What was the team around Frost like? Did it change to the D+1 year season?
"I know his stats aren't blow you away good, but SSM really divvies up their minutes between their top 2 lines -- 5v5 and PP. Also, I watched Frost mainly play with Senyshyn. FWIW I think he's a pretty iffy IQ, tunnel vision guy, and not great in the o zone. I'm sure he helped his assist totals on the season, but he didn't really contribute much else to the line and wasn't particularly good in the cycle. Maybe playing with Katchouk or someone next year would be a better fit for Morgan."
I wrote that the day he was drafted.
Frost's team was the best team in the OHL (on paper at least - and by a large margin). Makes point production a lot easier compared to a back of the pack team. Put Jett on a contender (which hopefully happens via trade at some point this year), and we'd probably see a 100+ production (or close depending if he makes the WJHC). Seems to me, there betting on him having more production when his surrounding cast isn't as poor as it is now.
It doesn't always work this neatly. Better teams also can mean more mouths to feed. The Greyhounds were the 3rd best team in the OHL and the 4th highest scoring team Frost's draft year (2016-17). He had 62 points in 67 games, and only 2 player were over a point/game. It was very spread.
The 2017-18 team was a powerhouse that was virtually the identical team as the year before, sans a couple graduates. They scored 30 more goals, and Frost had 50 more points. Frost was indisputably one of the 3-4 best players in the OHL (Kyrou, Suzuki, Robertson), and he was the best player hands down for the Soo. Look at that roster, it's not a who's who of future NHL talent. It's a weird criticism knocking his point production as a product of himself. It's like saying MacKinnon played on the highest scoring NHL team, so his point production this year was easier. Ignoring the essential reason
why they were the highest scoring team.
Robert Thomas saw his points/game drop sizably in his D+1 after being traded from a middling London team to Hamilton, the OHL champions. Jason Robertson had virtually identical stats on Kingston in his D and D+1 years. For the Luchanko argument, Kingston was dead last in goals in his draft year (Robertson had 42 goals and 81 points). They scored 64 more goals the next year, went from dead last to above average, and he saw zero jump. And let me tell you, Luchanko doesn't hold a candle to Robertson's talent that we saw on that dead last Kingston team.
Honestly, production is the last thing on my mind with Luchanko. It was totally fine given the circumstances -- even if almost half was on the PP, and I didn't see the second coming of Giroux on the half-wall. But for the umpteenth time it's as simple as this: I don't see plus skill. That is totally independent of context.