Jack Eichel on Recent Struggles “Nobody Plays 82 Games Perfectly”

As the Vegas Golden Knights falter and become in danger of losing the first spot in the Pacific Division standings, all eyes have been on Jack Eichel. These last two games have been two of the worst of Eichel's career. He's -5 in these two contents with zero points and has lacked any sort of flare that you would come to expect from star players in the National Hockey League.

"There's gonna be ups and downs throughout the course of a season. Nobody plays 82 games straight perfectly. It's frustrating; we want to be better. But, you know, we learn from these games and figure out what you need to do better as a group,” Eichel said after Wednesday's practice.

What magnifies Eichel's play is that the Golden Knights are missing captain Mark Stone due to an upper-body injury. This results in more people putting more pressure on Eichel to perform. However, Eichel is not one of these people, as he views it as the team's goal as a whole to make up for Stone's absence.

"I think I probably already put enough pressure on myself as is. And I'm sure all the other guys in here would say the same. Everyone has the right mindset, we all want to step up and help the team win, and we're all in this together," said Eichel.

Eichel himself was injured for eleven straight games this season with an apparent lower-body injury. With his recent struggles, many have speculated whether or not Eichel is playing through an injury. But he assures everyone that he is fine.

"You never want to have that happen in the middle of the season. But listen, injuries are gonna happen in this league. I feel good now. I'm just trying to refine my game; I feel like I've played pretty well in two of the five games and the other three were definitely not my best. I'm a work in progress every day," said Eichel.

A resulting factor of all the VGK injuries has been the rotating door of wingers with Eichel, who has not had consistent linemates all season. He is currently now playing with Chandler Stephenson and Phil Kessel after the experiment of Paul Cotter, and Nicolas Roy didn't work out.

"I think that Bruce (Cassidy) is always trying to make in-game adjustments, and maybe find a spark for the group. Obviously, we've been struggling a little bit lately to score goals. There are always going to be in-game adjustments when you have injuries things are gonna be constantly changing. So I think whenever or whoever you're out there with, everyone understands our system and the way that we're trying to play as a team," said Eichel.

Eichel and the Golden Knights will play the Detroit Red Wings on Thursday night at 7:00 p.m. from inside T-Mobile Arena.