What would a Jack Eichel trade look like for the Anaheim Ducks?
It’s that wonderful time of year where the Anaheim Ducks get linked to a star player while fans everywhere prepare to have their hopes dashed. Or prepare to join an angry mob. The fact of the matter is that in recent years, no one can seem to agree on what direction the Ducks franchise is taking. Are they rebuilding? Is it just a light retool? Do they try to make the playoffs? If a club is in a rebuilding state AND trying to make the playoffs, does that make them Schrödinger's hockey team?
The Ducks have been linked to several stars in recent years in some form or another, like Max Pacioretty, Evander Kane, Kevin Shattenkirk, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Patrick Laine, and more. Only one of those ended up coming to fruition, and it has caused some divisiveness amongst the Anaheim faithful.
Now comes a new rumor, and this one has a lot of smoke. Moreso then we have seen in awhile. By now, it seems to be clear that Buffalo Sabres captain Jack Eichel is ready to move on; and so is his team. The 24 year old former second overall pick in the 2015 draft has publicly aired his grievances with how the club has failed to build around him as well as their handling of his neck injury that has been plaguing the star center for a good part of the previous year.
I know this is isn’t exactly the most responsible thing to do, but for a moment, put aside the injury concerns. Imagine Jack Eichel is perfectly healthy and is 100% ready to play next season. We’ll revisit the it shortly.
Maybe it’s because he was drafted behind Connor McDavid. Or maybe it’s because he’s been stuck on a Buffalo Sabres franchise that doesn’t know how to function as a normal hockey club. Whatever the reason, Jack Eichel has been underrated by a lot of people in the NHL. Like, quite a bit.
Card courtesy of Evolving Hockey.
From 2017-2020, Eichel was putting up absolute superstar underlying numbers. Eichel is basically prime Ryan Getzlaf right now. He does pretty much everything you would hope for from a star player. At his best, Eichel is arguably a top five player in the NHL. I mean look at some of these highlights, if you are skeptical of these claims and the pretty chart above.
Over the last 3 seasons (including his most recent down year), Eichel has put up 34.2 GAR (goals above replacement) per Evolving Hockey. That is nearly double Adam Henrique’s 18 GAR over that span, who is the Ducks leader in that category. Put simply, if Eichel were to come to Anaheim, he would instantly become the best player on the team by a wide margin. Even his down year wasn’t all that bad, especially compared to almost any player on the Ducks.
It is understood that modern NHL aging curves place a player’s prime scoring years around the age 21-24 seasons while maintaining about that level until around the age of 29 before the drop-off begins. Eichel is the kind of player who absolutely fits this mold, especially with better supporting talent. With the Ducks in rebuild mode but with some interesting supporting pieces, the contention window stands a decent chance to line up with Eichel’s potential prime window, especially in the later years.
Now to bring it back a dose of reality: the injury. Eichel was diagnosed with a herniated disc in his neck in March of this year.
“I've been a bit upset about the ways things have been handled since I've been hurt,” Eichel told reporters. “There's been a bit of a disconnect between myself and the organization. The most important thing now is to get healthy and be ready to play hockey next year, wherever that might be.”
Aside from the fact that it’s pretty obvious he is done in Buffalo, it appears that this surgery has never been performed on an NHL player before. Understandably, that muddies the waters of this situation quite a bit. Buffalo has wanted Eichel to attempt to rehab without the risk of surgery, yet Eichel clearly wants it. And at the moment, it seems that, as long as he is a member of the Buffalo Sabres, he won’t get it.
There are a million question marks with this issue. Clearly Eichel had a down year, and it’s all but guaranteed that the herniated disc played a significant role in his struggles. But with no barometer to measure potential surgery outcomes for this procedure as well as the disagreement on how to heal from it, Eichel’s value is much more unclear than it would be otherwise.
With no injury concerns or request for a trade, the package for Eichel starts and stops with either Trevor Zegras or Jamie Drysdale, the 3rd overall pick, and one or two more pieces. That’s how good he is and that’s how much he is worth. A youngish, prime superstar who could instantly give any team a major boost. However, the injury and public airing of grievances gives a potential trade to Anaheim a different look.
