Every year the NHL entry draft gets things wrong. Very wrong. Like, top 5 defenseman of all-time Erik Karlsson at 15th overall wrong. Like, PK Subban, Roman Josi and Mattias Ekholm (3/4th’s of the best top 4 defense corp in hockey) all drafted outside of the first round wrong. Like, Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg, Nick Lidstrom, and Sergei Fedorov (cornerstone contributors to the longest consecutive run of playoff berths by any North American sports franchise, ever) all drafted after the 2nd round wrong (and as late as the 6th and 7th rounds for Pavel and Z). Like this list of top 70 scorers in the NHL this year:

#5. Nikita Kucherov (58th overall)

#6. Brad Marchand (71st overall)

#9. Brent Burns (20th overall)

#11. Artemi Panarin (undrafted)

#13. Ryan Getzlaf (19th overall)

#18. David Pastrnk (25th overall)

#23. Jamie Benn (129th overall)

#24. Joe Pavelski (205th overall)

#36. Viktor Arvidsson (112th overall)

#37. Mike Hoffman (130th overall)

#41. Johnny Gaudreau (104th overall)

#44. Mats Zuccarello (undrafted)

#52. Claude Girioux (22nd overall)

#62. Radim Vrbata (212th overall)

#63. Ryan O’Reilly (33rd overall)

#65. Tyler Bozak (undrafted)

#68. Vincent Trochek (64th overall)

#69. David Krejci (63rd overall)

#70. Mark Stone (178th overall)

...that kind of wrong. The kind of wrong where 34.2% of the top 70 scorers in the NHL this year were either drafted outside of the top 20 or were undrafted altogether.

So it’s inevitable that things will go wrong at the 2017 draft as well. Which is freaking fantastic if you can figure out how to be the one to scoop up your competitor’s mistakes. Easier said than done of course.

So now that we’ve established that sometimes people who are paid to think about hockey don’t always think about hockey very well, allow me to tackle one of the biggest fallacies of the 2017 draft. Namely: that this a two horse race between Nolan Patrick and Nico Hischier.

Let me start out by saying that Patrick and Hischier are fantastic prospects. How fantastic? Let’s take a look.

Name Age NHL Career High per 82 Draft Year PPG in QMJHL Jonathan Drouin 22 59.5 2.14 Derick Brassard 29 60 2 Nathan Mackinnon 21 63 1.7 Nikolaj Ehlers 21 64 1.65 Jonathan Huberdeau 23 63.66 1.58 Nico Hischier 18 ??? 1.51 Claude Girioux 29 97.77 1.49 Jakub Voracek 27 81 1.48 Anthony Mantha 22 49.2 1.33

As we can see, Hischier kind of falls smack dab in the middle of some of the better talents in the NHL right now. He’s not on the elite side of that spectrum, but he’ll more than likely attend a few All-Star games and he’s a bonafide 1st line player insofar as we can trust draft year production to carry forward. Not a sure thing, but a good predictor.

It’s worth noting in this chart that both Mackinnon and Voracek had very late birthday’s in their draft years, so they could be pushed a little higher to compensate for their "later" development. Likewise, both Brassard and Mantha had very early birthday’s in their draft year, which made them the oldest kids in their years so they could stand to be dropped a little lower.

To get a projection for what Hischier’s NHL best could look like, I took Hischier’s QMJHL PPG, divided it by Player X’s QMJHL PPG (to get the ratio that Hischier either out produced or was out produced by Player X) and then multiplied it by Player X’s highest career 82 game point rate. I came up with an average of 62.64 expected points per 82 games at the NHL level for Hischier at approximately his peak. The number will likely be a little higher due to the fact that all of Drouin, Mackinnon, Ehlers and Mantha likely haven’t hit their career highs yet. Still all those players are well established NHLers now and not kids per se so I wouldn’t expect the number to inflate too egregiously. Somewhere between 60-70 points sounds about right for Hischier. Of course he certainly could hit a higher number like Girioux did, but it’s worth noting that Girioux’s 93 point season was kind of a one off and he hasn’t really come close to that since. We’re working with averages here.

Looking at a few notable QMJHL prospects, Hischier lands right in between Pierre-Luc Dubois and Timo Meier. And our boy Timashov comes out looking pretty good too! (For the record, while Timashov may have hoped for a better season this year, he did not struggle inordinately relative to his peers)

Name Age Draft Year PPG in QMJHL Pierre-Luc Dubois 18 1.59 Nico Hischier 18 1.51 Timo Meier 20 1.47 Dmytro Timashov 20 1.36 Daniel Sprong 20 1.29

Next let’s take a look at Nolan Patrick and some of his WHL comparables.

