C Will Smith - San Jose Sharks , NHL(2023, 4th, SJS)

[majormajor]

Growing up - in most countries, players play with, and against their own birth years. So I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that an ‘04 born late birthday is further along in his development.

There's conflicting effects from that though. The better league demands a higher standard of play. But the difficulty of playing against players months older than you can actually slow a player's development, perhaps some of it permanently or perhaps leaving a little more room for late blooming.*

And which effects predominate really depends on how the player stacks up to the league. Like Stan Svozil for example has been playing vs men for years in the Czech pro league. He comes over to Canadian junior and vs the lighter competition you start to see the skill pop. He didn't lose development by switching to an easier league, he improved his development!

* Perhaps someone who knows this better than me can correct my faulty memory but I recall reading that there are more Winter birthdays in the NHL than Fall birthdays, showing the benefit of being months older than your peers and getting to play a bigger role and getting to try things (this is the Malcolm Gladwell argument). This shows a permanent loss for Fall born players. Conversely, Fall players outperform Winter players relative to their draft position, showing a late bloomer effect.

 

[theoptimist]

 

[GermanSpitfire]

There's conflicting effects from that though. The better league demands a higher standard of play. But the difficulty of playing against players months older than you can actually slow a player's development, perhaps some of it permanently or perhaps leaving a little more room for late blooming.*

And which effects predominate really depends on how the player stacks up to the league. Like Stan Svozil for example has been playing vs men for years in the Czech pro league. He comes over to Canadian junior and vs the lighter competition you start to see the skill pop. He didn't lose development by switching to an easier league, he improved his development!

* Perhaps someone who knows this better than me can correct my faulty memory but I recall reading that there are more Winter birthdays in the NHL than Fall birthdays, showing the benefit of being months older than your peers and getting to play a bigger role and getting to try things (this is the Malcolm Gladwell argument). This shows a permanent loss for Fall born players. Conversely, Fall players outperform Winter players relative to their draft position, showing a late bloomer effect.

There is a good article on this I read a while back; I’ll link it below - it is shown that being a late birthday is actually a good thing and it helps your chances at being an impact NHLer despite the percentage of NHLers being born in those months as being lower than early birth months in the year

Underdog eat dog world: Late birthdays responsible for top talents | The Hockey News

I don’t think that being a late birthday is gospel at the draft table - but I think that it is one of the many things that should be taken into account when evaluating and projecting prospects, don’t read into it too much - but at the same time don’t discount it too much.

 

[majormajor]

There is a good article on this I read a while back; I’ll link it below - it is shown that being a late birthday is actually a good thing and it helps your chances at being an impact NHLer despite the percentage of NHLers being born in those months as being lower than early birth months in the year

Underdog eat dog world: Late birthdays responsible for top talents | The Hockey News

I don’t think that being a late birthday is gospel at the draft table - but I think that it is one of the many things that should be taken into account when evaluating and projecting prospects, don’t read into it too much - but at the same time don’t discount it too much.

Thanks for the link, that to me of course suggests we should generally expect more late bloomers from kids that are on the younger side of the age cutoffs.

I'm not sure if folks think this justifies only comparing 04s to 04s and 05s only to 05s. I certainly don't think it does, as the biological age in months is still going to be the stronger factor in how much physical and mental development runway a kid has remaining.

Actually unless I've spun it around the wrong way in my mind, sorting by birth year would actually make us miss the Fall birthday late bloomers even more.

 

[Hale The Villain]

Thanks for the link, that to me of course suggests we should generally expect more late bloomers from kids that are on the younger side of the age cutoffs.

I'm not sure if folks think this justifies only comparing 04s to 04s and 05s only to 05s. I certainly don't think it does, as the biological age in months is still going to be the stronger factor in how much physical and mental development runway a kid has remaining.

Actually unless I've spun it around the wrong way in my mind, sorting by birth year would actually make us miss the Fall birthday late bloomers even more.

