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The big club isn't worth talking about right now, so with that we're going to take a look at NHL Equivalency, as developed by Gabriel Desjardins of the Behindthenet.ca and the outstanding Behind The Net Hockey.
So what is the methodology that Gabe employs to do his voodoo? From his translations page:
One way to evaluate the difficulty of one league relative to another is 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.
It's most interesting to see how this affects prospects, both in amateur and pro leagues on this continent and in European professional leagues, and considering the performance that we witnessed last night, it's a welcome respite. The values below are the NHLE values based off of their performances, year-to-date.
|
Player |
GP |
G |
A |
P |
NHL PPG |
NHL82 |
|
Jordan Eberle - WHL |
21 |
6 |
7 |
13 |
0.619 |
51 |
|
Magnus-Pääjärvi Svensson - SEL |
21 |
5 |
6 |
11 |
0.524 |
43 |
|
Philippe Cornet - QMJHL |
27 |
5 |
6 |
11 |
0.407 |
33 |
|
Linus Omark - KHL |
25 |
7 |
3 |
10 |
0.400 |
33 |
|
Chris Vande Velde - NCAA |
11 |
1 |
3 |
4 |
0.364 |
30 |
|
Riley Nash - NCAA |
6 |
0 |
2 |
2 |
0.333 |
27 |
|
Alexander Bumagin - KHL |
24 |
2 |
5 |
7 |
0.292 |
24 |
|
Teemu Hartikainen - SM-Liiga |
21 |
1 |
5 |
6 |
0.286 |
23 |
|
Anton Lander - SEL |
21 |
3 |
3 |
6 |
0.286 |
23 |
|
Toni Rajala - WHL |
22 |
4 |
2 |
6 |
0.273 |
22 |
|
Milan Kytnar - WHL |
13 |
1 |
2 |
3 |
0.231 |
19 |
|
Colin McDonald - AHL |
19 |
2 |
2 |
4 |
0.211 |
17 |
|
Alexei Mikhnov - KHL |
20 |
2 |
2 |
4 |
0.200 |
16 |
|
Vyacheslav Trukhno - AHL |
18 |
1 |
2 |
3 |
0.167 |
14 |
|
Jeff Petry - NCAA |
13 |
0 |
4 |
4 |
0.308 |
25 |
|
Kyle Bigos - NCAA |
10 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
0.200 |
16 |
|
Theo Peckham - AHL |
11 |
0 |
2 |
2 |
0.182 |
15 |
|
Cody Wild - AHL |
13 |
0 |
2 |
2 |
0.154 |
13 |
|
Johan Motin - AHL |
14 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
0.071 |
6 |
|
Alexandre Plante - AHL |
17 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
0.059 |
5 |
The rule of small sample sizes obviously applies, especially in the case of the NCAA guys Nash, Vande Velde, Petry and Bigos. Jordan Eberle and Magnus-Pääjärvi Svensson are the big names in the system and they aren't disappointing this year. Linus Omark made the jump from the SEL to the KHL and isn't having nearly the same success. Speaking of the KHL, I think this season is the nail in the coffin of Alexei Mikhnov as a North American player. Alexander Bumagin appears higher than a number of the young European prospects, but Bumagin is 22 years old now, and isn't likely to be a factor.
Alex Plante seems to be struggling in Springfield, he's getting power play time there but not producing. Johan Motin isn't going to be an offensive dynamo, so any lack of production isn't a concern. Kyle Bigos and Jeff Petry are off well, and when we check back in on these numbers we should have a better handle on where they stand.
Take heart Oiler fans, a gaggle of kids awaits to be thrown to the wolves.
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Special thanks to Jennifer Bock for the photo of Johan Motin in action against the Albany River Rats.
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