All NHL teams aspire to accumulate talent throughout their lineup. While this can be accomplished through trades or free agency, the most cost-efficient way to acquire talent is through the NHL Draft. Drafted players are cost controlled throughout their entry-level contracts and require only draft picks to get them into the organization.
The Seattle Kraken have been wisely accumulating draft assets, selecting 36 players over the last four NHL Drafts. Early returns suggest that first-round picks like Matty Beniers and Shane Wright will be key contributors. Beniers already has 167 games under his belt, and we can expect Wright to be a full-time NHLer next season.
The Kraken have also seen recent standout performances from a pair of second-round picks. Both David Goyette and Jagger Firkus led the OHL and WHL respectively in scoring last season. Given these developments, how should we evaluate their progress? Statistically, are they tracking as home run draft picks and future stars? Or should we remain more reserved in our outlook?
Performance relative to age
One useful lens for analyzing progress is performance relative to age. Even within the same draft class, there can be a wide disparity in age. For the 2024 draft, top-ranked prospect Cole Eiserman (drafted No. 20 overall by the New York Islanders) is about 10 months (304 days) younger than Artyom Levshunov (drafted No. 2 overall by the Chicago Blackhawks). At this age, 10 months is a huge runway in developmental timeline. This effect is compounded in junior leagues like the OHL and WHL where players as young as 16 and as old as 20 are playing side-by-side against each other every night.
Intuitively, we should expect a 20-year-old to be far more physically developed than the average 18-year-old (the average age of each team was 18.7 in both the OHL and WHL last year). Without the context of age, we may be prone to draw faulty conclusions about a player’s long-term potential. So how can we contextualize the seasons that Goyette and Firkus just had?
In order to draw some rudimentary conclusions, we looked at the top 15 scoring seasons for both OHL and WHL players from 2014 to 2024. The jury is still out on the long-term ceiling of some of these players, but there is enough data to make some inferences. Within the OHL, the list includes current NHL stars like Connor McDavid, Mitch Marner, and Jason Robertson, solid top-six players like Dylan Strome, and bottom-six forwards like Kevin Labanc. We also see players like Justin Brazeau and Aaron Luchuk who, to-date, have been unable to carve out NHL careers.
The common thread here is that standout performances in your 17- or 18-year-old season are often predictive of high-ceiling NHL careers. Standout performances from 19- or 20-year-olds should be taken with a bigger grain of salt. Included in this latter group are Christian Dvorak and Rory Kerins. While the former is a useful albeit replaceable bottom-six forward, the latter may or may not crack the NHL at all.
The WHL paints a similar picture. Two thirds of the top scoring seasons from the last 10 years are owned by 19 and 20-year-old players, many of which have struggled to hold NHL jobs. Kraken fan favorite Oliver Bjorkstrand has found success as a top-six forward while Sam Steel appears to have settled into a bottom-six role.
What is also notable is what the data doesn’t show. Superstar talents do not tend to linger in Major Junior for long. Connor Bedard just won the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s best rookie. By the time he was 20, Connor McDavid had played nearly 200 NHL games and was scoring over 100 points per season. Post-draft, Mitch Marner spent another year with the London Knights before debuting in the NHL with a 61-point season.
With this in mind, we should be wary of projecting Firkus and Goyette as top-of-the-lineup stars. They both had excellent seasons, but their statistical profiles are more in line with solid middle-six forwards. While on the surface this may seem disappointing, this isn’t bad news. It is important to remember that even players selected early in the draft often do not become full-time NHLers.
Looking at five years of draft data from 2010-2014 and using the 100 games played mark as a threshold, we find that 82 percent of first-round picks became NHLers, but that number drops off to only 46 percent in the second round. Even then, reaching the 100 games played threshold is hardly indicative of being a true difference maker on a contending team. Solid middle-six forwards would be fantastic outcomes for Firkus and Goyette, and contending teams need this type of talent in the middle of their lineup to win.
