from Jackie Spiegel of NHL.com,

Jack Eichel feels good, and it's been a while since the Vegas Golden Knights forward has been able to say that....

Eichel had three points (one goal, two assists) in eight games from April 9-26, when the Golden Knights were battling for a berth in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Vegas was eliminated from contention on April 27, failing to qualify for the postseason for the first time since entering the NHL in 2017-18.

The team said Eichel played the last six weeks of the season with a non-displaced fracture in his thumb.

"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."...

"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."

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