Jack Eichel Is Now A Very Rich Man
When Connor McDavid signed his 8 year/$12.5M AAV contract earlier in the summer, everybody immediately began to wonder what Jack Eichel’s next contract was going to look like. Eichel hasn’t had quite as much success in his first 2 years in the league as McDavid but he’s not that far off. At least not individually speaking. But it was starting to look like Jack Eichel was going to bet on himself and go into the last year of his ELC without an extension in place. Then out of now where, Kathryn Tappen came out of the clouds with a little breaking news tonight.
This is a huge get for the Buffalo Sabres and great job by them to get the deal done before Jack Eichel goes absolutely ballistic this year. I already wrote a few weeks ago that I believe Jack Eichel is going to be the best player in the NHL this season. The kid has to be so fed up with all the success that Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews had last season. That shit has to eat him alive and keep him up every single night. The guy who was drafted #1 over him and his fellow American drafted #1 the next season have essentially become the faces of the league while he’s stuck on a Buffalo team that didn’t look like it knew which direction it was going in.
Well Buffalo’s direction is clear now that they locked up Eichel for 8 years at around $10 million (if that Dreger report is correct, which it usually is). And then there’s also this.
So the Sabres lock up the face of their franchise long term. They’ll give him the C. And they get him for ~$2.5M cheaper than McDavid per year. Am I saying that I would pay Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel the exact same money today? No I would not. McDavid is the best player in the world right now. But I think at the end of the season you’re going to see that Eichel could have easily gone between 11-12 million as opposed to 10-11. And that extra wiggle room will come in handy whenever the Sabres decide to go out and grabbing some free agents.
Hopefully Jacky goes out and buys himself a fresh new pair of crocs with those millions and millions and millions of dollars that are about to hit his bank account.
P.S. – That $11-12M AAV that I’m talking about is definitely what we’ll end up seeing for Auston Matthews next summer. Toronto is going to have so much fun trying to work around the salary cap for the next decade.