The Golden Knights got goals from Jack Eichel in 2025-26, just not nearly enough of the right kind.
That became a real issue during Vegas’ run to the 2026 Stanley Cup Final, where Eichel finished with only two goals. He still produced a point per game across the run, but most of that damage came through setup work. Eichel piled up 11 primary assists, and the result left plenty of fans asking where the team’s face of the franchise went when the games tightened up.
The frustration wasn’t limited to the Final, either. Eichel’s scoring profile last season pointed to a bigger problem: he wasn’t giving Vegas enough on the power play.
Across the regular season and postseason, he scored just one power play goal. That lone tally came April 13 in a 6-2 win over the Winnipeg Jets, a game in which he also posted four points.
That stands out even more next to his 2023-24 season, when he scored 11 power play goals. His overall goal totals across his five seasons in Vegas have been fairly similar, aside from the shortened 2021-22 campaign, when he scored 14. But the power play production has swung sharply, and that’s where the drop-off really shows up.
In 2023-24, Eichel scored as many power play goals as he did in all of his other Golden Knights seasons combined. The next season, he managed five. Last season, he barely got off the mark.
The shot data tells a similar story. According to MoneyPuck, Eichel does his best work on high-danger chances, but he hasn’t lived there often enough to fully cash in.
His career-high High-Danger xGoals came in 2018-19 with the Buffalo Sabres at 12.33. His average shot distance sits at 34.6 feet, which suggests a lot of his looks come from farther out, with rebounds and deflections doing some of the heavy lifting.
That opens the door to a simple idea: use him more as the cleanup option when the power play starts to break down. If opponents are able to bump Tomas Hertl or Mark Stone out of the bumper, Eichel can become the player who finishes the play up front and keeps the pressure on.
It’s not the role he’s built around, and he doesn’t bring the size Hertl does. But if Vegas wants a little more out of its top player, that’s one way to get it. The Golden Knights were two games short of the Stanley Cup last season, and Eichel’s missing piece was part of that gap.
In Other News...
Reilly Smith Is Facing The NHL Reality Vegas Fans Hate
Reilly Smith gave the Golden Knights a useful season on a one-year deal, chipping in 16 goals and 26 points in 69 games while fitting back into a familiar role in Vegas. For a team that knows exactly what he can still provide, the appeal is obvious: dependable offense, experience and a player who already understands the standard here.
The harder part is the market around him, where teams are looking at his age and seeing a veteran who just turned 35. Even with a track record that still matters, the NHL tends to get cautious once players move into their mid-to-late 30s, and that reality can make a productive season mean less than a fan base would like. For Vegas, the question is not whether Smith helped, but whether the league is willing to value that help the same way. [Read more 🡒]
John Tortorella Finally Addressed The Golden Knights Decision That Still Stings
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What still makes the episode linger is how much it cost the organization in the moment and how publicly the front office pushed back on the decision. Tortorella said the absence came down to timing and a prior understanding around the media availability, while George McPhee and Kelly McCrimmon made clear afterward that they believed the team paid a price for it. Even with Ryan Craig now behind the bench, the episode remains one of those odd playoff flashpoints that never quite disappears. [Read more 🡒]