Curtis Hamilton is taking over and we can do nothing to stop him. Fred Furlong told us in August that Hamilton was garnering attention in World Junior Camp and it was because of his penalty killing, two-way acumen and his physical play. Since then, Hamilton has been the favorite to make Team Canada to take on the toughs, kill penalties and handle the checking assignments, so Hamilton's offense has been the big surprise of the young WHL season.
To get a sense of how his 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.
| Player - League | DOB | Drafted | NHL PPG | NHL82 G | NHL82 A | NHL82 P | Change |
| Linus Omark - AHL | 2/5/87 | 97 | 0.440 | 19 | 17 | 36 | +6 |
| Ryan Martindale - OHL | 10/27/91 | 61 | 0.430 | 15 | 20 | 35 | +3 |
| Curtis Hamilton - WHL | 12/4/91 | 48 | 0.413 | 14 | 20 | 34 | +7 |
| Liam Reddox - AHL | 1/27/86 | 112 | 0.402 | 19 | 14 | 33 | +6 |
| Anton Lander - SEL | 4/24/91 | 40 | 0.390 | 16 | 16 | 32 | +4 |
| Robby Dee - NCAA | 4/9/87 | 86 | 0.378 | 13 | 18 | 31 | -22 |
| Tyler Pitlick - WHL | 11/1/91 | 31 | 0.334 | 13 | 14 | 27 | +1 |
| Alexander Bumagin - KHL | 3/1/87 | 170 | 0.291 | 10 | 14 | 24 | -7 |
| Toni Rajala - SM-Liiga | 3/29/91 | 101 | 0.286 | 13 | 10 | 23 | -1 |
| Ryan O`Marra - AHL | 3/29/91 | 15 | 0.278 | 0 | 23 | 23 | +11 |
| Colin McDonald - AHL | 9/30/84 | 51 | 0.249 | 17 | 3 | 20 | +2 |
| Alexei Mikhnov - KHL | 8/31/82 | 17 | 0.231 | 4 | 15 | 19 | +2 |
| Kellen Jones - NCAA | 8/16/90 | 202 | 0.219 | 9 | 9 | 18 | -16 |
| Teemu Hartikainen - AHL | 5/3/90 | 163 | 0.210 | 11 | 6 | 17 | +2 |
| Drew Czerwonka - WHL | 7/1/92 | 166 | 0.151 | 7 | 5 | 12 | -2 |
| Chris Vande Velde - AHL | 3/15/87 | 97 | 0.140 | 7 | 5 | 11 | +4 |
| Milan Kytnar - AHL | 5/19/89 | 127 | 0.100 | 2 | 7 | 8 | -2 |
| Kristians Pelss - WHL | 9/9/1992 | 181 | 0.089 | 2 | 5 | 7 | +4 |
| Philippe Cornet - AHL | 3/28/90 | 133 | 0.059 | 0 | 5 | 5 | -2 |
| Cameron Abney - WHL | 5/23/91 | 82 | 0.048 | 3 | 1 | 4 | -2 |
| Player - League | DOB | Drafted | NHL PPG | NHL82 G | NHL82 A | NHL82 P | Change |
| Martin Marincin - WHL | 2/18/92 | 46 | 0 | 8 | 19 | 27 | 0 |
| Brandon Davidson - WHL | 8/21/91 | 162 | 0 | 4 | 18 | 22 | +8 |
| Jeff Petry - AHL | 12/9/87 | 45 | 0 | 6 | 16 | 22 | +1 |
| Jeremie Blain - QMJHL | 3/19/92 | 91 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 12 | 0 |
| Taylor Chorney - AHL | 4/27/87 | 36 | 0 | 0 | 11 | 11 | +2 |
| Kyle Bigos - NCAA | 5/12/89 | 99 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 10 | -3 |
| Alexandre Plante - AHL | 5/9/89 | 15 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 10 | +4 |
| Johan Motin - AHL | 10/10/89 | 103 | 0 | 2 | 4 | 6 | +6 |
| Troy Hesketh - USHL | 7/5/91 | 71 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
- Tyler Pitlick told us about his move to right wing and how it's freed him up to focus on offense. Though his overall points equivalency hasn't changed much, the breakdown has. After October Pitlick's NHLE was 8G - 18A, after November, it's 13G - 14A. The goals are starting to come for the young winger.
- Martin Marincin is the model of consistency. 27 points after October, 27 points after November.
- The small number of games played by NCAA teams makes for some wild swings in NHLE. Robby Dee ended October with 7 games played. Maine only played 6 games in November. His month long cold streak saw his NHLE fall from 53 points to 31 points. Kellen Jones played 7 games and his month long cold streak saw his NHLE fall from 34 points to 18 points.
- Combine Colin McDonald's 17 NHLE goals and Ryan O'Marra's 23 NHLE assists and you've got yourself a fine player. Combine McDonald's 3 NHLE assists and O'Marra's 0 NHLE goals and you've got yourself J.F. Jacques.
- If Anton Lander can deliver all of the intangibles associated with him by every scout, coach and fan as well as 16G and 16A to go along with his penalty killing and defensive efforts, there's a real player coming over soon.
- Troy Hesketh continues to struggle in the USHL and as doritogrande reminds us, Jeff Petry was an absolute star in that league.
- Brandon Davidson was good for more than a point per game in November.
- Toni Rajala, Jeremie Blain, Phil Cornet and Alexei Mikhnov all struggled with injuries in November.