Rogers Place in Edmonton is the stage for Connor McDavid versus Jack Eichel, as division rivals, when the Golden Knights visit the Oilers on Saturday night.
The star centers were drafted No. 1 and No. 2 in 2015, heralded as one of the most talented duos atop the draft in some time. They began their NHL careers eight years ago in opposite conferences, but Vegas’ trade to acquire Eichel last November brought the two competitors closer.
Advertisement
They’ve both had plenty of success on an individual level, with McDavid and his two Hart Trophy wins far outweighing Eichel’s accolades to this point. But neither has won at the level they desire. At least not yet.
Now that they’re both on teams with Stanley Cup aspirations, they’re standing directly in each other’s path as divisional foes.
This has the potential to become the NHL’s next great individual rivalry.
“Any time they play, that’s going to be watched by a lot of people — and should be,” said Mark Seidel, chief scout of North American Central Scouting, who has watched the two develop since their pre-NHL days.
“They’re the best players on both teams. It’s not that different than (Sidney) Crosby and (Alex) Ovechkin, how they used to be when they went head to head. It’s the next step of that rivalry. I think it’ll be that way for a long time to come.”
McDavid and Eichel have played against each other only once in the last 1,000 days. They’re certainly further along in their careers than Crosby and Ovechkin were when their rivalry began, but in leading two of the most talented teams in the Western Conference, they could see a lot of each other moving forward.
“You’ve got two highly competitive guys,” Seidel said. “Connor is legendary. I don’t like how Jack gets portrayed as a sulking superstar. He wants to win something fierce.”
There’s no question that McDavid has been the better player to this point — and that’s no surprise.
McDavid was seen as hockey’s next can’t-miss star before he was even a teenager. He was always the youngest player on his minor hockey teams and always the best. He entered the Ontario Hockey League and dominated that league for three seasons. All he’s done in the NHL is produce. In his six post-rookie campaigns, he’s been the scoring champion four times and finished in the runner-up spot twice. He paces the NHL in goals (15) and points (32) this season in just 17 games.
Advertisement
“I don’t think anyone should compare themselves to him,” Eichel said of McDavid. “I think with what he’s doing, and the way that he plays, he’s just on a level of his own. I don’t try to compare myself to anyone. I just try to be the best version of me.”
McDavid has 729 points in 504 NHL games. He doesn’t turn 26 until January, but his place as a hockey immortal is already secured.
The difference between McDavid and Eichel is vast, which is more a credit to the former than a slight against the latter.
“Connor McDavid is one of the top 10 greatest players ever, maybe top five, and Jack Eichel is a superstar,” Seidel said. “There are 20 superstars in the NHL today. In all ways, Connor has certainly been better.
“It’s unfair to Jack because you’re talking about a generational, top-10 forever player.”
Eichel’s been no slouch, though, with 401 points in 427 career games despite playing the vast majority of them on a struggling Sabres squad. Finally back to full strength after neck surgery and surrounded by a talented cast in Vegas, Eichel is hitting his stride.
He’s nearing a 100-point pace for the first time in his career, leading the Golden Knights in goals (10) and points (21) as they’ve built up the best record in the Western Conference. Perhaps more impressively, he’s taken over all three zones. Eichel has used his unique combination of speed and strength to muscle the puck away from the opposition and convert those takeaways into immediate offense.
“He’s big and he’s a power skater,” McDavid said. “He’s a great player.”
Vegas’ top line of Eichel, Mark Stone and Chandler Stephenson is tops in the league in expected goal share, and Eichel has been on the ice for 13 goals for and only four against at even strength.
This stat visualization from WaveIntel shows McDavid’s individual stats are otherworldly, but whether it’s the result of playing on a stronger overall team or his own defensive improvements, Eichel’s on-ice metrics are vastly superior this season, especially defensively.
