It's time to check in on another 2015 Leafs draft pick! My post on Mitch Marner starts with a bit of an introduction to my goals for these posts, as well as an explanation of my qualifications (spoiler alert: I don't have any). If you haven't already done so, give that article a read (if you are really opposed to reading about Mitch Marner for some reason, just read the first four paragraphs) and then head back here.

Today we'll be looking at Jeremy Bracco, the Right Winger who the Leafs selected with the 61st overall pick, which they received with pick 29 in exchange for pick 24 (which was used to select Travis Konecny).

Bracco started the season playing for Boston University, but after putting up 3 assists in 5 games there he opted to drop out and play for the Kitchener Rangers in the OHL instead. This prompted much debate and handwringing in the media and fan community for a couple of days, at which point people found something else to get worked up about.

Like previously-covered prospects Mitch Marner and Travis Dermott, Bracco plays in the OHL's ridiculous Midwest Division, where his team's 30-7-4 record is good for third place. Despite missing the first 12 games of the season because of his late arrival, he's currently third in scoring on his (very good) team.

So Bracco is a pretty good OHL player, but does he have a shot at being a good NHL player? And can he make me feel better about not having Konecny in the system? Let's see if we can't find out.

Note: Stats do not include the games played yesterday (Jan. 22)

Jeremy Bracco vs History!

We'll start with essentially the same exercise I used to start my post on Mitch Marner: compiling draft+1 season from the previous six OHL seasons (2009-10 through 2014-15) with similar scoring rates to Bracco's rate so far. Unlike Marner, Bracco isn't putting up one of the best scoring rates in the past 20 years, so instead of listing the 15 best seasons, we'll be seeing where Bracco fits in with the next 15 best. And some familiar names might just stop by to wish him luck:

Name Season GP G A P P/GP Christian Thomas 2010 66 54 45 99 1.5 Ryan Strome 2011 46 30 38 68 1.48 Jared McCann 2014 56 34 47 81 1.45 Jeremy Bracco 2015 30 13 30 43 1.43 Jeremy Morin 2009 58 47 36 83 1.43 Eric Locke 2012 68 44 53 97 1.43 Tobias Reider 2011 60 42 43 85 1.42 Brendan Perlini 2014 43 26 34 60 1.4 Greg McKegg 2010 66 49 43 92 1.39 Sergei Tolchinsky 2013 66 31 60 91 1.38 Bo Horvat 2013 54 30 44 74 1.37 Nicholas Baptiste 2013 65 45 44 89 1.37 Sonny Milano 2014 50 22 46 68 1.36 Peter Holland 2009 59 30 50 80 1.36 Joshua Ho-Sang 2014 60 17 64 81 1.35 Nick Cousins 2011 65 35 53 88 1.35

Stats in this section are from eliteprospects.com

Well if it isn't our old friend Mr. McKegg, with a leg for an arm and an arm for a leg!

Along with former Leafs prospect Greg McKegg, this list includes current Leaf Peter Holland and current Marlie Jeremy Morin. In addition to their near-identical scoring pace (Bracco is ahead of Morin by 0.002 P/GP, which is a purely academic distinction), Morin and Bracco have a similar career path: both spent their draft year with the US National U18 Team, were drafted in the second round, then went to Kitchener for their draft+1 season. This is perhaps not the most encouraging comparison, as Morin is now 24 years old and hasn't been able to stick in the NHL, despite having NHL-ready size at 6'1" and 190 lbs.

Which brings us to the tiny elephant in the room: Jeremy Bracco is pretty small as far as hockey players go, standing only 5'9". That's slightly shorter than me, which is a bit worrying. I once met Drew Doughty and I'm pretty confident he could have crushed me into a basketball and thrown me around like the Monstars do to Michael Jordan in Space Jam if he wanted to.

there but for the grace of God go I

Fortunately, being 5'9" is not an insurmountable obstacle. According to NHL.com there are currently 14 players with at least 10 points this season who are shorter than 5'10. And some of those guys are pretty darn good! Here's how Bracco fits in with some of their draft+1 seasons. I also threw in Mark Arcobello since we're a bit more familiar with him. Unfortunately the players weren't considerate enough to all play in the OHL, so I'm using NHLe to attempt to normalize the scoring rates between leagues. This is a far-from-perfect method of comparison, so please take these results with a generous helping of salt:

