Home cooking: Visit to Boston sparks best performance of Jack Eichel's career
Nineteen-year-old Jack Eichel did not look like a rookie for the Buffalo Sabres in the third period of Saturday night’s game against the Boston Bruins.
The Sabres trailed 3-1 with 10 minutes left, but that was no problem for Eichel and his teammates. Ryan O’Reilly scored at 10:21 in the frame to tighten the game to 3-2. Eichel took charge of the puck on the next shift, and when no passing lanes opened up for him, he chanced a shot through traffic that ended up in the back of the net.
His game-tying goal came 39 seconds after O’Reilly’s tally. It was the first goal in eight games for Eichel, and it marked the first of three points in the third period for Eichel as he helped the Sabres to a 6-3 win.
The game was the first time Eichel, a North Chelmsford, Mass., native, returned to Boston as an NHL player. And with an assist in the second period added to his three-point third period performance, Eichel also recorded the first four-point night of his NHL career.
“I think there’s times this year where I could have had points in games and I didn’t, and today I think I just got the bounces,” Eichel said. “Sometimes the bounces come to you and you get that luck. And it’s nice to get it in this building.”
The building, Boston’s TD Garden, is one that Eichel is probably more familiar with than most of the players on the Buffalo roster. Saturday might have marked his first NHL game in Boston, but it was his seventh time playing on Garden ice in 2015.
Eichel won a Beanpot championship on Garden ice as the star center for Boston University in February. He helped the Terriers to a Hockey East championship at the TD Garden in March, and he made it to the NCAA national title game there in April.
BU lost that game in heartbreaking fashion after goalie Matt O’Connor netted an own-goal and the Terriers blew a 3-2 third-period lead. Eichel’s last moment on Garden ice as a Terrier saw him curled up in a ball on the ice in devastation.
It’s only fitting then that Eichel enjoyed the best performance of his NHL career so far in his next game at the Garden. Eichel’s transition to the NHL has not always been so easy.
The teenager has been surrounded by hype since the NHL Draft in June, when Buffalo selected Eichel with the No. 2 overall pick and the hopes of a city were placed on his shoulders.
Eichel jerseys have been selling like crazy since they hit stores in June. Thousands of people turned up to Eichel’s first practice with the Sabres in training camp. As Eichel continues to face NHL “firsts” throughout the season, the attention on him remains high. On Saturday, so many reporters wanted to talk to Eichel following his first game in Boston that the Sabres’ staff created a makeshift podium for the rising star to speak from.
Eichel’s volume of production on the ice does not yet match the volume of attention he receives, though he ranks third on the team in scoring with 20 points (11 goals, nine assists) in 35 games and is fourth in the NHL in scoring by a rookie.
Eichel was tabbed as a generational player, an exceptional talent, and he has not quite grown into that role yet.
“He’s gone through some ups and downs,” Buffalo coach Dan Bylsma said of his young star. “We’ve seen him play some great games, and we’ve seen some tough stretches of playing a lot of hockey. We’ve had this break and I think we’ve seen him come back from that break energized and with a little more jump in his step. You know he’s an excellent, dynamic player and that’s where he’s got to be night in and night out for us.”
Eichel attributed some of that rejuvenation to a Christmas visit back home to North Chelmsford during the NHL’s three-day Christmas break.
“It was nice to see some family and friends, just kind of unwind a little bit,” Eichel said. “It’s been pretty busy for me the last few months, a little overwhelming at times, and just to go home and see the people that I’ve always been around – my mom, my dad, my sister, you know my whole family … it’s nice to spend some time at home and kind of mentally regain yourself.”
The hope for Eichel moving forward is that his visit home – both for Christmas and for his first NHL game in Boston – will propel him into a torrid second half. Buffalo sits three points out of the basement in the Atlantic Division standings and has the sixth-worst offense in the NHL. Any improvement from Eichel could be a huge boost.
For now, Eichel -- and the Sabres -- will settle for the sweet taste of victory and a four-point night back home at the TD Garden. It’s one more “first” in the books for Eichel and one more night to remember at the place where his NHL dreams first took root.
As Eichel said after the game, “This is another great memory that I’ll never forget.”