Name Age NHL Career High in pts/82 Draft Year PPG in WHL Sam Reinhart 21 48.78 1.75 Leon Draisaitl 21 77 1.64 Evander Kane 25 63.16 1.57 Nolan Patrick 18 ? 1.39 Tyler Ennis 27 49 1.3 Brayden Schenn 25 60.5 1.26 Brendan Gallagher 25 47 1.13 Ryan Johansen 24 71 0.97

Nolan Patrick had a rough year this year. He got taken out for a good portion of the season with an injury just 6 games into the year and seems to have struggled to regain his form a little bit. Given that Patrick’s PPG rate from LAST year was 1.42, I think it goes without saying that he probably has more upside than his cold hard numbers from this year show. Still, he’s in pretty good company. He will be a very good NHL player but, same as with Hischier, probably unlikely to be a superstar. Also how much of a disappointment is Sam Reinhart?? *dances on the graves of Sabres fans*

When I divided Nolan Patrick’s PPG rate in the WHL this year by Player X’s PPG rate in their draft year and multiplied it by Player X’s career high 82 game point rate the average came to an expected career high 82 game point rate of 57.46 for Patrick. Again, due to his difficult year and the fact that some of the players on this list likely haven’t hit their career high’s yet, I would undoubtedly expect Patrick’s number to be a fair bit higher than 58 points.

Ok, that was a lot of math...take a break and look at this adorable kitten for a couple seconds:

Ok, I need your attention again. Back to business.

Simply put, while Patrick and Hischier are among the elite of this draft class, they are not miles ahead of other prospects. Nick Suzuki was .03 PPG shy of Hischier’s scoring rate and he did it in a tougher league (that is a measured fact btw, not bias). Kailer Yamamoto actually had a higher PPG rate than Hischier but he’s #small. Cody Glass had the same PPG rate as Patrick. On top of these players there’s a decent chance that some or all of Timothy Liljegren, Juuso Valimaki, Martin Necas or Lias Andersson could also end up making some teams look stupid. Potentially.

And while any one of these players could go on to have the better career, there is one player who is undoubtedly, without question the best player in this draft. A superstar. A near generational talent. Ladies and gentlemen...I present to you...Elias Pettersson.

Name Age (currently) NHL Career High in Points Draft Year PPG in Allsvenskan Elias Pettersson 18 ??? 0.95 William Nylander 21 61 0.77 Alexander Wennberg 22 60.48 0.7 David Pastrnk 21 70 0.67 Oliver Ekman Larsson 25 55 0.64 Filip Forsberg 22 64 0.39 Victor Rask 24 48 0.29 William Karlsson 24 25 0.28 Patrik Berglund 28 52 0.19

Elias Pettersson didn’t just set the all-time scoring record for Allsvenskan, Sweden’s 2nd tier men’s league behind the SHL, among draft eligibles. He *obliterated* the next closest draft eligible season (which belonged to our very own William Nylander, who himself had dethroned Alex Wennberg) by 23%. That’s a LOT.

In order to do the comparative analysis that I conducted on Hischier and Patrick, I need to get rid of a few anomalies here. First, Pettersson scored at a rate exactly 500% that of Patrik Berglund in their respective draft years. Based on Berglunds career high of a 52 point pace over 82 games that gave Pettersson a comparative result of 260 points. Not going to happen.

Another anomaly was Filip Forsberg. Pettersson is a very early birthday in his draft year, Forsberg is very late. The comparative result from Forsberg gave Pettersson an expected 82 game pace of 155 points. While the age adjusted result would still be very favourable for Pettersson, I am throwing out this result as well due to the discrepancy. However, it should be noted that Pettersson’s draft year STILL outperformed Forsberg’s draft +1. Forsberg being a player who, in a re-draft of his year, would be heavily in contention for 1st overall.

Victor Rask also gave a very odd result with 157 points. I’m not sure how to explain that except for Pettersson is a generational talent as well as some really nice post-draft development from Rask. Given that Rask’s birthday is in the middle of his draft year, I wouldn’t expect age to be a big factor.

With the anomalies out of the way I was left with this chart of expected results from the same analysis type I ran with Patrick and Hischier:

Name Expected Comparative results for Pettersson William Nylander 75.26 Alexander Wennberg 82.08 Oliver Ekman Larsson 89.26 William Karlsson 84.82 David Pastrnk 108.51 Average 87.99

The main variables to be aware of here are that since Pettersson is so old in his draft year, that fact would likely skew these results down a hair. But given the ridiculous nature of the anomalies, I’m inclined to say that those results likely cancel out the age factor altogether.

