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LW Kyle Connor - Michigan, NCAA (2015, 17th, WPG)

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Whileee said:
I'll just leave this here.... :naughty:

Marner (NHLE):

Draft: 49.2
Draft+1: 49.9

Connor (NHLE):

Draft: 31.6
Draft+1: 61.4

The point isn't that Marner isn't a tremendous prospect, but to illustrate just how strong Connor's draft+1 season is looking.
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I don't think leafs fans will like this.
 
Whileee said:
I think they will. In my experience, they tend to gravitate towards statistical comparisons of prospects.
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Oh how I miss those Trouba vs Rielly stats comparisons. Not surprised to see who's ahead right now though ;)

Think Connor has the highest NHL equivalency totals from any 2015 draftee right now (excl. McD), even higher than Eichel's current NHL pace. Really surprised to see him fall that much in the draft though, like countless others have said in this thread. Even Letunov, Kyle's teammate with the Phantoms, is a NCAA freshman PPG player right now and he was a pretty late 2nd round pick in '14. Feels like the USHL still gets overlooked by scouts
 
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TheLeastOfTheBunch said:
Oh how I miss those Trouba vs Rielly stats comparisons. Not surprised to see who's ahead right now though ;)

Think Connor has the highest NHL equivalency totals from any 2015 draftee right now (excl. McD), even higher than Eichel's current NHL pace. Really surprised to see him fall that much in the draft though, like countless others have said in this thread. Even Letunov, Kyle's teammate with the Phantoms, is a NCAA freshman PPG player right now and he was a pretty late 2nd round pick in '14. Feels like the USHL still gets overlooked by scouts
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Last year looks like a banner year for the USHL. Connor, White, Boeser, Roslovic.... they are all having stellar freshman NCAA seasons. After seeing Larkin's success, and the development of these prospects I expect that the USHL is going to get more attention.

Interestingly, the Jets really loaded up on USHL prospects in the last draft...

Connor, Roslovic, Foley and Appleton.

Of course, the Jets are pretty happy with their most notable USHL grad - Trouba. :)
 
Whileee said:
I'll just leave this here.... :naughty:

Marner (NHLE):

Draft: 49.2
Draft+1: 49.9

Connor (NHLE):

Draft: 31.6
Draft+1: 61.4

The point isn't that Marner isn't a tremendous prospect, but to illustrate just how strong Connor's draft+1 season is looking.
Click to expand...
Marner's younger and unless your name is McDavid or Kane getting significantly past 2ppg is rare in the OHL, even Tavares topped out in that range. Plus equivalencies tend to ignore other key info when statistically projecting to the next level and equivalencies for college are debatable due to the different rates per conference and the amount of out of conference play.
 
93LEAFS said:
Marner's younger
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1. Marner is younger by only 5 months...

93LEAFS said:
unless your name is McDavid or Kane getting significantly past 2ppg is rare in the OHL, even Tavares topped out in that range
Click to expand...

2. getting 1.83 points per game is extremely rare in the NCAA, especially as a first year (Gaudreau took a few years before he hit 2 points per game and even Eichel didn't reach that total albeit he was a year younger during his NCAA stint)

93LEAFS said:
equivalencies tend to ignore other key info when statistically projecting to the next level and equivalencies for college are debatable due to the different rates per conference and the amount of out of conference play.
Click to expand...

3. What do equivalencies tend to ignore? I know they're not accurate all the time but I find they do a good job of pointing out which leagues are harder to score in, especially for younger prospects. Sure it doesn't take into account teams that score a ton but by Marner's team is having just as much success scoring as Connor's team. Regardless of the conference, NCAA play is a step up from CHL play due to the physical maturity of the players, which is why it's given a higher NHL Equivalency rating.

Anyways...

I think Marner is a great prospect. If I had to choose now I'd probably still pick him over Connor due to history but Connor is closing that gap fast and that needs to be recognized. There was a small minority of people who disputed Eichel's NCAA numbers by claiming that CHL was a harder league and Eichel would flop in the NHL. Eichel is looking like a potential top 10 center right now and is scoring on a bad team. Guys like Gostisbehere and Larkin "came out of nowhere" because people don't give the NCAA the credit it deserves.

Sure there are high NCAA scorers who don't turn in to anything but those are guys who score at a high rate in their upperclassman years. NCAA equivalencies work well to compare guys between leagues when you look at their production as underclassmen.

So yes, Marner is a great prospect but people need to realize the NCAA is a legitimate league at producing top tier prospects.
 