If there's any greater success of drafting late-birthdays it's obviously because scouts get to see play and develop for an extra year compared to the early birthdays of the following birth year that share the same draft with them.

Late 2004 birthdays like Stramel are in the same year of development as early 2004 birthdays, which is why he's in college and Smith isn't, despite Smith being a much better hockey player.

Even if Stramel is less than 6 months older than Smith, he got to play 2 years of USNTDP/USHL hockey and now a year in college before being drafted (just like the other '04 born USNTDP players), while Smith is only in his second season with the USNTDP. The proper comparison stat and development-wise should obviously be between Stramel and other '04s that he's been playing beside for years like Cooley, Snuggerud, etc.... not '05 borns.

Birth year is by far the best way to compare prospects. Doing otherwise will lead you to significantly overrate the performance of late-birthdays.

 

[Juxtaposer]

Thanks for the link, that to me of course suggests we should generally expect more late bloomers from kids that are on the younger side of the age cutoffs.

I'm not sure if folks think this justifies only comparing 04s to 04s and 05s only to 05s. I certainly don't think it does, as the biological age in months is still going to be the stronger factor in how much physical and mental development runway a kid has remaining.

Actually unless I've spun it around the wrong way in my mind, sorting by birth year would actually make us miss the Fall birthday late bloomers even more.

No one is saying only compare players within their birth year (at least I sure hope they aren’t), just that it’s a factor in development.

 

[Ryan Van Horne]

I'm not sure I understand the emphasis on this point. My understanding is that biological age is by far the more important factor, largely determining how much mental and physical runway they have left for development. Someone born in January will have a similar mental and physical development to someone born a month prior. And we're comparing players who all started playing hockey at different ages and played in leagues around the world with different age cutoffs and graduated from league to league at different times with different criteria for doing so.

I'm happy to clarify why I emphasize that.

Let's focus on Fantilli and Smith because they've played at the same level. Smith has played with the NTDP, but his competition cohort has been mostly USHL for his one and a half seasons. To make a fair comparison between Smith and Fantilli, I'd compare what Fantilli did in his 16- and 17-year-old seasons in the USHL with Chicago, not what he is doing as an 18-year-old at Michigan in his draft year. (This doesn't mean you have to ignore this season when assessing Fantilli, but ideally you should compare players at the same hockey age and at the same level.)

Where this becomes really important for draft year comparisons is when a player who has a late birthday is playing at the same level for a third season before they're drafted. This happens quite a bit in major junior and a lot of CHL players pop in their third season due to physical maturity (somewhat) but mostly due to the fact that they are playing at the same level for a third year in a row which is something that doesn't happen in minor hockey and when a player gets a chance to do this, they usually make a big surge in production because they adapt to the level of play.

You can't infer "hockey age" from birthday and even if you could it would still be unimportant relative to biological age.

You can, here's why.

Hockey age is a player's age on Dec. 31 of that season. The IIHF and every hockey governing body that I'm aware of uses this as the cutoff when determining the age bracket a player will participate in. I'm not saying there aren't any that don't do this, but if there are, I'm not aware of them and they are the exception.

Growing up, players are grouped in age cohorts that span two years. 10-11, 12-13, 14-15 and then go to junior age and have two years of junior-eligible play at 16 and 17 before most are eligible for the NHL draft. There's an exception though and that's the group of players who turn 18 after Sept. 15. They can't be drafted with their age cohort peers and have to wait an extra year.

Fantilli and Carlsson are both 18 year-olds while Smith is a 17-year-old and I make this distinction not because Fantilli and Carlsson might have 13 years of hockey experience to Smith's 12 (assuming they all started at the age of five) but it's that third year of experience at the junior age.

I agree, it does get complicated when you're comparing a kid playing for the NTDP, a kid playing NCAA Division 1 and a kid playing in the Swedish Elitserien.