So to recap, these numbers would ideally have better variable control, but I feel like they paint a decent general picture of the types of players these 3 will become:

Nico Hischier: approximately 62.64 points per 82 games at peak

Nolan Patrick: approximately 57.46 points per 82 games at peak (I have no doubt this number would be higher in a non-injury filled season)

Elias Pettersson: approximately 87.99 points per 82 games at peak

And while I will reiterate that I expect Patrick's career high to be better than that for the reasons I've described, if you have a sense of "what! that's it??" I will ask you to keep in mind that a recent 1st overall pick named Ryan Nugent Hopkins has a career high pts/82 of 57.4.

I’m not savvy enough to do GIF breakdowns but here is a highlight reel of Pettersson:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEgf__zwVPk

The first two players that pop into my head when I watch Pettersson play are Nicklas Backstrom and Auston Matthews in that all three not only have dominating size and strength but also remarkable skill, speed and intelligence. One of the things that stands out to me the most about Pettersson is how fast he processes the game and keeps all his options open, not only with passing options but also his personal physical options as well in terms of his time and space on the ice.

He’s so deceptive and lethal because he’ll keep 10 options available to him, choose the best one, and execute it in the blink of an eye. Despite his profound skill level, I credit this deception for why over and over and over again professional goalies (men, at that) are left holding their jock straps in this video while Pettersson taps the puck into an empty net. He can execute a shot so quickly and powerfully that in order to respect the shot, goalies eat out of the palm of his glove on pump fakes.

At the 19 second mark, watch not only his breakaway speed, but how he’s able to handle the pass at such high speed as well. This is an elite, elite play.

At 40 seconds, watch how quickly he identifies that he can sell the defender on the shot to take him out of the play, steps around him and gets himself all alone in the slot.

At 1:03, the hands are just disgusting.

1:16 might be my favourite of all. Just phenomenal, elite, grit grinding back pressure and puck retrieval in the O-zone. Giving the defender nightmares, following the puck like a dog on a bone when the defender dishes it off to his partner, winning the puck off him, and setting up his linemate with a behind the back pass. The more I watch it the more I appreciate it.

At 1:38, the lightning quick decision to rifle the puck cross ice. The speed that this is executed at is just mind numbing for a player his age.

At 1:55, again the speed with which he recognizes that even though he has a WIDE open shot and could walk right in on the goalie if he wanted, he has a split second opportunity in coverage to send it to the net front guy for the tip in.

At 2:17, can someone just edit a crying Jordan face on the defender that Pettersson toe drags here? Absolute domination.

At 4:20, we have probably my 2nd favourite sequence. Pettersson freezes the defender by taking away the option he was going to, straight up out competes and dominates the defender for the puck and while he doesn’t score on the play gets an extremely deceptive and tricky shot on net that could have easily gone in and almost did. This shot kind of reminded me of the Matthews goal on the powerplay against San Jose this year if anyone remembers that.

5:15...did I mention he has an absolutely TERRIFYING shot???

Pettersson also had a more productive season this year than teammate Jonathan Dahlen, who is widely considered to be one of the better prospects not currently playing in the NHL, despite the fact that Dahlen is almost a full year older than Pettersson and, at 18, development is still happening rapidly. A year at this age can sometimes offer as much as 50-100% increases in point production for some players.

I’m not quite sure yet if Pettersson is a Matthew’s calibre of player or not. I’d describe it as they will both be competing for the Art Ross someday, but Matthews may have a few details to his game that puts him ahead. But there is absolutely no question in my mind that Pettersson is easily a superior prospect to Patrick or Hischier both in the numbers and to the hallowed "eye test". Playing in a less "relevant" league (particularly in Europe) seems to have hurt him as well as a not very impressive stat line from the World Juniors this year. Whether that was from lack of opportunity or just not having his game clicking, I’m not too sure. Pettersson had only 1 point in 6 games in the World Juniors, but I wouldn’t weigh 6 games too heavily against 3 years of ELITE point production relative to his age group which is exactly what Pettersson has been doing. Not only that, but he put up 9 points in 8 pre-tournament games. Not too sure what happened there.

I know trading up is generally regarded as risky but given that this kid is ranked anywhere from 5th to 16th generally I would happily trade up to take him. This is a Konecny/Chychrun situation except much, much, much bigger. If I’m the Leafs I’d be doing everything in my power to get a sniff of who Dallas, Colorado, Vancouver, Vegas, Arizona and Buffalo are leaning towards and try to pounce on a pick just above any team I feel is warm on Pettersson.

So with all the talk of this draft being a two horse race between Patrick and Hischier...in my humble opinion, it’s a one horse race. And that horse’s name...is Elias Pettersson.