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93LEAFS said:
Marner's younger and unless your name is McDavid or Kane getting significantly past 2ppg is rare in the OHL, even Tavares topped out in that range. Plus equivalencies tend to ignore other key info when statistically projecting to the next level and equivalencies for college are debatable due to the different rates per conference and the amount of out of conference play.
Click to expand...

How rare is it for an NCAA freshman to average over 1.8 pts / game? Very. Probably less common than 2ppg in the OHL for draft+1 players. Connor is leading the NCAA in PPG by a fairly wide margin, as a freshman. Only some fairly special players have done that (Kariya, Eichel).

Even if you think the NHLEs are debatable, I think it's hard to argue that it's a more difficult league to score in. Last season, Larkin was at about 1.34 pts/game for the same team, and he's transitioned pretty well to the NHL.

Don't get me wrong, I still think that Marner is likely the better prospect, but I think the gap is much smaller than suggested by their draft position. It is interesting that a couple of "draft experts" (Mark Edwards of Hockeyprospects.com and Craig Button of TSN) ranked Connor at #5 and #6, respectively. So Connor didn't come out of nowhere as a top prospect. He likely fell on draft boards a bit because scouts still have some difficulty appraising players in the USHL accurately in relation to other leagues. But that is likely to change if the flow of top talent from the USHL continues.
 
hockeey said:
3. What do equivalencies tend to ignore? I know they're not accurate all the time but I find they do a good job of pointing out which leagues are harder to score in, especially for younger prospects. Sure it doesn't take into account teams that score a ton but by Marner's team is having just as much success scoring as Connor's team. Regardless of the conference, NCAA play is a step up from CHL play due to the physical maturity of the players, which is why it's given a higher NHL Equivalency rating.

Anyways...

I think Marner is a great prospect. If I had to choose now I'd probably still pick him over Connor due to history but Connor is closing that gap fast and that needs to be recognized. There was a small minority of people who disputed Eichel's NCAA numbers by claiming that CHL was a harder league and Eichel would flop in the NHL. Eichel is looking like a potential top 10 center right now and is scoring on a bad team. Guys like Gostisbehere and Larkin "came out of nowhere" because people don't give the NCAA the credit it deserves.

Sure there are high NCAA scorers who don't turn in to anything but those are guys who score at a high rate in their upperclassman years. NCAA equivalencies work well to compare guys between leagues when you look at their production as underclassmen.

So yes, Marner is a great prospect but people need to realize the NCAA is a legitimate league at producing top tier prospects.
Click to expand...
The problem with NCAA equivalencies is how to weight points accumulated in non-conference games, and my point about age is due to how you statistically weight point when applying it to a projection.
Whileee said:
How rare is it for an NCAA freshman to average over 1.8 pts / game? Very. Probably less common than 2ppg in the OHL for draft+1 players. Connor is leading the NCAA in PPG by a fairly wide margin, as a freshman. Only some fairly special players have done that (Kariya, Eichel).

Even if you think the NHLEs are debatable, I think it's hard to argue that it's a more difficult league to score in. Last season, Larkin was at about 1.34 pts/game for the same team, and he's transitioned pretty well to the NHL.

Don't get me wrong, I still think that Marner is likely the better prospect, but I think the gap is much smaller than suggested by their draft position. It is interesting that a couple of "draft experts" (Mark Edwards of Hockeyprospects.com and Craig Button of TSN) ranked Connor at #5 and #6, respectively. So Connor didn't come out of nowhere as a top prospect. He likely fell on draft boards a bit because scouts still have some difficulty appraising players in the USHL accurately in relation to other leagues. But that is likely to change if the flow of top talent from the USHL continues.
Click to expand...
I agree Connor is making certain teams look foolish (Boston and USA WJC management) and looks great, and I agree its harder to score in the NCAA. But a lot more high end offensive talent goes the OHL route, so there are more people to compare it against, the best scorers in the league out of the NCAA are Toews, Kessel, Parise, Gaudreau, Wheeler and potentially Eichel and Larkin, comparatively Kane, Seguin, Hall, Tavares, Thornton, Perry and Spezza are OHL guys, so I'd say more elite scorers have gone the OHL route, so it would be harder for a guy to post rare benchmark numbers. Connor has the highest ppg among u-20 players (best filter I could use, I know he is a very late birthday) in the NCAA (slightly ahead of 18 year old Eichel, Jadan Schwartz 18 and 19 year old years) which is very impressive. Marner 2.04 ppg in his 18 year old year has only been beaten by Sam Gagner (played with Kane), Kane, McDavid, and Cory Locke in the last 16 years the rate Marner (and Dylan Strome are scoring at) is better than players such as Hall, Tavares, Max Domi and Corey Perry.

