He wasn’t just playing. He was working. Some kids take slapshots at the net, aiming for top corners and trying to ring it off the posts. Eichel took the shots that no one practises. One summer, it was just backhands all day long, over and over again, until his wrists became arthritic. “When he was thirteen years old, he said to me, ‘I need to work on my first step,’” remembered his dad. “I’m going, ‘How did you get that one?’ But he would listen to all the pro hockey players and maybe that’s where he gets all his ideas.”
Eventually, it wasn’t just his backhand or his first step. According to Eichel, his entire game needed to get better. So he decided to play against men.
* * *
Dan Ferri knew his good buddy Jack was a bit obsessive when it came to training. But it was still surprising when Eichel showed up to the beach house Ferri’s family rented in New Hampshire with his hockey bag full of equipment. “Seriously? I invited him up to the beach for a weekend vacation and he’s going to the rink?” Well, not exactly. Eichel put on his gear. But he didn’t go to the rink. Instead, in the summer’s heat, he walked down to the beach in everything but his skates and started shooting pucks off a plastic board into the water. “He had on his helmet, his gloves, shoulder pads, pants, all his equipment,” said Ferri. “It was hysterical. Everyone was looking at him like, ‘What is this kid doing?’ We were in tears laughing.”
* * *
The difference between a thirteen-year-old and a seventeen-year-old is substantial. In those four years of development, your body undergoes some crazy changes. Your face starts breaking out in pimples, you grow body hair in places that used to be totally bare, and your voice cracks and then drops an octave or two lower. You literally go from being a boy to a man. Eichel was not yet in high school when Chris Masters suggested he play for the Boston Junior Bruins. Eichel was that good. He had already won a state championship and was scoring practically every time he stepped on the ice. He needed a challenge. More than that, he needed to fail.
Jack Eichel plays for the Junior Bruins. Photo courtesy of the Eichel family
“I was probably a little over my head,” said Eichel. “And that’s probably a good thing. I always tried to challenge myself and I always thought if I was a step ahead of everyone else, pushing myself harder, that when I went to play against guys my own age I’d be that much better. I learned a lot that year. I grew up fast. You have to. You’re in the eighth grade and you’re in a locker room with guys who are already out of high school.”
Chris Masters and his older brother Peter have spent more than a dozen years running the U-18 and premier teams for the Boston Bruins. Both played together at Boston College, where Chris was a two-way centre and Peter was a stay-at-home defenceman who was a finalist for the Hobey Baker Award as the top college player. They were the first pro-style coaches Eichel had. They knew he was talented, but they also knew once you get to a certain level, almost everyone is talented. What separates those who are good and those who make it all the way to the NHL is finding a way to be superior when there’s no advantage.
“He was always a top player for his birth year in our area and in the state and New England,” said Chris Masters. “The same things that make him special and what I bill a dominant player at the NHL level are a lot of the same things we saw at the midget level for us. He had a long, graceful stride. He had great speed and was deceptive with his speed. But back then he was tall, but he was also skinny and thin, so he didn’t have a lot of meat on his bones. I don’t care how skilled you are, there’s going to be an adjustment period when you’re playing against good players who are three or four years older than you. But again, I just think it speaks to how competitive Jack is, how smart he is as a player and he was patient with his development.”
Bob Eichel always set his expectations low. He believed his son was good, but he guarded against hype. Part of him wanted Jack to never get a big ego or become full of himself. The other part was he just didn’t know any kids who had gone to the NHL and had nothing to compare Jack to. Chris Masters was a little different. The first time he saw Eichel play, he wasn’t the best or most dominant player. But on every successive viewing, he was better and better. Unlike McDavid, there was a workmanlike quality to him. He was bullish on the ice. He skated with a singular purpose, as though he had been programmed to hunt the puck. Aside from Eichel’s speed, shot and overall skills, Masters saw intelligence. Eichel was a real-time problem solver.
