Jack Eichel: "Just because you have surgery [and] you get opened up, doesn't mean.."



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Jack Eichel: "Just because you have surgery [and] you get opened up, doesn't mean.."

Jack Eichel is ready for the new season and is happy about the successful preparations. "It's been a nice offseason," he said for NHL.com "I guess more normal than the last two with COVID and then last summer, dealing with what I was dealing with.

… So, it's been good. The body feels good. It's good to have your health, and looking forward to the year." After the surgery he had, it could not be expected for him to show his full potential. It takes some time for things to fall into place and for him to be the right one.

Many will have to be patient. "Listen, I'm not going to make excuses," Eichel said. "I don't think I played well last year in terms of my expectation of myself, and I'm sure the opinion of the public is probably pretty similar.

They expect more out of me, and rightfully so. With that being said, I came off a major surgery after not playing for a year, and I had major spine surgery and played three months after and, so, that's pretty quick and, you know, like anybody that's had surgery or went through an injury, it takes a lot of time for you to get back to feeling like yourself."

Jack Eichel on the surgery

Eichel believes that he still needs a certain period to get back in shape after all the adversity.

"Just because you have surgery [and] you get opened up, doesn't mean everything goes back to normal," he said. "I was injured before having surgery for a long time, and you build a lot of compensations, and you get into a lot of poor patterns and other things start to act up.

So it's been a nice summer of trying to unwind a lot of things that maybe came with the injury, and just giving myself more time to heal and more time to do rehab and continue to just try and get back to feeling as much as myself as I can." Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy believes that Eichel will no longer have the pressure of being number 1 "Some nights less is going to be more because you're on a good team, you don't have to be driving everything every night," Cassidy said regarding Eichel.

"We have other good players. It doesn't mean you take nights off, that's not what I'm saying. Understand that you give us 18 1/2, 19 solid minutes, win your share of draws, make plays, but if you're not on the score sheet that night and we're winning games and you're helping us, that's a positive."