I'm not against advanced analytic s, in many ways I think they are very useful, but I don't like equivalencies (particularly ones as complex as needed for the NCAA). I don't know how many people are baseball nerds here, but I'd much rather find something much closer to PETCOA that takes essential data (such as age, scoring rate of league and QOC) to create a profile then project from there, raw equivalence numbers do not attempt to do that. For example right now Connor's raw numbers are better than Larkin and Eichel as a freshman, but the metric does not take into account these guys did it at a younger age. Or in the case of someone like Matthews trying to apply the equivalent rate from the swiss league probably drastically underrates him.

Also, a quick question for those who closely follow NCCA Hockey, I remember someone saying earlier in the year this was a down year for the Big 10 does that still hold true today? Just looking at the rankings and it seems to heavily favor Hockey-East. Either way, what Kyle Connor is doing is beyond impressive and along with Rantanen and Colin White has probably done the most to raise his stock since the draft.
 
I think the point about Connor and others who were scouted through the USHL is that it seems that scouts have a harder time getting a good read on them and some NHL teams seem more comfortable in drawing comparisons with prospects in other leagues. When the Jets selected Trouba Chevy was ecstatic that he was still available at #8. Clearly, he and his scouts had him rated higher, but at the time it didn't seem that he had "fallen". Larkin and Connor seem to have been underrated in their draft years by a number of teams, too.

Connor put up very strong numbers in the USHL in his draft-1 and draft years, using historical comparisons for that league. His performance in the NCAA is still somewhat of a surprise, but the scouts who had him rated around the top-5 seem to have been more tuned in than those who had him rated lower in the 1st round.
 
It's just mind-boggling how a guy like Connor falls to #17. It looked stupid on draft day and it looks even more stupid right now. He was a clear top10 pick for me. I had him ranked #9. You could make a good argument that Sharks, Stars or Bruins should've taken this kid.
 
Zaddy Zads said:
It's just mind-boggling how a guy like Connor falls to #17. It looked stupid on draft day and it looks even more stupid right now. He was a clear top10 pick for me. I had him ranked #9. You could make a good argument that Sharks, Stars or Bruins should've taken this kid.
Click to expand...

It's reminiscent of Perlini and Vrana going ahead of Larkin in 2014.
 
Whileee said:
I'll just leave this here.... :naughty:

Marner (NHLE):

Draft: 49.2
Draft+1: 49.9

Connor (NHLE):

Draft: 31.6
Draft+1: 61.4

The point isn't that Marner isn't a tremendous prospect, but to illustrate just how strong Connor's draft+1 season is looking.
Click to expand...

Whileee, remember my post that said it would not surprise me if Connor could be as good as any player other than Mc-David prior to the draft? This illustration makes my point. The margin of mid-first to anyone not named Mc-Eichel is a lot closer than people thought. We have to take into account Larkin and what he is doing this year and apply it to Connor who is surpassing Larkin's great year last season. This adds validity to Connor as a prospect. And if one said that Connor may be a better prospect than Marner in his post draft + 1 year. They would have a case to say this. He's been more impressive than Marner this year. No one can argue this with the numbers he is putting up.

I had Connor at 12 last draft and Marner at 9. So it is not a position that is inconsistent from me. Connor is a better skater, he has outstanding offensive instincts, he can finish, and with added filling out he is already 6'1 176. There is no telling how great a player the Jets may have here. Again Hillier and Co. have done a tremendous job securing talent.
 
93LEAFS said:
The problem with NCAA equivalencies is how to weight points accumulated in non-conference games, and my point about age is due to how you statistically weight point when applying it to a projection.

I agree Connor is making certain teams look foolish (Boston and USA WJC management) and looks great, and I agree its harder to score in the NCAA. But a lot more high end offensive talent goes the OHL route, so there are more people to compare it against, the best scorers in the league out of the NCAA are Toews, Kessel, Parise, Gaudreau, Wheeler and potentially Eichel and Larkin, comparatively Kane, Seguin, Hall, Tavares, Thornton, Perry and Spezza are OHL guys, so I'd say more elite scorers have gone the OHL route, so it would be harder for a guy to post rare benchmark numbers. Connor has the highest ppg among u-20 players (best filter I could use, I know he is a very late birthday) in the NCAA (slightly ahead of 18 year old Eichel, Jadan Schwartz 18 and 19 year old years) which is very impressive. Marner 2.04 ppg in his 18 year old year has only been beaten by Sam Gagner (played with Kane), Kane, McDavid, and Cory Locke in the last 16 years the rate Marner (and Dylan Strome are scoring at) is better than players such as Hall, Tavares, Max Domi and Corey Perry.

