Ryan Nugent-Hopkins - Comparables

Physically, the best comp is Brassard.

The Bonsignore thing was too funny not to lead with, but when I got that result, I wasn’t at all concerned. The last list was a lot less funny.

Besides being in the W and drafted first, how are they similar? Production? Power play? Penalty Kill? Even Strength?

The problem, so far as I can tell, is that there are a few guys quite like him. It’s just that they weren’t drafted first overall. And they didn’t turn out all that well.

not in terms of production, but a comparable in terms of style of play. Elusive, high hockey IQ, pass first player.

82GP – 13G – 28A – 41PTS

What about Briere?

I’m mobile so can’t easily get stats, but size and style match.

go for the heart Derek….Gretzky

nah….i doubt it
fans dont look at him as some 100 point guy.
Fans just wanted a dynamic center for Hall and from all accounts RNH is the most creative one; hence instant love

not bad….so an inferior version of richards

Richards’ birthday is also very close, and he plays a two-way game as well. There’s a lot to like in that comparison. The downside is that he was drafted much later in his draft year, and that his draft year was his rookie year in the CHL, but overall, I think Richards is a great suggestion.

The other thing to note is that Bonsignore got out produced by his teammate Ethan Moreau that year as well.

The situations were just too different.

Brassard outpaced Nugent-Hopkins on a Drummondville team that scored only 5 more goals than Red Deer.

I think you’ve made a good point about context here. I try to control it a bit by staying within the CHL, but these players are all playing in different seasons, and for different teams, and different coaches. These are important factors that are accounted for much better in scouting reports than in this kind of statistical analysis. But the 150+ thing seems pulled from nowhere.

I think these kinds of comparisons are already lacking in sample size (which is why I often try to include playoffs, as I did here) so I’m not really sold on cutting out a big chunk. But yeah, I’m sure if you include just the best parts of his season, he’ll look better.

oh ya

oh man you guys and your complications

This is a great suggestion, but I don’t have the scoring rates for the various seasons handy. I know it’s not exactly the same solution, but the issue you’ve raised here was one of the reasons I looked at the percentage of points derived from assists.

I think Scott did a study and it showed that while ES production is good thing, it doesnt matter as much as we made it out to be earlier in the year

the scoring across CHL is almost comparable. Its not particularly difficult to score in one league or the other

Unfortunately by this metric, Nugent-Hopkin’s best comparables are the biggest bust in NHL history, a 55-65 point scorer when healthy (which wouldn’t be too bad at all), and a bunch of guys who are still trying to establish what sort of players they’ll be.

So I decided to skew up my study to make RNH look better

 :P

This is an interesting way to look at things. My first impression is that the presence or absence of an(other) elite talent will have a massive impact on a player’s ranking, so that leaves me a bit leery, but it’s a cool idea for sure.

As for it being tougher to score in the WHL, I just don’t really buy into it that much. Yes, Nugent-Hopkins is clearly ahead of most of the players drafted out of that league in recent history, but the WHL also hasn’t produced a lot of elite offensive forwards in the last decade. The only guy who’s really established as an elite offensive player in the last ten years is Getzlaf. There’s plenty of time for others to emerge, but I think a big reason we haven’t seen huge seasons in the WHL over the last while is that the most talented guys just haven’t been there.

Would you jump through the same hoops if the original numbers agreed with your already pre-conceived notion of Nugent-Hopkins?

Did you just add the GF columns to get the league scoring rate for each of those seasons, and then adjust accordingly? I didn’t find the time to gather all that stuff up yet, but if you’ve already done it, I’d appreciate it a lot if you could pass that info along!

As for the players themselves, I do think several make a good fit. Stillman would have made the original list if I’d gone back far enough in the draft, and so would Hemsky and Richards had they been more highly regarded by NHL scouts when they were drafted. I think that being systematic is important so if you adjust things to include a guy like Richards, you’re likely to end up with a lot more busts along for the ride, but maybe making an exception here is more reasonable.

A guy like Thornton still seems like a stretch to me mostly because of his goal production. That goal production is, I think, a pretty important piece here. The only player he bests on your second list is Stillman, and his lack of goals is probably the oddest part of Nugent-Hopkins’ game at the junior level; he just doesn’t score as much as most of the top picks.

Finally, is there any reason you left out the playoff data? I generally like to include it since it gives us a slightly larger sample to draw from, so I was curious if you had any particular reason for leaving it out.

Do you consider the comps that ^ shoc_doc ^ came up with to be negative?

Well I voted Gretzky for fun. I am sure others did too.

What makes you think that?

If anything, we’ve learned that there is always someone better.

Granted, no one may score 92 goals or get 215 points or get over 2850 points, but there will be a player who can dominate the game like Gretzky did. In fact, Crosby might even be that player.

As I noted much earlier, we’re all sarcastic assholes.