Islanders: Jordan Eberle’s Hot Start In 2021

The Islanders goal scoring has been an issue for this team in 2021, that much is a given. They’re 29th in the league in goals for on the season and outside of the top line, the offense has left a lot to be desired.

Anders Lee and Mathew Barzal have been a dynamic duo this year but a sleeper for this team has been the impact of Jordan Eberle. With his two goal performance Saturday night, he now has five goals on the season.

Why this is such a big deal for this team is nearly every year, Eberle has started slow during his Islanders career.

In 2017-2018, Eberle took 11 games before scoring a goal and it took 15 games for him to get to five goals on the season. In 2018-2019, it was another slow start for Eb’s as it took him 17 games to pot five goals.

Last season, it was the worst start of them all. It took him 15 games before he was able to score a single goal for the Islanders. It took a whopping 34 games before he was able to hit the five goal mark for the Islanders.

To say he needed a hot start to the season would be an understatement. He’s usually someone who tends to start slow and turn it on late in the season, as we displayed with his numbers from the first three years of his Islanders tenure.

If he is able to remain consistent, and if this hot start doesn’t just turn into an inverse of a regular Eberle season than the Islanders would be in great shape. Yes, they still would need more scoring but having Eberle be a 30 goal pace scorer would be big for this club.

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So while in 2021, it’s easy to get on some of these forwards who have been quiet, it wouldn’t be fair to not point out the productive Eberle start. His seven points in 10 games puts him on pace for a 39 point season in 56 games.