We could also not look too much into it and just be enthusiastic about his pro debut
that's fine if your expectations are held in check. If he struggles to produce it will be no time before some posters are in the Timmins thread saying how Timmins sucks and he should have drafted so and so or blah blah blah instead.
I chose to look at everything, he's easily one of our best prospects, have had him rated #1 before the system took off with Suzuki, Caufield, and then Brook crushes it. I've been calling him an easy lock for the NHL for some time now, fans are going to love him as he plays the game the right way and has an NHL style game already.
While NCAA stats can be very misleading in both the good and bad, it doesn't hurt to point out that his numbers put in context of being on the best team in the NCAA (they were 4 lines deep) and back to back years as the 2nd best offense in the league, was disappointing for a 1st round pick. But he will very much be an NHLer, how good is anyone's guess. I would be surprised if he's a 1st line center and I am not sure he can be a 2nd line center on a cup contending team. So I have questions about how high his offensive upside really is.
That said he's going to be a solid NHLer at the worst and I think he will do better then say Eller did here but how much better I'm not sure. Could he put up 50 pts, yes but do I expect him to, not really. I'd need to see who he plays with since he's a playmaker mostly. If Caufield ends up being a legit stud 30-40 goal scorer in the NHL some day and he's on a line with Poehling then Poehling is clearly going to put up some numbers. But we'll see how that plays out.
I do not see this guy scoring 30 goals at any time in his carreer.
Seems pretty high given the results.
We will see.
Comparing him to ROR when the later was in the league at d+1.
Not sure I see 53 points and 18 goals at the same age: next year...
I don't see 30 goals because he's a playmaker, his coach moved him on a line with his brothers in order to force him to shoot more as was said during one of their games by the Habs NCAA scout (he's a regular on tv for NCAA hockey, Dave Starman who I'm certain had a say in us drafting Poehling)
So the question will be who he plays with as he is likely going to always be a pass first guy. Now maybe he pulls a Pacioretty but I would be shocked as Pac was a past first guy in the NCAA but he was only in the NCAA 1 year. In the AHL he started shooting more when he played with DD. I don't think Poehling has the shot to do that, he will score goals in the NHL for sure but I don't see him as some snipe putting up 30 and I'm not sure he would be a consistent 20 goal guy, maybe around that level in the 15-25 range but it's hard to project NCAA production to the NHL.