He just needed a problem to solve. “Above everything else, what I thought really differentiated Jack from his peers and really elevated his play and the play of his teammates was just how smart he was,” said Masters. “He just thought the game better than everybody else. His compete level was off the charts, so when you balance that high compete level with someone who is gifted physically and thinks the game so well, it makes for a special player.”
Watching Eichel those first few weeks, however, was like watching someone breaking off the tips of a pencil on the New York Times crossword puzzle. Playing with kids who were older meant that he was no longer the fastest or the strongest. For the first time in his career, he wasn’t the best player on the ice. “He was a kid,” said Masters. “There wasn’t a hair on his face and there were pimples coming in. As talented as he was, he was a third-line winger. He didn’t complain, he didn’t bitch, his parents didn’t say a word to us. And Jack trusted that I was the coach and whatever the team wanted me to do, I would do. He was there to learn and work hard and get what he would earn.”
Eichel had been used to coming home after a weekend tournament with a dozen goals to his name and an MVP award. Now, as a depth forward, he wasn’t even picking up assists. “I definitely struggled,” said Eichel. “I don’t think I scored a goal until November.” After a game in which his son barely touched the puck, Eichel’s dad asked Masters if maybe they’d made a mistake. “Don’t worry, Bob,” said Masters. “He’s doing fine. Just be patient.”
Eichel and his dad were not the only ones being told to be patient. The other players on the Junior Bruins had been told that this thirteen-year-old kid was special. “It was pretty crazy, because it was the first time a lot of us were playing with a kid that young,” said Brendan Leahy, one of Eichel’s teammates. “We didn’t really know him, because he was so young, but I remember Chris Masters coming up to me and saying, ‘Watch out for this kid.’”
Eventually, Eichel caught up. He learned how to find holes in the defence, how to position himself so he wouldn’t get hit. On his birthday, he scored his first goal of the season. With that, the floodgates opened. He finished the season with 15 goals and 36 points in 40 games. “He figured out that at this level against these types of kids who were stronger and maybe a little faster, he just needed to be a little bit smarter,” said Masters. “And I think his hockey IQ is what really carries him through the day. No one is smarter than him.”
There was growth in other areas as well. The pimply kid with the curly hair was playing against seniors in high school and men who were on their way to college. He had to man up as well. “People were targeting him every single game,” said Leahy. “It was just one of those things that he had to deal with. But he was good about it. I saw him grow and get stronger and get tougher. Obviously, he was probably the best player when he was little, but that had to be the first time when he had to deal with constantly being hit and slashed and targeted. It was good to see him react in a positive way. Some guys would put a shell on. But he wasn’t afraid.”
“Chris protected the shit out of him,” said Bob Eichel. “If Chris sensed there was going to be a big brawl, he’d have him off the ice. He was just a really good guy for Jack. A really good role model. We’ll always be indebted to the Masters family. To the Eichels, they’re number one. They did a great job.”
The following year, Eichel returned to the Bruins bigger and stronger and a year older. It was almost unfair. He had already figured out how to contribute at 5-foot-9 and 145 pounds. Now, he was
two inches taller and about thirty pounds heavier. “That’s where it took off,” he said. Eichel scored 39 goals and 86 points in 36 games. The Bruins won a national championship. The following year, he went to the USA Hockey National Team Development Program (NTDP) in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He was now playing against the best kids in the country. But he was also playing against his own age group. Again, it was almost unfair.
“He was playing for the Junior Bruins, which I think was an advantage, to be honest,” said Bob Eichel. “He was playing against guys who were in high school hockey and the other kids around here were playing against kids their own age. When he went to the [NTDP] tryout, guys didn’t push him around. I remember a kid telling [Jack] that [his team] won the U-14 national title and Jack’s like, ‘We won the Junior B national title.’”
* * *
The Beanpot is a hockey tournament featuring the four major college schools in the Boston area—Boston College, Boston University, Harvard University and Northeastern University—that has been held annually since 1952. For some, it’s bigger than winning the national title—or even the Stanley Cup.