Fantilli is five months older (biologically) than Smith and Carlsson is three months older than Smith, but both are one year older from a hockey perspective because they've been playing with older players their entire lives and are one year further along the development track. Again it's not about the number of years playing hockey as most elite players have been playing since they were five, but it's about where you are relative to your peers.

I should also mention that it's a testament to Fantilli's and Carlsson's skill that they've been able to excel even though at times they've been among the youngest in their age cohort. Just because they are older than Smith doesn't mean you handicap them based solely on age.

Factoring in that a player is a late birthday or not and using hockey age is just a consideration and one that should be applied judiciously depending on the circumstances.

All that said, I think it's at the very least as important, and I would argue more so, than taking into consideration the biological age difference of a player who turned 18 in March versus one who didn't turn 18 until July in their draft year.

 

[majormajor]

If there's any greater success of drafting late-birthdays it's obviously because scouts get to see play and develop for an extra year compared to the early birthdays of the following birth year that share the same draft with them.

But Fall birthdays outperforming their draft position isn't a success for scouting, that means more scouts are whiffing on them. Maybe comparing them too much to their birth year cohort, which the Fall birthday players were at a real age disadvantage to.

Late 2004 birthdays like Stramel are in the same year of development as early 2004 birthdays, which is why he's in college and Smith isn't, despite Smith being a much better hockey player.

Even if Stramel is less than 6 months older than Smith, he got to play 2 years of USNTDP/USHL hockey and now a year in college before being drafted (just like the other '04 born USNTDP players), while Smith is only in his second season with the USNTDP. The proper comparison stat and development-wise should obviously be between Stramel and other '04s that he's been playing beside for years like Cooley, Snuggerud, etc.... not '05 borns.

I don't think it's necessarily an advantage for Stramel to move up a level a year earlier than Smith. If Stramel had started in the program a year later he might have been better off.

 

[Ryan Van Horne]

I was curious about Smith's performance versus different levels of play, so I dug a little deeper. Here's a breakdown of Smith's point totals so far this season (as of Jan. 18) and does not include All-American Prospects Game.
vs. College 18 GP, 11 goals, 20 assists, 31 points
vs. USHL 10 GP, 5 goals, 14 assists, 19 points
vs. Int'l 4 GP 6 goals, 3 assists, 9 points

Source: Will Smith game logs

No surprises there for me, except maybe the higher number of games the U18 team has played versus college teams compared to USHL teams. The rest of the schedule is lopsided the other way, though. Just four of 16 single games are against college teams while 12 are against USHL competition. There's also the Five Nations in February and world U18 in April to add to the international play.

 

[lanky]

31 pts in 18 games against NCAA teams is pretty impressive.

 

[Ryan Van Horne]

31 pts in 18 games against NCAA teams is pretty impressive.

Yes it is, especially for a 17-year-old.

 

[1909]

I like Will Smith's slapper.....

 

[sigx15]

Except it does actually matter. Take Smith as an example. If he had been a December ‘04 birthday instead of a March ‘05 birthday, he’d be in the NCAA this year, meaning he’d be a year further into his development.

This isn't even close to being true. Many, maybe even most, US school systems have either September 1st or October 1st cutoffs for school. I'm from Massachusetts and don't even know any towns in Massachusetts who have a January 1st cut off date. Tons of kids are freshman in colleges with the older kids being the September-December birthdays

 

[MichaelFarrell]

31 pts in 18 games against NCAA teams is pretty impressive.

And he also gets to play with his same line mates next year in college. BC is going to be solid next year.

 

[Juxtaposer]

This isn't even close to being true. Many, maybe even most, US school systems have either September 1st or October 1st cutoffs for school. I'm from Massachusetts and don't even know any towns in Massachusetts who have a January 1st cut off date. Tons of kids are freshman in colleges with the older kids being the September-December birthdays

For a regular person, yes. But not for hockey guys. There is no ‘05 born player in the NTDP system that is in college. If there were, we’d hear about them “accelerating their studies”, like Hanifin or Werenski.

