Jack Eichel gets brutally honest about his performance last season.

The Las Vegas Golden Knights pulled off a gigantic move when they acquired former Buffalo Sabres captain Jack Eichel, taking a major risk in the process given the uncertainty surrounding Eichel's neck injury at the time.

It is still far too early to tell whether or not that gamble will have paid off for them, but fans in Vegas did get a sample of what they can expect from Eichel when he appeared in 34 regular season games for the Golden Knights, scoring 14 goals and adding 11 assists for 25 points over that stretch of play.

It wasn't the level of play that Eichel had shown himself capable of in Buffalo, but I suspect that most fans are going to be giving him a pass on that considering the fact that he was only 3 months removed from major spinal surgery at the time of his return to action. While the fans might be willing to cut him some slack, it seems that Eichel isn't ready to be so forgiving of his performance.

In a recent interview with NHL.com's Jackie Spiegel, Eichel revealed that, in spite of the fact that the Golden Knights reported that he played the final 6 weeks of the season with a fracture in his thumb, he was not happy with how he performed last season.

"Listen, I'm not going to make excuses," Eichel said as per NHL.com. "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."

It sounds like Eichel is being pretty hard on himself for the way he played in his return to action, but on the more positive side of things he did acknowledge that he feels good for the first time in a long time after having a normal offseason.

Eichel also revealed that, in spite of being healed from his surgery before his comeback last season, he was still dealing with some lingering effects due to being injured for such a long time. You'll remember that Eichel was forced to wait for the Sabres to trade him prior to undergoing the surgery of his choice.

"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," said Eichel.

The Golden Knights star forward says he has used his time off to work out the kinks in that regard, and it sounds like he has high expectations of himself for the upcoming regular season.