While our analysis leads us to some muted optimism for Firkus and Goyette, we should end on a more positive note. The Kraken’s most recent first-round pick, Berkly Catton, just wrapped up a very special season relative to his historical 17-year-old peers, putting him in rare company. Hockey analyst Cam Robinson summed it up best.
Last season, the Kraken offense was ranked fourth from the bottom of the NHL. In drafting Catton, a dynamic rush scoring forward, they may have selected a player uniquely suited to address this gap.
Another great article from the Sound of Hockey team. I think it is harder for players to put up similar numbers from players 10 years ago. The reason is that, in my opinion, is that goaltenders are putting up better numbers now. I would be interested in seeing a comparison similar to this one but also calculating the goaltender data into it. Can it be done or does it even make sense?
thanks guys, I enjoy reading Soundofhockey and I wish I could chime in on the pod casts but……….
That’s an interesting hypothesis, though you are right in that it may be challenging to prove it out. Instead, we could probably factor in league-wide scoring rates to see how much better Firkus and Goyette were compared to their peers in a given season.
James – thanks for your insight.
Question – while Firkus and Goyette should be considered buyer beware given your analysis above, both had solid 17 yo (21/22) seasons – 30+ goals and around 80 points total and similar 18 yo (22/23) seasons and then of course their ridiculous 23/24 numbers. Would the fact the were good/very good at 17-18 changes improve their projections at all?
There’s two things to think about here.
1. Instead of this being a buyer beware, I would frame it more as a recalibration of what success looks like. The Kraken would love to land a Jason Robertson type talent from their 2nd round picks. But it’s important to remember that the more likely outcome of solid middle six contributor is a good outcome too and essential to building a contending team. The Panthers just won a cup with key contributions from players like Rodrigues and Luostarinen. One way to think about it is that Goyette and Firkus have done exactly what the Kraken have hoped, which is dominate their respective junior leagues.
2. Looking holistically at a player’s pre-draft, draft, and draft+1 seasons could definitely alter the outlook. Byron Bader (Hockey Prospecting) has done some work that incorporates that data.
James – thanks for this..
Thank you for the analysis. It would be interesting seeing this from “the other side of the coin,” taking actual NHL impact players and seeing how they entered the league. Mark Stone in the 6th round, Guentzel in the 3rd round, Toffoli in the 2nd round, Marchessault undrafted, etc. it’s so difficult to project how these kids are going to perform, and when, at the NHL level.
Agreed. There are tons of factors like ice time, quality of linemates, etc. that influence statistical performance and this is admittedly a fairly rudimentary analysis. It’s worthwhile pointing out that Christian Dvorak spent most of his last season in London playing on the same line as two future superstars in Marner and Matthew Tkachuk. That team won the Memorial Cup. Meanwhile, Berkly Catton was far and away the best player on a middling Spokane team. If you can factor in quality of linemates, Dvorak probably looks worse and Catton looks even better.
Great content and context.
However, if Goyette or Firkus turn out to be the next Jason Robertson, that would certainly be enough.
I wonder if you look just at goals per game, how does Rehkopf rank historically in his age 18 season?
Rehkopf has had a very good draft+1 season and he certainly seems to have a knack for scoring goals. I haven’t looked at his historical peers, but statistically he seems to fit in with a lot of his OHL peers taken in the 1st round of his draft like Colby Barlow, Calum Ritchie, and Easton Cowan. You can’t really complain too much about his progress so far.
Draft year+1 OHL seasons, looking at the top 200 seasons by total goals from the last 20 years: Rehkopf ranks 7th in goals and 5th in G/GP.
Of the the top 20 by G/GP from that set:
-6 were from 2023-2024 (DY2023)
-10 were drafted in the last 5 years (DY2019 or later)
-6 look like they were NHL regulars for at least a few years (DeBrincat, Toffoli, Galchenyuk, Hodgson, Saad, Kaliyev). This is based on the vibes of their EP pages (basically, did they play mostly full seasons and avoid bouncing between the AHL and NHL) rather than specific cutoffs or actual knowledge of the roles they play(ed), so it might not be completely accurate.
-4 of the 10 players from DY2018 or earlier played fewer than 100 NHL games