Jack Eichel Is Back with a Vengeance

With four points in two games, including the game tying and winning goals in Thursday's win over the Rangers, Jack Eichel is starting his season off in dream form. It's just a little bit later than expected.

The Sabres are 2-0 since his return, and everyone in the organization and the NHL in general can be extra grateful for one more thing this holiday season—Jack is Back.

The No. 2 overall pick in 2015 was a bright spot on a bad Sabres team last year that was still in the early stages of a full blown tank and rebuild plan that saw it just miss out on Connor McDavid. But, as Eichel continues to prove every shift, Buffalo's consolation prize is pretty damn good, too.

Eichel's bid to break through the shadows of McDavid, and the other crop of young guns tearing it up in the NHL, was put on hold when he sustained a high ankle sprain Oct. 12 in the final practice before the start of the regular season. The former Boston University Terrier returned to game action this week after missing the exact eight-week span that is most common with this type of injury.

High ankle sprains are also notoriously unpredictable in hockey due to the primary motion of the skating stride and the fickle relationship between the ankle and a hard, unforgiving skate boot. Players returning from an high ankle sprains often start off slow and tentative while re-adjusting to the high-paced NHL game. Eichel has other ideas for his return, though, as he showed immediately with two points in a 5-4 win Tuesday against Ottawa, while following it up Thursday with two goals in the third period to single-handedly carry the Sabres over Rangers.

The Sabres finished second last in the Atlantic last season, ahead of only Toronto, while struggling to find any type of consistency on top of being simply overmatched on most nights. Eichel, however, was a beast. Playing in all but one game, the now 20-year-old put up 56 points—21 of those on the power play—including 24 goals. With a lack of established NHL talent to lean on, he still finished second in rookie scoring behind Chicago's Artemi Panarin, who had the benefit of playing alongside the often un-human Patrick Kane all season long.

In sports, as in life, you often don't realize what you have until it's taken away from you. The Buffalo Sabres are much better off when Jack Eichel is in the lineup, and with every shift he's taken since returning, we are reminded how much we've missed him, too.