Vegas Golden Knights’ Jack Eichel to miss game with injury

The Vegas Golden Knights have announced that center Jack Eichel will miss Saturday’s game against the Calgary Flames due to an undisclosed injury.

Golden Knights head coach Bruce Cassidy mentioned earlier on Saturday that Eichel, 27, was sore and underwent some tests, and the update they got today indicated that he was going to miss some time. It’s unclear as to what caused the injury, as Eichel finished Thursday’s 2-1 overtime win over the Boston Bruins and even assisted on the OT winner, although he didn’t take a shift for about 14 minutes in the second period.

Eichel has had a strong season this year, with 19 goals and 25 assists for 44 points in 42 games, with a big part of that being that he was finally looking to have a healthy season until this recent injury. His current pace in an 82-game season would have him with 85 points, which would be a career-high for the North Chelmsford, Massachusetts native.

Despite not being able to put up high point totals like originally thought when he was drafted, Eichel has turned into a really strong defensive center in the league. Since the start of the 2020-21 season, his 0.156 defensive goals above replacement per 60 minutes is 20th in the league among forwards with at least 3,000 minutes of ice time.

Eichel was a former second-overall selection of the Buffalo Sabres in the 2015 NHL Draft. He spent six seasons with the Sabres before a disagreement with the team regarding a surgery caused him to request a trade, resulting in the eventual deal that sent him to the Golden Knights. He’s now in his third season in Vegas, and won his first Stanley Cup in his first playoff season in 2023.

Eichel is in the sixth year of an eight-year contract with a $10 million cap hit, which makes him the first player in the salary cap era to win a Stanley Cup with a $10+ million cap hit.

With Eichel out of the lineup, his current linemates in Mark Stone and Ivan Barbashev have been dispersed throughout the top six, with Stone playing on the top line with Chandler Stephenson and Pavel Dorofeyev, while Barbashev will be on the second line with Nicolas Roy and Jonathan Marchessault.

The Golden Knights will look to build off of Thursday’s win over the Bruins when they host the Flames on Saturday at 10 p.m. EST. They currently sit in second in the Pacific Division with a 24-13-5 record.