Oilers' March NHLE - Wrapping up 2010-2011

The CHL and European leagues have put the wraps on their regular seasons.  The AHL will finish up in the next week and Barons' fans hope they can put together a winning streak to make the playoffs.  Edmonton fans eagerly await the arrival of a number of young men, especially Anton Lander, to the Barons or Oilers.  If Lander comes to North America next season, he won't be alone in matriculating to the North American professional ranks.  Names like Hamilton, Davidson, and Rajala will be front and center throughout the summer.

To get a sense of how these prospects' numbers would translate to the NHL, we can use Gabriel Desjardins' NHL Equivalency.  Gabe's methodologies are described on his translations page:

One way to evaluate the difficulty of one league relative to another is to examine the relative performance of players who have played in both leagues.  Players rarely play significant time in two leagues in the same year, but they often play in one league in one year and in another the next.  As long as a player’s skill level is approximately constant over this two year period, the ratio of his performance in each league can be used to estimate the relative difficulty of the two leagues.

If you're interested in the numbers behind some of the players that may be drafted in this year's lottery, check out SumOil's CHL update posts every other Monday.

After the jump is the full list of skating prospects with their NHL Equivalency and full season projections.

• Though Ryan Martindale had a nice year in the OHL, he trailed off a really good first half pace as the season wore on.  At one point he was on pace for 35 points, but he ended the regular season with 30.  He's also struggling against Sudbury in the Ottawa 67s opening round playoff matchup.
• I hope the Tigers of Medicine Hat are able to hold out long enough for Tyler Pitlick to return to the lineup.  The Tigers are tied 2-2 with the Brandon Wheat Kings and will have to win the series to get Pitlick, currently rehabbing a broken ankle, back. The Oilers' other prospect with the Tigers, netminder Tyler Bunz, is also currently out with concussion.  
• Toni Rajala's regular season was unimpressive, but his playoff performance was noteworthy.
• Raise your hand if you ever thought the day would come when Drew Czerwonka would out-produce Ryan O'Marra.  I'm not sure if that's terrible news for O'Marra or Czerwonka raising his ceiling beyond everyone's expectations.
• We can't expect Blain, Marincin and Davidson to all pan out, but Blain and Davidson have produced extraordinary seasons considering their draft positions.
• Chris VandeVelde was able to outproduce only Cameron Abney, but if he can win 54% of his faceoffs in the NHL, he's going to have a job even if he only totals 9 points per season.
• Kristians Pelss got stronger as the saeson went along, and had an excellent playoff series against the powerful Red Deer Rebels. Pelss' post-season totals of 4 GP, 0-2-2, -1, were superficially unimpressive but ranked second in Oil Kings scoring against the stingy Rebels defence.