Quoting: Burnout
Your argument is that if Kemell had the same stats in international play, which are among the best we've seen in god knows how long, he would be the consensus #1 OA pick? I mean, sure. He didn't do that though because its really hard for a draft eligible player to do that in two tournaments. Which is why Slafkovsky's stock went up. Because players that can have the production and on-ice impact that he had against men is really rare.
He literally just went first overall. And it wasn't as though he was big reach either. And even the Liiga argument doesn't make sense because Slafkovksy was trending in the right direction and Kemmell was trending in the wrong direction. That doesn't even get into the issues of basing prospect quality on solely point production, which is generally a bad idea.
That's a very detailed analysis, but not nearly broad enough to have any real meaning. Or well reasoned. Again, there's the issue of only looking at production. But more than that, it ignores a lot of prospects. Its also misses the real reason to use production as a measure, because it allows for comparison. Looking at it this way requires far more detailed analysis, otherwise its just an exercise in confirming your biases.
Just looking at the Q, your analysis misses Meier, Couturier, Palat and Mercer. It also overrates other prospects. Its basically taking NHLe and then adding a non-statistical analysis with a half hashed out pattern you noticed.
1) I say kemell would have been the consensus because of the fact he produced at a better rate than slaf and if his stock had risen like Slafs did, he would have been the clear choice. Here is sports nets ranking pre world juniors
https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/sportsnets-2022-nhl-draft-prospect-rankings-december-edition/sn-amp/
2) I see what you mean with trending in the right direction vs wrong but if you look at other LIIGA forward prospects who trended in the right direction, it’s a mixed bag. Again, prospects are unpredictable but based on what I have seen, slafkovsky is a physically dominant forward who gives me hints of puljujarvi. I don’t use that comparison as a slight to slafkovsky. Both are physically imposing forwards who in their draft year, tore up international tournaments but their club play didn’t see much progression. Both trended in the right direction heading into the draft and both were selected high in the draft. If Winnipeg wasn’t looking for a center, puljujarvi would have been the third pick. I am not saying slafkovsky will be what puljujarvi is but rather there are a lot of uncanny parallels in their game. If montreal handles his development correctly, he won’t be a bust but as of now, I am skeptical of him. I personally think he would have been a better fit in NJ because the chance of him being rushed into the NHL is much lower. It can be seen with a lot of top prospects that when you let them marinate outside of the NHL, they are much better players.
3) I do agree it is not nearly broad enough as I simply took the top scoring prospect from each league over the course of 11 years. 32 players I agree isn’t enough but it is surely a start. If you do look at the players you have said I have left out, Meier in his D+1 year lead his team by .28 and .01, couturier in his D+1 year lead by .08, palat was 2nd on his team in his D+1 year, and mercer lead by .1 in his D+1 year. There are solid arguments to display why these are flukes and could “further my bias”. Mercers D+1 year was Covid and wasn’t a good way to determine actual development. Couturier played with a Palat. While it obviously shows that both break the mold, see who was the next highest scorer after them. And for Meier, he was traded mid season and to a much better team. If he had continued his play with his original team, I believe he would have furthered his gap as he was far and away the best player on his team. As for Roy, he was clearly the best player on his team but he did not cement himself as far and away the best player. He could prove me wrong but if I were to take a larger metric with the top scorers from every CHL team from any given year, we would likely see a very similar trend. Obviously there are circumstantial differences but 3/4 players you mentioned were lottery picks and had lackluster D+1 years. Their jump in production was not close to Roy’s which is pretty unsustainable to maintain. The only one who had a similar jump that you mentioned was palat who gets the survivors glory. Take the other mid to late round draft picks who had similar jumps in production, most don’t wind up as that great of players. That being said as well, Roy’s jump wasn’t close to palats and that is likely partly due to not playing with a couturier caliber player but I believe if he were to have played with a similar caliber player, he wouldn’t have made the the massive jump palat did.
I do acknowledge I am valuing these players based on production and numbers, but I also didn’t choose certain players that helped the metric, just the highest point producing player in every league. I am creating a program that tracks a players production in relation to teammates and once it is done, it will show what I predict to be a very detailed analysis of said players. I will show you it when it is done but as of now there are a lot of variables that go into it.
Reply
Slafkovsky,
CapFriendly
CapFriendly