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Leafs' Prospect/Marlies Discussion Thread!

The Hyman comparison was stylistic, definitely not points (Hyman is up there with Pavelski when it comes to outliers). Kadri had a very good Draft year or almost 1.4 ppg, and followed that up with modest increase in D+1. Cowan (with the others mentioned above) was in AAA in his D-1, didn't have a great D0 of ~0.8ppg, but mammoth D1 pushing 1.8ppg. The others were similar, with Mathieu Perrault almost identical. I hope he'll be better than Perrault, hence why I didn't mention him earlier. Mike Fischer is another comparable with a similar D-1, D, D1 path.
 
runninglow said:
High teens is a bit of a stretch. I have Cowan as an offensive 3rd liner with potential to be a 2nd liner winger. Don't think the play is dynamic enough for PP1, but PP2 for sure...I had him as Hyman-lite last year before Hyman went supernova. Average year: 40pt floor as third liner, 60pts if he hits with 70pt career year. Comparable players (points wise, not style/size wise) I have range from Daze to Hoffman to Mangiapane with some third liners mixed in. The outlier comparison is Mark Recchi, which would be nice, but there's about ten 45-60 pt guys for the one Recchi, and a lot of luck is needed for that to happen. So...60% third liner, 30% second liner, 10% star.

Anyway, given the list, I wouldn't have him above Yurov or Guenther (30/31) who are both playing and excelling against men, maybe Snuggerud or McrGroarty, in the mid-30's, but their ceilings could be 1st liners. Definitely ahead of MBN at 39, around the Kulich area is where I'd have him. So 8 higher...splitting hairs at that point. Mind you, the two guys around him (Nadeau and Ritchie) I have higher as well, so I'll chalk that up to Wheeler-isms.
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Can you sorta explain why you picked these players as comparables? Mark Recchi played in the WHL before I was born?
 
i mean perreault wouldn't be the worst comp - a consistent 40pt type player at a time where offense was down (i.e. when 40pts was more 2nd liner than 3rd liner).

but wasn't perreault's issue his lack of intangibles? i.e. laziness/softness/attitude ?
 
MindzEye said:
Hard to call Cowan over rated when the Athletic prospect list just came out and had him 47th. Someone would need their fucking head examined if they thought 47th is over rating Cowan. There's a good argument to have him in the high teens ffs.
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sure it's hard...but they're willing to put in the work
 
hockeylover said:
Can you sorta explain why you picked these players as comparables? Mark Recchi played in the WHL before I was born?
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Sure...I do a blanket comparison against about 30-40 years of draft eligible info I prepared (I'm in a couple of dynasty leagues and geek out over the draft). So, I've got the D-2 to D+5 years for about 800 forwards coded, split into the 3 major categories (CHL, NCAA, Euro leagues). I'll take a players D-2 through whatever they've played stats, and do a query on who's comparable based on league, ppg, and draft age. Hence where these guys came in...at similar draft levels, they had (within a small range) similar ppg and % increase year over year. I'll weed out players that don't match (say, similar ppg, but the growth isn't as dramatic). It's not perfect, but it's worked for me over the years.

The stylistic assessment is far less structured. I read a bunch of reports, see what their style is compared to current players, and try to find a match. I prefer the numbers as it's provided better results.

Just so you know, I'm not Byron Bader...I like his model, but I think comparing of players across different playing leagues/ages (say, CHL against Euros) is misleading, since the style of play and ice-surface is completely different.
 
runninglow said:
The Hyman comparison was stylistic, definitely not points (Hyman is up there with Pavelski when it comes to outliers). Kadri had a very good Draft year or almost 1.4 ppg, and followed that up with modest increase in D+1. Cowan (with the others mentioned above) was in AAA in his D-1, didn't have a great D0 of ~0.8ppg, but mammoth D1 pushing 1.8ppg. The others were similar, with Mathieu Perrault almost identical. I hope he'll be better than Perrault, hence why I didn't mention him earlier. Mike Fischer is another comparable with a similar D-1, D, D1 path.
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Cowan was slightly better than Kadri in their D+1 years....and Kadri was 7.5 months older than Cowan too.

But scoring may have been down in junior back then - I really don't know.
 
runninglow said:
Sure...I do a blanket comparison against about 30-40 years of draft eligible info I prepared (I'm in a couple of dynasty leagues and geek out over the draft). So, I've got the D-2 to D+5 years for about 800 forwards coded, split into the 3 major categories (CHL, NCAA, Euro leagues). I'll take a players D-2 through whatever they've played stats, and do a query on who's comparable based on league, ppg, and draft age. Hence where these guys came in...at similar draft levels, they had (within a small range) similar ppg and % increase year over year. I'll weed out players that don't match (say, similar ppg, but the growth isn't as dramatic). It's not perfect, but it's worked for me over the years.

The stylistic assessment is far less structured. I read a bunch of reports, see what their style is compared to current players, and try to find a match. I prefer the numbers as it's provided better results.