 

[JotAlan]

I was curious about Smith's performance versus different levels of play, so I dug a little deeper. Here's a breakdown of Smith's point totals so far this season (as of Jan. 18) and does not include All-American Prospects Game.
vs. College 18 GP, 11 goals, 20 assists, 31 points
vs. USHL 10 GP, 5 goals, 14 assists, 19 points
vs. Int'l 4 GP 6 goals, 3 assists, 9 points

Source: Will Smith game logs

No surprises there for me, except maybe the higher number of games the U18 team has played versus college teams compared to USHL teams. The rest of the schedule is lopsided the other way, though. Just four of 16 single games are against college teams while 12 are against USHL competition. There's also the Five Nations in February and world U18 in April to add to the international play.

Interesting! Can you put in the Moore and Leonard numbers?

 

[Ryan Van Horne]

Interesting! Can you put in the Moore and Leonard numbers?

I didn't compile these but @shotvalley asked me the same question you did and I told them where they could find the data. They did the math and shared these with me. I don't think they'll mind if I post them. (They also calculated ppg averages).

Will Smith:
NCAA 18 games, 11+20=31 (1,72)
USHL 10 games, 5+14=19 (1,9)
Internat. 4 games, 6+3=9 (2,25)

Gabriel Perreault:
NCAA 18 games, 16+16+32 (1,78)
USHL 13 games, 10+13=23 (1,77)
Internat. 4 games, 4+5=9 (2,25)

Ryan Leonard:
NCAA 18 games, 13+14=27 (1,5)
USHL 8 games, 7+3=10 (1,25)
Internat. 4 games, 3+4=7 (1,75)

Oliver Moore:
NCAA 16 games, 9+13=22 (1,38)
USHL 13 games, 7+10=17 (1,31)
Internat. 4 games, 4+2=6 (1,5)

Danny Nelson:
NCAA 17 games, 5+7=12 (0,71)
USHL 13 games, 5+4=9 (0,69)
Internat. 4 games, 1+4=5 (1,25)

 

[JotAlan]

I know it's hard to compare, but I'd like to do a comparison between him and the WHL boys, so I'm curious to know what pace Smith would produce if he was playing in the WHL. Is there any proportional calculation between ntdp and whl?
Would he be producing something around 1.8ppg?

 

[MichaelFarrell]

I know it's hard to compare, but I'd like to do a comparison between him and the WHL boys, so I'm curious to know what pace Smith would produce if he was playing in the WHL. Is there any proportional calculation between ntdp and whl?
Would he be producing something around 1.8ppg?

That’s a bit of a difficult question. What team is he on in this scenario? Smith is a great player but his line mates are great as well. If he had the same team in the WHL, he’d probably be top 4 in WHL scoring. The man has 1.7ppg against college competition.

If he’s on the Oil Kings, he’d probably be a bit lower in the stat sheet.

 

[JotAlan]

That’s a bit of a difficult question. What team is he on in this scenario? Smith is a great player but his line mates are great as well. If he had the same team in the WHL, he’d probably be top 4 in WHL scoring. The man has 1.7ppg against college competition.

If he’s on the Oil Kings, he’d probably be a bit lower in the stat sheet.

Yes. It's a really tough question. In your opinion, if he was without his line, on a bad team like Kelowna would he probably be below Cristal's ppg?
Would you say it would be something around what Heidt is producing?

 

[MichaelFarrell]

Yes. It's a really tough question. In your opinion, if he was without his line, on a bad team like Kelowna would he probably be below Cristal's ppg?
Would you say it would be something around what Heidt is producing?

It’d be really tough to match Cristall’s production. Cristall also just plays a different game. Cristall is a buzzsaw who is always trying to create offense. Smith is very skilled but doesn’t have quite the motor of Cristall. Sometimes Smith relies a bit too much on his teammates to go into the dirty areas.