I'm not against advanced analytic s, in many ways I think they are very useful, but I don't like equivalencies (particularly ones as complex as needed for the NCAA). I don't know how many people are baseball nerds here, but I'd much rather find something much closer to PETCOA that takes essential data (such as age, scoring rate of league and QOC) to create a profile then project from there, raw equivalence numbers do not attempt to do that. For example right now Connor's raw numbers are better than Larkin and Eichel as a freshman, but the metric does not take into account these guys did it at a younger age. Or in the case of someone like Matthews trying to apply the equivalent rate from the swiss league probably drastically underrates him.

Also, a quick question for those who closely follow NCCA Hockey, I remember someone saying earlier in the year this was a down year for the Big 10 does that still hold true today? Just looking at the rankings and it seems to heavily favor Hockey-East. Either way, what Kyle Connor is doing is beyond impressive and along with Rantanen and Colin White has probably done the most to raise his stock since the draft.
Click to expand...

Big 10 is AWFUL.

Michigan has 12 players drafted in NHL draft.

They avg 5 goals and just under 40 shots per game. I think there were just under 200 shot attempts vs Penn st on Thurs night while 99 of those were recorded as sog

No reason for Michigan stats to not keep up or even improve with Big 10 conference play.

Best team with best talent in horrible conference = Great stats !!!!
 
hohosaregood said:
IIRC Larkin was generally ranked 18-20. Connor was ranked among the top 11 or so.
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I think Mckenzie's 10 scouts had Larkin at 12 in his final rankings. Connor was certainly overlooked in last year's draft. But the depth of the draft had a lot to do with this. I saw it like the 2003 draft. Getzlaf was not picked until 19. Parise, Kesler, Backes, Perry were picked later. And they turned out better than many top 10 picks. For me Connor and others will prove that this draft was similar to 2003. A lot of players picked mid to late first rd I can see being better than picks picked earlier.
 
Mickey the mouse said:
Big 10 is AWFUL.

Michigan has 12 players drafted in NHL draft.

They avg 5 goals and just under 40 shots per game. I think there were just under 200 shot attempts vs Penn st on Thurs night while 99 of those were recorded as sog

No reason for Michigan stats to not keep up or even improve with Big 10 conference play.

Best team with best talent in horrible conference = Great stats !!!!
Click to expand...

It's pretty remarkable actually. Connor, Compher, Motte are all averaging about ~2.50PPG in games vs Big 10 teams, which is where Michigan plays. They aren't too far off in age either, with Connor being a year and a half younger than the other 2, so the NHL equivalency stats also apply well to Compher and Motte. Perhaps we're witnessing a historical scoring trio?
 
Whileee said:
I'll just leave this here.... :naughty:

Marner (NHLE):

Draft: 49.2
Draft+1: 49.9

Connor (NHLE):

Draft: 31.6
Draft+1: 61.4

The point isn't that Marner isn't a tremendous prospect, but to illustrate just how strong Connor's draft+1 season is looking.
Click to expand...

How to boost a thread 101
Somehow indicate there could be better prospects than Leafs prospects, particularly concerning Marner or Nylander .. and boom viral.
 
Sens of Anarchy said:
How to boost a thread 101
Somehow indicate there could be better prospects than Leafs prospects, particularly concerning Marner or Nylander .. and boom viral.
Click to expand...

ya u cant go there... cause now its going to slowly turn into a thread bashing Connor... I wish we could erase that comparison reply cause I actually enjoy reading threads like this where people don't start comparing prospects with Leaf prospects.

Oh well, this thread was awesome while it lasted!! haha
 
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93LEAFS said:
Marner's younger and unless your name is McDavid or Kane getting significantly past 2ppg is rare in the OHL, even Tavares topped out in that range. Plus equivalencies tend to ignore other key info when statistically projecting to the next level and equivalencies for college are debatable due to the different rates per conference and the amount of out of conference play.
Click to expand...

But Marner plays against little boys while Connor plays against men!!! :sarcasm:
 
Sens of Anarchy said:
How to boost a thread 101
Somehow indicate there could be better prospects than Leafs prospects, particularly concerning Marner or Nylander .. and boom viral.
Click to expand...

Well, how was marner ranked vs connor in almost all prospect magazines/websites again?
 
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