“That’s why you go to college in Boston,” said Bob Eichel, who has never missed a Beanpot in more than twenty-five years. “Guys from other places don’t get it. They don’t understand. But around here, it’s all that matters.
“I’ll tell you one quick story here. Jack Parker, the former Boston University head coach who I consider the greatest coach going, told me one time that he won a national title and he was at an event in the summer and a guy walked up to him and said, ‘How did you do this year?’ And Jack goes, ‘We won a national title.’ The guy looks at him like he’s unimpressed. ‘Well… how did you do in the Beanpot?’ That’s all that matters to people around here.”
* * *
Bob Eichel cried that day. He didn’t cry when his son was drafted into the NHL, but he cried when Jack announced he was going to college. His mom cried too. Everyone did. By then, it was obvious that Jack was going to play Division-1 in the NCAA. Pretty much every school in the country had been offering him a full scholarship since he had led the Junior Bruins to a national title at fourteen years old. The only question was which one he was going to pick. In the end, it came down to two choices: Boston College and Boston University (BU).
Each one held significance. His father’s team was Boston University, maybe more so than the Bruins. Growing up, it had been Bob Eichel’s dream to play for the Terriers. Where he came from, that meant you had made it. Boston University is where Keith Tkachuk, Chris Drury and so many players from the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” Olympic team, including Jack O’Callahan, Jim Craig and Mike Eruzione, had all played. It was where the legendary Jack Parker, “the greatest coach going,” was working the final few seasons of a forty-year career.
“[Boston University] is the dream,” said Bob Eichel. “At one point, it was more than playing in the NHL. Guys I knew played at BU. A lot of guys I grew up with and went to school with. Growing up, you had the Bruins and Bobby Orr and you had BU hockey. I mean, [BU] was the thing when I was a little kid. I only went to see the Bruins play once in my life. But you could afford to see BU play.”
Jack, however, had always been a Boston College fan. He didn’t know why, exactly. Maybe it was because the Masters brothers both went there. Maybe it was to add a little spice to a father-son rivalry, something he and his dad could razz each other over. “We’d go at it when they played each other,” said Jack. “He would root for BU and I’d root for BC.”
“We’d sit there and watch and go back and forth, and back and forth,” said Bob Eichel, laughing. “It was a rivalry.”
For a while, it looked like Eichel was going to choose Boston College. His school. His choice. But then one day he came home and handed his dad a Boston University hat and his mom a Boston University sweatshirt. Just like that, with a big Cheshire-cat grin spread across his face. The place flooded with tears. “When he went to BU it was probably the happiest day of my life,” said Bob Eichel. “I was shocked. We all were shocked. Everybody was shocked.”
“I think he started crying,” said Jack Eichel. “He and my mom both started crying. My sister was there. It was a nice situation, a nice little moment.” There were reasons that went beyond making his mom and dad happy for choosing Boston University. It was a city school and Jack was a city kid. He felt more at home on a campus right next to Fenway Park, rather than the suburbs.
“The hockey players are for the most part from a more working-class area in Boston,” said Eichel, “where more of the wealthier kids go to BC. Don’t get me wrong, I had a lot of friends who went to BC who aren’t wealthy kids. I thought that the kids and the situation and the environment was just better for me at BU. It ended up being a better fit.”
In some ways, playing at Boston University was the pinnacle of everything that Eichel had worked for. In his parents’ eyes, he had made it. They never really talked about the NHL around the house. “[BU] was kind of my parents’ biggest goal,” said Jack. “When I was young, my parents were like, ‘I hope you can make the high school varsity team.’ And then when I did that, they’re like, ‘I hope you can go to college. Imagine if you could get a scholarship playing hockey? Imagine if you could go to Boston University?’ It just keeps growing.”