The 3rd overall pick is still a requirement. That much is certain. And that high of a pick is one of Anaheim’s most significant advantages over other teams in the running for Eichel. But would Zegras or Drysdale need to be part of the deal? What it will come down to is how Anaheim’s offer without them compares to competing offers. There is no doubt Bob Murray would ideally like to get a trade for Eichel done without including either of the Ducks blue-chip prospects. But if another team offers their blue-chip prospect? It’s pretty much over for them.
If Zegras or Drysdale do not need to be included to get a deal done, who could make it work? The obvious pick here, in addition to the 3rd overall selection, is Adam Henrique. Buffalo gets a replacement center who is still putting up some good numbers and who can instantly fill the leadership void left by Eichel. And even though Henrique is expensive for what he provides on the ice, he still gives Buffalo almost $5 million in savings compared to Eichel. And it makes Eichel’s $10 million AAV easier to work with for Anaheim.
Another piece that would likely have to be included would be a younger Ducks player. Max Comtois is one of the best choices here. As one of the few Ducks youngsters who has shown some level of finishing ability, Comtois could be enticing for a Buffalo team that hasn’t scored much in…well…a long time. And this might be an ideal time to move Comtois when his value could be at his highest, as his career 17% shooting mark looks suspicious and could be primed for some regression.
Maybe Troy Terry is more who Buffalo is after. While it would likely be in the best interest of the Ducks to hang on to Terry, who was arguably the Ducks best overall player last year, it would be smart for the Sabres to target the defensive-minded right winger to help stabilize their two-way play and give a boost to their power play.
Rickard Rakell would undoubtedly be appealing to Buffalo as well. Rakell is a proven support winger who has a history of putting the puck into the back of the net. He would certainly be more of a sure thing as far as production goes compared to Comtois, though Rakell will be a UFA at the end of the upcoming season, and it remains to be seen if Buffalo wants to blow everything up and start over (again) or if they want to try and be competitive.
Keep in mind that Buffalo GM Kevyn Adams does not technically have to trade Eichel. He is under contract for five more years. But it seems to be pretty clear that the best move for all parties would be to move on, or else run the risk of his value plummeting. The potential value for Eichel has already taken a hit, and waiting any longer will only further diminish the return Buffalo could get for their superstar captain.
But while Eichel is great and would instantly make Anaheim much better, it’s not exactly worth dumping half the prospect pipeline for him. On the one hand, Drysdale and especially Zegras are far from proven at the NHL level, despite flashes of brilliance. It’s like the Peter Griffin mystery box. “Eichel is Eichel but a Zegras could be anything. It could even be an Eichel!”
On the other hand, the Ducks are not one Eichel away from contending for a cup. They still need pieces to get back competitive hockey, especially with the Kings monster of a prospect pipeline, Vegas remaining infuriatingly good, and the entrance of the Seattle Kraken who have a good shot at being competitive right out of the gate like the Golden Knights before them.
Emptying the cupboard for Eichel would make sense if this was 2015 and the Ducks were one star away from being a force to be reckoned with. Not now coming off the worst season in franchise history with numerous question marks surrounding young players and aging veterans that somehow have not been moved for future assets.
But the truth is, superstar captains in their early-to-mid 20s don’t become available often. Hardly ever, in fact. The Ducks have already pulled off this kind of a deal once before, when they acquired 25-year-old Teemu Selanne from the Winnipeg Jets. And of course, the rest is history. Acquiring Eichel gives Anaheim a clear, guaranteed centerpiece to build aggressively around and would signal perhaps the clearest direction back towards contention this franchise has seen since the rebuild/retool/whatever the hell this is started.
Even if the Ducks have to give up Zegras or Drysdale, it would be hard to consider a trade for Jack Eichel a loss by any stretch of a definition. Would it be shortsighted to give up one of them? Likely yes. But, even with the injury questions, landing Jack Eichel would provide the Ducks with an instant superstar and give them a proven talent that would change the direction of the franchise moving forward.
To put this into perspective: perhaps the one thing all Ducks fans can agree on is that they need a replacement for Ryan Getzlaf on the ice. People are so excited about Zegras because he has long represented the most likely solution to that problem. But Eichel is that solution. Right now. And if you have the pieces to make that happen, well, maybe this is the big swing Murray needs to make to get the Ducks back on track.