Advertisement
“They’re both world-class players,” said Sharks forward Timo Meier, who was selected at No. 9 in that draft by San Jose. “McDavid is no doubt the best right now, but Jack has shown that he’s up there, too, and he’s a player that’s very hard to play against.
“Seeing them play against each other, and competing, is fun for the fans. Obviously two really hard players to defend and play against. The skill sets they have. The way they can beat you in multiple ways. Both have unbelievable speed, so they are two of the top superstars in the league.”
McDavid had been viewed as the No. 1 pick in the 2015 draft for years. There were times when Eichel got his name in the conversation during the 2014-15 season — even if it was just whispers — but McDavid was the wire-to-wire leader.
“He was a good player (that season),” McDavid said. “He was playing in college and our paths never really crossed. He’s a guy I’ve gotten to know a little bit around the draft stuff. He’s a guy I quite like.”
Meier is from Switzerland but played his draft season for the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League’s Halifax Mooseheads, so he heard plenty of McDavid-Eichel scuttlebutt.
“You could definitely tell how big the hype was around these two guys,” Meier said. “You see these guys and you compare yourself. You always want to be the best.”
The 2015 draft lottery was a made-for-TV special, designed so everyone could find out which team got the right to draft McDavid. Eichel, who was unable to attend the event in Toronto, was merely an afterthought.
“They really weren’t that close,” Seidel said. “The term ‘generational talent’ gets thrown around way too much, but Connor truly was that. The difference was his skating.
“You just knew his skating was going to be that much better than everybody else’s.”
Never was that afterthought status surrounding Eichel more obvious than when then-Sabres GM Tim Murray, whose team had the best odds to land the No. 1 pick, compared the slide down to a player getting the call that he’d been cut from the Canadian world junior team. He added that he felt bad for Sabres fans.
Advertisement
“From our standpoint, you’re talking about a guy who we felt — and it hasn’t changed — was so much different than any other prospect that we’ve seen in so long, probably since Crosby,” Seidel said of McDavid.
“Jack was a really, really good prospect — certainly, a high-end prospect — and the second-best prospect that year. But the gap was significant. There was no team that was going to try to trade up to (No.) 1 and take Eichel over McDavid.”
Eichel didn’t let the noise get to him. Quite the opposite, in fact. He reportedly told teams in his draft interviews that he’d be better than McDavid. That clearly hasn’t come to fruition, but he’s done just fine in his NHL career.
Eichel has now joined McDavid as the best player on one of the Pacific Division’s best teams.
In the Oilers’ case, that descriptor is more projection than reality at this point. After reaching the final four last season, they’re a middling 9-8 so far with below average underlying numbers.
McDavid has been one of the few standout performers. In addition to his remarkable counting stats, he’s the only Oiler to be at least even in goals for, shots for and Corsi for percentages at five-on-five — per Natural Stat Trick. He drives the bus; most others hop aboard when they can.
The way things have gone for the Oilers, it might take a gargantuan effort from McDavid on Saturday for them to beat Eichel’s Golden Knights in the first matchup in the new head-to-head battle.
“I can see how people want to make that a story, but it’s so long ago now,” McDavid said. “I don’t think people are talking about the Taylor Hall and Tyler Seguin (draft) year. Time kind of fades (things). He’s a great player. Vegas and himself are off to a great start.”
There’s obviously no rivalry at the moment. The two have only played against each other nine times.
Advertisement
“Honestly I don’t really look at it like (a rivalry),” Eichel said. “The draft is so long ago, and it’s one or two days and you’re past it. You might use that hype for one season, and you get past the draft and all that comes with it pretty quickly. At the end of the day, you’re going out there with your group, competing against another group, and that’s really just the mindset for everyone.”
In the nine regular season meetings, Eichel has a slight edge with five wins. Eichel has five goals and five assists, including two game-winners, while McDavid has three goals and five assists. The games themselves, however, were little more than a novelty since the Sabres were awful and the Oilers often weren’t much better. Now, the circumstances have changed.
