Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

9

Jack Eichel

Vegas Golden Knights Center

Three hundred and twenty-eight attempts and 258 on goal, both the most on the club, in 63 games.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2015-16BUF81243256-162280523810.119:07
2016-17BUF61243357-132210042499.619:55
2017-18BUF67253964-253230424610.220:09
2018-19BUF77285482-11268023039.220:26
2019-20BUF68364278+534111922715.922:06
2020-21BUF2121618-96101613.320:30
2021-22VGK34141125+31030213310.519:24
2022-23VGK67273966+26620222312.118:46
2023-24VGK63313768+427110727811.220:31
2024-25 so far
Career539211303514-3618557136195810.820:06

This Season So Far

The 2024-25 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

63 games, 31 goals and 37 assists for 68 points, 11 on the power play, 27 penalty minutes, 20:31 a night and plus-4, with 7 game-winners. He took 53.1 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 871 minutes, the 76th percentile, and his ice went 43-33 against an expectation of 38.67-34.13.

Four goals of finishing above what the chances were worth and a goal of goaltending above them. Seven game-winners in 63 games is the most on the club and 68 points in three-quarters of a season is a first-line rate nobody else here matched.

The Finesse Game

328 attempts at a median of 31 feet with 28 per cent of them from inside twenty and 22 per cent from beyond forty, 258 of those on goal, converted at 11.2 per cent against a career 10.78 across 1,958 shots.

211 career goals and 303 assists in 539 games. Three hundred and twenty-eight attempts and 258 of them on goal are both the largest totals on this club by a wide margin; he crosses the line at speed and releases from the top of the circle before the gap closes.

The Physical Game

He is 6-2 and 208 and took 27 penalty minutes.

185 career penalty minutes in 539 games. He is a large centre who uses the size to protect the puck rather than to take it back; there is no forechecking damage in his game and there has never needed to be.

The Intangibles

Second overall in 2015 by Buffalo, nine seasons, and Vegas is his second organisation.

A career minus-36 and 36 game-winners in 539 games. He is 27, almost all of the minus was earned in Buffalo, and he has not played seventy games in a season since 2018-19.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 871 minutes

Expected goals
53.1%
77th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
50.3%
57th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 43 for, 33 against. Expected: 38.7 and 34.1.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
99th
Numbers
77th

The report ranks him 22 points above where the numbers do. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.

Both bars are percentiles among the 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 85 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.

Usual linemates

2023-24 · 871 minutes at five-on-five

Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.

Why the numbers land there

Five-on-five, 2023-24

The club
VGK took 51.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 53.1% — 1.9 above the club he did it on.
The role
First line, 871 minutes at five-on-five — 46th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Ivan Barbashev52.1%57.8%46.9%
Jonathan Marchessault52.4%54.4%48.5%
Brayden McNabb53.0%53.2%52.0%

52.1% together, 57.8% for him apart and 46.9% for Barbashev apart. He was carrying it: the share stayed with him and left Barbashev behind.

Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.

Where he shoots from

goal on goal missed

328 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 31 of them goals. His median goal came from 18 feet. 28% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 22% from beyond forty.