Just so you know, I'm not Byron Bader...I like his model, but I think comparing of players across different playing leagues/ages (say, CHL against Euros) is misleading, since the style of play and ice-surface is completely different.
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Thanks for the explanation - I'd suggest going back that far is a weakness in your analysis.

There's really no logical reason to bring up guys like Recchi in an analysis about Cowan, IMO.
 
zeke said:
Cowan was slightly better than Kadri in their D+1 years....and Kadri was 7.5 months older than Cowan too.

But scoring may have been down in junior back then - I really don't know.
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I don't know either...I'm just going what the numbers say 'cause that's what I've got. One thing to consider: Kadri was also playing in the OHL since his D-2 year, where Cowan was in AAA in D-2 and D-1. I've found more consistency in players that play high competition early to have a better chance than those that rocket up after their draft year. Not a guarantee, and I wish I drafted Cowan (he went a round higher than I had him), but such is life.
 
hockeylover said:
Thanks for the explanation - I'd suggest going back that far is a weakness in your analysis.

There's really no logical reason to bring up guys like Recchi in an analysis about Cowan, IMO.
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I agree, and I only have the star players that far back for interest sake (Gretzky, Lemieux, Gilmour, etc). The bulk of the data is from the last 25-30 years, focusing on those that were drafted in the first round or have made it and play higher than 4th line. I leave out the Tyler Biggs' of the world because anybody with an eyeball could see he was going no where.

Although interestingly, the best comparable to Bedard is Pierre Turgeon. He always seems to come up in that comparison. Sometimes, the old guys just work.
 
runninglow said:
Sure...I do a blanket comparison against about 30-40 years of draft eligible info I prepared (I'm in a couple of dynasty leagues and geek out over the draft). So, I've got the D-2 to D+5 years for about 800 forwards coded, split into the 3 major categories (CHL, NCAA, Euro leagues). I'll take a players D-2 through whatever they've played stats, and do a query on who's comparable based on league, ppg, and draft age. Hence where these guys came in...at similar draft levels, they had (within a small range) similar ppg and % increase year over year. I'll weed out players that don't match (say, similar ppg, but the growth isn't as dramatic). It's not perfect, but it's worked for me over the years.

The stylistic assessment is far less structured. I read a bunch of reports, see what their style is compared to current players, and try to find a match. I prefer the numbers as it's provided better results.

Just so you know, I'm not Byron Bader...I like his model, but I think comparing of players across different playing leagues/ages (say, CHL against Euros) is misleading, since the style of play and ice-surface is completely different.
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Out of curiousity, are you adjusting for league wide scoring when doing this? For example, Daze had a 31 goal/54 point per 82 pace during his career from 95-96 to 05-06....the dead puck era. NHL scoring is about 1 goal per game higher now than it was during dead puck, about 15-18% more goals in total, rough math.

Even assuming the underlying comparison is more or less accurate, a 31/54 season in 1998 is a ~37/64 season in 2024, and that was Daze's career averages. He peaked at 38/70, which in today's league is the equivalent of ~45G/82PTS

If your analysis is suggesting that Cowan's peak is as 40/80 type player, and his career averages are ~35/65, that's a pretty, pretty good prospect. A top 30-40 offensive player in the NHL overall.
 
runninglow said:
The Hyman comparison was stylistic
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No offence mate....but no.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpGjmd9BzsI

That's Zach at 22 yrs old as a senior, doing all of the same stuff he ended up learning how to make work in the NHL. Standing in front of the net, being good below the goal line, etc. All very direct stuff at the net. Finding space, etc. Looking at the Hyman packs out there from his time at Michigan, stylistically, it's Larkin who looks like Cowan, not Hyman.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqS8NX3NtrE

A lot of carrying the puck, a lot of carrying the puck into danger zones and showing high IQ with it, high level edges, a lot of playmaking. Disrupting defenders at the blueline and creating his own chances in transition, etc.
 
MindzEye said:
Out of curiousity, are you adjusting for league wide scoring when doing this? For example, Daze had a 31 goal/54 point per 82 pace during his career from 95-96 to 05-06....the dead puck era. NHL scoring is about 1 goal per game higher now than it was during dead puck, about 15-18% more goals in total, rough math.

Even assuming the underlying comparison is more or less accurate, a 31/54 season in 1998 is a ~37/64 season in 2024, and that was Daze's career averages. He peaked at 38/70, which in today's league is the equivalent of ~45G/82PTS

If your analysis is suggesting that Cowan's peak is as 40/80 type player, and his career averages are ~35/65, that's a pretty, pretty good prospect. A top 30-40 offensive player in the NHL overall.
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I haven't yet, but our discussion has made me think I should give it a whirl. To date, I didn't want to temper too much into the "ifs and buts" of adjustments as I haven't looked into how it was calculated or what assumptions are made. But maybe I'll change that.

What I do is have 3 values: career average, but I don't give that a lot of weight since it includes the years at the beginning and the end when players aren't as productive; their "peak years" which represents their average during their average performing years; and the career year, highest single season. When doing a comparison, I look mostly at the average performing years and career year for similar players.
 