Edmonton advanced to the Western Conference finals last season, and Vegas has gone at least that far in three of its five seasons. After an injury-riddled 2021-22, the Golden Knights appear to have returned to a familiar perch atop the Pacific Division. As each team’s top player, McDavid and Eichel will play major roles in that race — starting on Saturday.
“You always like challenges, as a group and as an individual,” Eichel said. “That’s a big game for us. They’re a team that we want to establish ourselves as competitive with.”
There’s a mutual admiration between the two players as they embark on battles as divisional opponents. It extends beyond the respect they have for each other’s abilities on the ice.
Both players have endured serious injuries that had the potential to drastically alter their career trajectories.
McDavid suffered a torn-in-half PCL, torn knee joint and cracked front tibia when he went crashing into the goalpost in the final game of the 2018-19 season. He returned in time for the next campaign after a grueling summer of rehab work.
Advertisement
Eichel suffered a herniated disc in his neck as a result of a hit in March 2021. The Sabres organization urged the star forward to undergo disc fusion surgery, but after discussions with several doctors, Eichel decided on artificial disc replacement surgery — a procedure that had never been performed on an NHL player at that time.
After months of dispute, Buffalo eventually dealt Eichel to Vegas. He had the surgery performed shortly after, in November 2021, and returned to NHL action three months later. Eichel was in a difficult situation based on the rules written in the collective bargaining agreement between the NHL and NHLPA — which place some control over medical decisions in the hands of the teams — but he remained steadfast on his decision and eventually had his preferred surgery.
“As athletes, as hockey players, I think everybody understands injuries are part of it, and it’s a scary thing,” McDavid said. “Just to see him go through that situation was troubling.
“Players should have a say in what happens to their own body. We’re the ones that have to live in that body for the rest of our lives. I thought he did a good job of standing up for what he thought was right and getting the procedure that he thought was right. It’s good to see him back on his feet.”
The two aren’t close friends, but have followed each other’s careers after sharing draft day in 2015.
“I’ve known him for a while now,” Eichel said of McDavid. “I’m friendly with him if I see him in the summer. If we’re at the BioSteel (offseason camp), or whatever. I wouldn’t say we’re calling each other and seeing how we’re doing, but when I’m around him we converse, catch up and things are good.”
Eichel finished ninth in Hart Trophy voting in 2019-20, his last full season. He’s back to that level now. Of course, McDavid has consistently been on the shortlist of the league’s best players for years.
Advertisement
Eichel’s early work and recent resurgence, coupled with McDavid’s dominance through seven-plus seasons, has already established the two as one of the best 1-2 draft combinations in NHL history.
The standard-bearer remains Hockey Hall of Famers Guy Lafleur and Marcel Dionne, who were selected with the first two picks in 1971. Seidel already has McDavid and Eichel ahead of the 2009 pairing of John Tavares and Victor Hedman. He ranks them as the best duo since the 2004’s Nos. 1 and 2, Alex Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin — two more surefire Hall of Famers.
“The top of that (2015) draft is as good as we’ve seen in a long time,” Seidel said.
Winning will only heighten the legacy of the player who does so.
A playoff matchup or two during the next few springs will no doubt kick a nascent rivalry into overdrive, as it did with Ovechkin and Crosby’s battles.
Ovechkin and Crosby have 63 head-to-head meetings in the regular season and have faced each other in the playoffs four times.
Considering McDavid and Eichel’s ages, and the current landscape of the Pacific Division, a playoff series or two between them isn’t hard to imagine.
“(For Eichel) to go head to head with McDavid, that would be a seven-game series that I would certainly pay to watch,” Seidel said. “Fans want to see the best players on the ice and those are two of the best in the league.”
(Photo: Andy Devlin / NHLI via Getty Images)
ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57knJncXFiZ3xzfJFrZmppX2aFcLnCnZivoZRisqqvx56jZqeZobKzv4ygpqWclaN6rLrIoJ%2Btq18%3D