Eichel spent only one year at Boston University before he was drafted into the NHL and began his pro career. But he crammed a lot into that one year. He won the Hobey Baker Award and led the Terriers to the national title. In the process, he got his first taste of what stardom truly looks like.
Stardom was startling, not only to Jack but to his father as well. “I remember calling him, saying, ‘Jesus, how are the practices going? Are you going to be able to play third line, get ten to twelve minutes a game?’” Eichel told him that he was on the first line. “And he was like, ‘You can’t be on friggin’ first line at BU, this is BU you’re talking about.’ It was friggin’ unbelievable.”
BU coach David Quinn laughed at that story. It shows just how humble the family was. They knew Eichel was a great player and everything, but they respected the process. They expected that as a freshman he would have to earn his dues, work his way up the lineup. It was the same way when he was drafted by the Buffalo Sabres and refused his favourite number because he hadn’t yet made the team. “But I’m no dummy,” said Quinn. “I’m not putting Jack Eichel on the fourth line. I don’t care how old he is.”
Eichel was a star on campus. The students all knew him. They cheered for him. They followed him around—even to away games. Indeed, the Terriers needed Eichel to be the star. And he didn’t disappoint. “It was his very first game. We were in UMass Amherst and we were up 2–1 after the second period and he hadn’t had a point yet, and five minutes later he had three points and the game was 5–1,” said Quinn. “He changed the whole complexion of the game.”
It was like that all year. Eichel finished with 26 goals and 71 points in 40 games and was named the top player in the country—only the second freshman since Paul Kariya to do so. Boston University was dominant all year long, but ended up losing in the NCAA championship final 4–3 to Providence on a fluky shot that bounced in off goalie Matt O’Connor. “It was a magical year for him—for us, for me,” said Quinn. “Obviously losing in the national championship the way we did was devastating, but he won the Hobey Baker, led the country in scoring, and we had a great team. For Jack it was time to go.”
“Now that I’ve had time to reflect on what I did, it’s quite incredible how much our team accomplished,” said Eichel. “It was a great year. I think all the goals I had were met or almost met.” At least they were for Eichel’s dad. After all, Boston University had won the Beanpot.
* * *
I feel for the fans. I mean, we went through a tough year and I think that they were extremely excited about Connor. If you can pick one or two, you’re going to choose one… any time you can get one vs. two in any walk of life, you’re going to want number one
. — Tim Murray, former Buffalo Sabres general manager, on the night of the NHL Draft Lottery
* * *
No question, the Buffalo Sabres wanted to pick first overall. They wanted McDavid. In 2014–15, they did everything they could to make it happen, including holding a fire sale that saw the team trade away three goalies and win just 23 of 82 games. It was a tank job like no other. Fans, who started showing up to the rink in “McDavid” jerseys, began booing when the Sabres scored in close games and cheering whenever a goal went in on their goalie. It was embarrassing. But with a once-in-a-generation player waiting for whoever picked first, it was the reality of the situation.
Of course, finishing in last place overall didn’t guarantee that Buffalo would get the No. 1 pick. A draft lottery had been implemented years earlier to dissuade teams from purposely losing. So when the Edmonton Oilers ended up winning the lottery and picked first, you could almost see the hockey gods having a good laugh.
Eichel knew he wasn’t Buffalo’s first choice. But he also knew that minds could change. Although he would never admit it, he liked having a rival to push him to be better. He needed McDavid in the same way that Batman needed the Joker or Superman needed Lex Luthor.
“I’m not competing with Connor,” Eichel told Sports Illustrated in 2015. And yet they did compete against each other. And when they did, people took notice. “At the U-17 tournament in Canada, [Jack] played against Connor McDavid and Ekblad and all the guys with Team Ontario,” said Bob Eichel. “He had a really good game. And a friend of mine and I drove up there in a snowstorm and watched it—it took us like nine hours to drive it—and I looked at my buddy and he said, ‘Now do you think he’s going to play in the NHL?’ ‘Yeah, I think he’s got a chance.’”
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