce at the same level and makes everyone around him better.

Eichel doesn’t have that and Eichel hasn’t hit 96 points.

Eichel is inferior to Barkov without the puck.

& lastly you know Barkov plays for Florida?


Eichel has done absolutely nothing to show he’s better than todays Barkov

Jonathan Huberdeau and Aaron Ekblad are such anchors too. And Hoffman, Jagr, Marchessault, Dadonov... Barkov is an elite player but it’s not like he’s played with trash cans or that Eichel of all players has had better line-mates through his career.

Barkov put up 58 points in 50 games this year with Hubs on the 2nd line and Ekblad missing half the season.

Verhaeghe, Hornqvist, Vatrano, Marchment, Duclair, Denisenko, Tippett as his wingers.

With Barkov there’s absolutely no reason to go but he plays for Florida and he plays for Buffalo.
Barkov is the biggest difference maker of the 2 teams.

 

[Mr Positive]

& lastly you know Barkov plays for Florida?

Yes I do, but do you mean that Barkov doesnt have a good surrounding cast there?

 

[BB88]

Yes I do, but do you mean that Barkov doesnt have a good surrounding cast there?

Well I just missed my edit but honestly not really.

Ekblad missed half the season.
Hubs was on the 2nd line.

Vatrano, Denisenko, Verhaeghe, Hornqvist, Tippett, Marchment, Duclair were his linemates while going against the best.

One could argue he had the worst linemates out of these superstar forwards and put up 58 in 50.

& Barkov put up 96 points in a season before.
Let’s not act like all of a sudden Florida has been seen as a contender throughout Barkovs career

 

[Mr Positive]

Well I just missed my edit but honestly not really.

Ekblad missed half the season.
Hubs was on the 2nd line.

Vatrano, Denisenko, Verhaeghe, Hornqvist, Tippett, Marchment, Duclair were his linemates while going against the best.

One could argue he had the worst linemates out of these superstar forwards and put up 58 in 50.

& Barkov put up 96 points in a season before.
Let’s not act like all of a sudden Florida has been seen as a contender throughout Barkovs career

It's still a case where his best production is happening when the team is at it's best. Its hard to objectively compare players when they play under such different circumstances. Barkov doesn't play with the biggest names but that's not as important as the whole team clicking and succeeding.

So yes, one can say Barkov or O'Reilly are better, sure, but all you need to argue to say Eichel is better is that he has shown incredible skill and production even on a bad team, which is a handicap. If then you wanted to argue that maybe Eichel is responsible for his team's issues, go ahead. But it is all opinion. None more valid than others

 

[BB88]

It's still a case where his best production is happening when the team is at it's best. Its hard to objectively compare players when they play under such different circumstances. Barkov doesn't play with the biggest names but that's not as important as the whole team clicking and succeeding.

So yes, one can say Barkov or O'Reilly are better, sure, but all you need to argue to say Eichel is better is that he has shown incredible skill and production even on a bad team, which is a handicap. If then you wanted to argue that maybe Eichel is responsible for his team's issues, go ahead. But it is all opinion. None more valid than others

Barkov surprisingly puts up his best production when he is healthy, big surprise.

He had 78 in 79, followed it with 96 in 82, injury season still 62 in 66 and back healthy and 58 in 50.

Eichel has the better offensive touch but there’s nothing to support that and you know very well you can’t use linemates as an excuse either in this case.

Can you honestly say you think Florida would be where they are today if you put Eichel in Barkovs spot with the same linemates and assigments?

I would bet money on absolutely not

 

[BFLO]

When you say "recency bias" pertaining to Sebastian Aho and Brayden Point, you might actually referring to "their whole NHL careers."

Aho has outscored Eichel in terms of most goals per season, highest point totals, a climbing PPG average propelling sustained regular season success on a mid 2010s rebuild team that has turned into a true contender, a very good playoff track record, more career goals and closing in on career point totals.

Brayden Point has delivered a Stanley Cup as a first line center and a Conn Smythe caliber run, produced a 41 goal season and 92 point career high and 50 more playoff points.

A lot of time has passed since that 2015 draft.

2018-2019 Aho scored 83 points in 82 games vs Eichel 82 points in 77 games.

2019-2020

Aho 38 goals 28 assists 66 points in 68 games

Eichel 36 goals 42 assists 78 points in 68 games.

But Aho is better?

 

[wunderpanda]

Here's a question. All hypothetical.

Let's say Eichel goes to the Rangers like rumored.

He plays a full season with Panarin-Eichel-Buch(maybe Rangers fans can chime in if those wouldn't be his linemates)

What does he finish at for point totals?

I'm hearing he has no support in Buffalo so I'm curious where people think he lands in a full season with that line.

over 100 points, misses playoffs and the coach gets fired

 

[Volica]

McDavid, Barkov, Matthews, Nate MacKinnon are for sure better.

Crosby, Schiefele are in the same area for me. If someone says top 5, I wouldn’t argue, if someone said top 7 I wouldn’t argue kind of thing.