I think Smith projects better to the NHL than guys like Cristall or Benson but I don’t think he’d have more points than them in the WHL. I could still see Critstall and/or Benson going ahead of Smith in the draft. But, I would feel more comfortable taking Smith.

You never know how many points Smith would have in a different league, but I think Heidt or Nate Danielson’s production are right around where he would be.

 

[Hale The Villain]

But Fall birthdays outperforming their draft position isn't a success for scouting, that means more scouts are whiffing on them. Maybe comparing them too much to their birth year cohort, which the Fall birthday players were at a real age disadvantage to.

I don't really buy in to the results of the "study". It doesn't really indicate much of a outperformance that can't be accounted for a few extra elite players happening to be born in the later months of the year.

In my experience drafting late-birthdays is often a safer bet than drafting non-late birthdays since you get to see the player an extra year, at the cost of potentially missing out on an early birthday that takes a massive jump in development in their 18YR old development year.

I don't think it's necessarily an advantage for Stramel to move up a level a year earlier than Smith. If Stramel had started in the program a year later he might have been better off.

But you misunderstand - Stramel didn't accelerate his studies and move up a level earlier like '05 born Matthew Wood for example, he is in the same development year as the other USNTDP '04 borns that have made the jump to college in their 18YR old development season, but because of the arbitrary NHL September 15 cutoff that was created to ensure non-adults (minors under age 18) could not play NHL games, Stramel gets drafted with '05 birthdays like Smith.

He's essentially a season ahead of Smith and the other '05s. Ignoring that will cause you to overrate him and other '04 birthdays.

 

[Postulates]

It’d be really tough to match Cristall’s production. Cristall also just plays a different game. Cristall is a buzzsaw who is always trying to create offense. Smith is very skilled but doesn’t have quite the motor of Cristall. Sometimes Smith relies a bit too much on his teammates to go into the dirty areas.

I think Smith projects better to the NHL than guys like Cristall or Benson but I don’t think he’d have more points than them in the WHL. I could still see Critstall and/or Benson going ahead of Smith in the draft. But, I would feel more comfortable taking Smith.

You never know how many points Smith would have in a different league, but I think Heidt or Nate Danielson’s production are right around where he would be.

Yeah I think Cristall game is made for junior hockey stardom instead of nhl stardom which leads to his production being so high here. A lot of his goals and playmaking just doesn't work at the nhl level.

 

[majormajor]

But you misunderstand - Stramel didn't accelerate his studies and move up a level earlier like '05 born Matthew Wood for example, he is in the same development year as the other USNTDP '04 borns that have made the jump to college in their 18YR old development season, but because of the arbitrary NHL September 15 cutoff that was created to ensure non-adults (minors under age 18) could not play NHL games, Stramel gets drafted with '05 birthdays like Smith.

He's essentially a season ahead of Smith and the other '05s. Ignoring that will cause you to overrate him and other '04 birthdays.

No I was speaking strictly within your example of Stramel v Smith. Stramel is moving up to NCAA at a several months younger age than Smith will next year. That has a disadvantage component to it.

 

[Ryan Van Horne]

I know it's hard to compare, but I'd like to do a comparison between him and the WHL boys, so I'm curious to know what pace Smith would produce if he was playing in the WHL. Is there any proportional calculation between ntdp and whl?
Would he be producing something around 1.8ppg?

There are a couple of guys who do equivalency ratings.

One guy is Byron Bader, who runs a site called Hockey Prospecting. It's a pay site, but if you're into comparing prospects, I think it's worth the annual fee.

Here is how his model compares Will Smith to Andrew Cristall.

Then, there's a guy I follow on Twitter named Mason Black, who has an app you can download for free and he's created something called PNHLe, which is basically an NHL equivalency score that takes into consideration where the player is playing and how old they are.

His latest PNHLe rankings have Cristall at No. 14 with a PNHLe of 90 and Smith is ranked just behind him with an 86.

Two different models that put differing weights on different data and you come up with different rankings.