I dont really have an issue with Stutzle or Sanderson above him, even if Raymond was better than Stutzle this year. The issue I have is guys saying Jarvis can jump 10 spots ahead of him as a winger because he had a good first round of the playoffs on a great team while Raymond still outscored him this season.
Saying Byfield should hold his spot ahead of him because he finally had a season he didnt look like a bust because he got moved to the wing. A guy who Raymond had more goals than this season than Byfield does in his career. If you want to call Byfield a point per game center down the road at this point, you can easily say Raymond projects as a 100 point, 40 goal winger...
Lafreniere having a decent season and good playoff run playing with Panarin (once again, as a winger), has ~30 less points and the same amount of goals as Raymond in 60 more career games. But he holds his spot as a winger because of a 14 game sample with a top 5 or 6 player in the game on his line. Raymonds offensive game with Panarin this season and he pretty easily outdoes what Lafreniere does, and I say that as a guy that like Lafreniere.
Honestly using the playoffs as justification for anything is pretty stupid right now. Jarvis has points in 5 games total this playoffs, 2 points in his 6 games in the second round. Youre talking guys with 230+ game sample sizes and saying Jarvis' game translates to the playoffs because of a good 5 games against the Islanders in the first round basically.
Raymond pretty easily has the best case for third overall in this draft class right now (maybe 2nd depending on opinion of Sanderson), but you want to say people having him 8th is normal, its not
We may simply have a different view of how to rate Raymond, which is fine. I have had three Detroit fans question my points, but no other fan bases, so it could also be that there is a bias either way in how these points are viewed.
1) Regarding Jarvis "jumping". I dont care where these guys were drafted. I look at this as if I were a GM picking a player to have for the next decade on my team, who am I taking. Jarvis being drafted several spots later does nothing for my view of these players right now.
2) "Using playoffs as a justification is pretty stupid right now... If a team's goal is a presidents trophy, then sure, it's stupid to look at playoff performance. But I want a player, who when the game gets more physcial, tighter, and more ES, shows up. And Jarvis DID have a great series against the Islanders. And he had two solid playoff campaigns the two years prior. That's valuable to me if I'm a GM looking at who to take to focus on the goal I care about, which is winning a cup. If we want a team full of Mitch Marners, then take Mitch Marner. But I want a team of Brayden Points. Marner gets 10-15 more points a season in the regular season, but Point is the guy you want in the playoffs because he is an impact player in the post season. And I know you will say Jarvis wasn't impactful in the second round. But he HAS been impactful in rounds of the playoffs, and that can't simply be washed away like it's nothing
3) I was clear in my last post, I focus on projectability to go along with production. Byfield has not be as productive, but if I'm a GM, I'm thinking he has shown three years of improvement, is 6'5, had 41 ES points with 16:29 of total ice time. Raymond had 56 ES points with 17:45 of total ice time. Raymond also shot 19% this year compared to Byfield who shot 12.3%. When you control their stats, Raymond had a marginally better year (in the way I judge a player) and isn't nearly as projectable when it comes to position capabilities or two way impact. I think Byfield has sky high potential and could shift to Center at some point. Raymond to me has PPG potential as a predominantly offensive winger. There is value in that, I just would rather have Byfield.
4) Laf - Laf only had 5 less ES points than Raymond this year. He didn't have nearly the impact on the PP, which I probably state is due to his PDO being 86.6, which is absolutely insanely low. Raymonds was 103.5. Again, absolutes state Raymond had the better year. More goals, more points But from my view, Laf's year was actually very strong, and he didnt have nearly the puck luck that Raymond did on the PP to bump his point totals up a bit higher. Now, when we look at Laf in the playoffs, the guy is PPG and is scoring highlight goals against the Panthers, who are the best chance suppression team in the league. He isn't doing it against the Lightning, whose defense was very poor this year. Point is, Laf is a guy who some may look at and say "wow, PPG in the playoffs plus strong ES metrics this year means this guy is a breakout candidate moving forward". And BTW, Laf outscored Raymond last year in ES points (35 to 26), which is substantially better than Raymond's ES gap to Laf this year (56 to 51). Laf just didnt have the additional two minutes a game last year that Raymond had when Raymond outscored him 45 to 39 in total.
I've stated this several times. If someone takes Raymond 3rd/4th/5th overall, I wouldn't call them stupid. Just like I wouldn't call someone stupid if they took Laf/Jarvis/Byfield in those spots ahead of Raymond. But when Detroit fans tell me it's stupid that anyone would have Raymond any lower than 3rd or 4th, when there are reasons as to why he could potentially be as low as 7th depending on fit and preference, it's incredibly annoying. They point to his overall aggregate stats, dont pay attention to usage metrics/PDO/deployment, and just say "he has scored more so he is better". Raymond had a bad year last year, being fed ice time. He didnt produce nearly as much as he should have. This year was a really good rebound year. But he feasts on the PP, and is very similar to Byfield/Jarvis/Laf at ES when you control for different factors. From the projectibility standpoint, I dont know that he progresses much further than where he is. I still think that's a really good player, but I also think Byfield and Laf have even more growth in their game.