Leafs CHL 18yr old paces, regular season + Playoffs

Marner: 60gls/175pts
Robertson: 98gls/153pts
Cowan: 50gls/148pts

Kadri: 41gls/116pts
McKegg 60gls/109pts
Timashov 21gls/101pts
Abramov 46gls/99pts
Verhaghe 35gls/99pts
Voit: 32gls/97pts
Nicholls 39gls/94pts
Brown 36gls/90pts
Leivo 40gls/89pts
Minten 40gls/87pts
Lisowsky 41gls/83pts
Bobylev 30gls/79pts
Brooks 38gls/78pts
Gauthier 27gls/77pts
Ross 35gls/74pts
Rupert 24gls/72pts
Stotts 23gls/72pts
Walker 23gls/68pts
Korostelev 21gls/64pts
SGA 7gls/60pts
McGregor 21gls/56pts
Carrick 21gls/52pts
Broll 11gls/46pts
Devane 8gls/21pts
 
runninglow said:
I don't know either...I'm just going what the numbers say 'cause that's what I've got. One thing to consider: Kadri was also playing in the OHL since his D-2 year, where Cowan was in AAA in D-2 and D-1. I've found more consistency in players that play high competition early to have a better chance than those that rocket up after their draft year. Not a guarantee, and I wish I drafted Cowan (he went a round higher than I had him), but such is life.
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As someone who has spent more time looking at 16-20 yr old production than I care to think about, you really have to watch birth dates in those very early years. The Kadri example is a good one. Yeah, Kadri was in the OHL in his D-2 year but his D-1 year was played at the same age (17) as Cowan played his entire Draft year at. Kadri being an October 6 birth date, and Cowan May 20. Draft minus and plus is a good eval tool, but what it's actually trying to measure is age relative performance. It's more of a pretty good analogue for age relative performance than it is meaningful unto itself.

Malcolm Gladwell actually has a really good section in his book Outliers on this phenomena. Athletes with birthdays in the fall have a big advantage in their teens as they're 6+ months bigger and stronger than players born in the spring or summer because of our relatively arbitrary birthdate cut offs for minor sports age grouping. The advantage equalizes and disappears by the time they're around 20 for fairly obvious reasons. The difference between the average physical maturity in a 16 yr 180d player and a 16 yr 0d player is much, much larger than 20yr 180d, and 20yr 0 d, and any difference is gone by 21-22 yrs old in average physical development.
 
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zeke said:
Leafs CHL 18yr old paces, regular season + Playoffs

Marner: 60gls/175pts
Robertson: 98gls/153pts
Cowan: 50gls/148pts

Kadri: 41gls/116pts
McKegg 60gls/109pts
Timashov 21gls/101pts
Abramov 46gls/99pts
Verhaghe 35gls/99pts
Voit: 32gls/97pts
Nicholls 39gls/94pts
Brown 36gls/90pts
Leivo 40gls/89pts
Minten 40gls/87pts
Lisowsky 41gls/83pts
Bobylev 30gls/79pts
Brooks 38gls/78pts
Gauthier 27gls/77pts
Ross 35gls/74pts
Rupert 24gls/72pts
Stotts 23gls/72pts
Walker 23gls/68pts
Korostelev 21gls/64pts
SGA 7gls/60pts
McGregor 21gls/56pts
Carrick 21gls/52pts
Broll 11gls/46pts
Devane 8gls/21pts
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"18-year old season" is subjective. Draft year is the way to go. I get that there could be an 11-month difference, but you'll spin yourself into circles trying to compare age and draft year.
 
MindzEye said:
As someone who has spent more time looking at 16-20 yr old production than I care to think about, you really have to watch birth dates in those very early years. The Kadri example is a good one. Yeah, Kadri was in the OHL in his D-2 year but his D-1 year was played at the same age (17) as Cowan played his entire Draft year at. Draft minus and plus is a good eval tool, but what it's actually trying to measure is age relative performance. It's more of a pretty good analogue for age relative performance than it is meaningful unto itself.
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Understandable, but I think that's a philosophic opinion. Just like my response to zeke above. I believe in draft year, as that's who you're comparing against. Anyway, I'm willing to agree to disagree (and get back to real work).
 
runninglow said:
"18-year old season" is subjective. Draft year is the way to go. I get that there could be an 11-month difference, but you'll spin yourself into circles trying to compare age and draft year.
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I have no horse in this battle (this is a very good debate!) but I disagree with this. You use what has the best predictive value no matter how hard it may seem to track.
 
runninglow said:
"18-year old season" is subjective. Draft year is the way to go. I get that there could be an 11-month difference, but you'll spin yourself into circles trying to compare age and draft year.
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It's harder work, sure. But it's way more accurate. There is nothing special about draft year, it's age relative performance that matters. If you draft an overager, they didn't magically become better because their 19 yr old numbers match the 17-18 yr old numbers of a player who achieved the same performance at 1-2 years younger.

Age relative performance >>
 
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