Not sure why people would do that. My knock on yama always was that his weight was extreme outlier. At 155lbs he wasn't even coming in at tenable NHL size.
Taking Yama on a pick was a wasted pick. Spending years trying to turn him into something was a worse waste of time. I had tons of people tell me I'm making it up and Yams could compete well at this level at this size.
Savoie is 179lbs and well within weight range of what NHL players often can be. Its not even close to the same weight or size.
Anyway.
Yeah, its almost a 1-2 inch and 25 pound difference. That is a significant difference in size.
Their stats are pretty similar for draft year and D+1, very similar in fact, but D+2 is harder to read as Yams was in NHL/AHL and Savoie was in WHL/minimally in AHL:
- draft: KY: 65GP, 42G, 99P, MS: 65GP, 35G, 90P
- D+1: KY: 40GP, 21G, 64P, MS: 62GP, 38G, 95P
In the D+2 MS had almost a PPG pace in the AHL, but only over 6 GP, and then tore up WHL with 2.09 PPG, whereas Yams was 0.67 in AHL and 2 points in 17 NHL GP. Yams AHL season was pretty respectable for a 20 year old though, and with a cup of coffee in the NHL, was a pretty successful season I would argue. Not really sure who I would give the advantage to in the D+2 year really.
In Yams D+3 year he was almost a PPG in the NHL over 27 GP and strangely had a lower AHL PPG of 0.7, lol. We'll see what Savoie can do in D+3.
Anyway, I don't think the comp holds all that much in style, at least from the limited highlights I've seen of Savoie. I'm not that familiar with the player outside those highlight packages and then the descriptions I've read. He seems to be a significantly better skater, first and foremost, which will help him a lot being a smaller player. Also, as stated above, having an inch or 2 and 25 pounds, is quite a big difference really. Its the difference between "very small", and just "smaller than average".