Name Season GP G A P P/GP League NHLe Nic Petan 2013 63 35 78 113 1.794 WHL 39.71 Jeremy Bracco 2015 30 13 30 43 1.433 OHL 37.61 Tyler Ennis 2008 61 43 42 85 1.393 WHL 30.85 Brendan Gallagher 2010 66 44 47 91 1.379 WHL 30.53 Johnny Gaudreau 2011 44 21 23 44 1.000 Hockey East 30.34 Brad Marchand 2006 57 33 47 80 1.404 QMJHL 29.92 Paul Byron 2007 52 37 31 68 1.308 QMJHL 27.88 Jonathan Marchessault 2009 68 30 41 71 1.044 QMJHL 22.26 Tyler Johnson 2008 62 26 35 61 0.984 WHL 21.78 Mark Arcobello 2006 29 10 14 24 0.828 ECAC 15.61

We shouldn't use this data to say that Bracco is having a better draft+1 season than Johnny Gaudreau did, but it does seem reasonable to conclude that Bracco's scoring rate is roughly in line with where it should be for him to make an impact in the NHL despite his size.

Jeremy Bracco vs The Present!

You may recall from the Mitch Marner post that Bracco is doing quite well compared to his peers this season. There have been a few games since I wrote that article, though, so let's see the most recent stats:

Name Age GP G 1A 2A P Sh Sh% P/GP Mitchell Marner 18.364 32 27 30 11 68 136 19.853 2.125 Dylan Strome 18.526 31 21 26 18 65 144 14.583 2.097 Travis Konecny 18.515 36 12 30 14 56 130 9.231 1.556 Jeremy Bracco 18.499 29 13 20 10 43 74 17.568 1.483 Christian Fischer 18.419 42 22 21 13 56 159 13.836 1.333 Dante Salituro 18.833 42 25 15 15 55 165 15.152 1.31 Pavel Zacha 18.444 30 19 12 7 38 101 18.812 1.267 Julius Nattinen 18.668 28 11 17 6 34 52 21.154 1.214 Lawson Crouse 18.23 25 10 13 5 28 110 9.091 1.12 Mitchell Stephens 18.608 15 9 6 1 16 52 17.308 1.067

All stats in this section are from prospect-stats.com

Bracco still sits fourth in his draft class for P/GP. His shooting percentage is high at 17.56%, but that's just the ninth-highest in the OHL, and should be reasonably sustainable. He averages just 2.55 shots per game, which is the 23rd-highest rate among forwards in his draft class. Bracco is touted more as a playmaker than a goal scorer, though, so I don't find his lack of shot production terribly concerning.

Onward to primary points:

Name Age GP G 1A Prim. P Prim. P/GP Mitchell Marner 18.364 32 27 30 57 1.781 Dylan Strome 18.526 31 21 26 47 1.516 Travis Konecny 18.515 36 12 30 42 1.167 Jeremy Bracco 18.499 29 13 20 33 1.138 Pavel Zacha 18.444 30 19 12 31 1.033 Christian Fischer 18.419 42 22 21 43 1.024 Julius Nattinen 18.668 28 11 17 28 1 Mitchell Stephens 18.608 15 9 6 15 1 Dante Salituro 18.833 42 25 15 40 0.952 Lawson Crouse 18.23 25 10 13 23 0.92

Bracco is still fourth, but the gap between him and Konecny is small enough that 1 extra primary point for Bracco would move him into third.

Now for even strength primary points:

Name Age GP ES G ES 1A ES2A ES Prim. P ES P ES Prim P/GP Dylan Strome 18.526 31 16 15 10 31 41 1 Jeremy Bracco 18.499 29 12 13 5 25 30 0.862 Travis Konecny 18.515 36 10 21 10 31 41 0.861 Mitchell Stephens 18.608 15 8 4 0 12 12 0.8 Mitchell Marner 18.364 32 11 14 7 25 32 0.781 Christian Fischer 18.419 42 16 13 7 29 36 0.69 Zachary Senyshyn 18.463 42 21 7 3 28 31 0.667 Lawson Crouse 18.23 25 4 12 3 16 19 0.64 Aaron Luchuk 18.447 44 18 10 3 28 31 0.636 Pavel Zacha 18.444 30 12 7 2 19 21 0.633

Bracco jumps to second-place for even strength scoring, although he's effectively tied with Konecny. If you're wondering why Marner has dropped down to fifth (he was fourth in this metric in the post on him), it's because Mitchell Stephens has just made the "minimum 15 games" cutoff. Stephens still has significantly fewer games played than the other players on this list, so it'll be interesting to see if he can keep up this pace.

Kitchener has had the fewest power play opportunities in the OHL so far this season, though, so perhaps Bracco's even strength numbers have been inflated by a surfeit of even strength ice time? Let's check out estimated even strength points per 60 minutes:

Name Age GP ES G ES 1A ES 2A ES Prim. P ES P ES eTOI ES ePrim. P/60 Mitchell Stephens 18.608 15 8 4 0 12 12 12.655 3.793 Jeremy Bracco 18.499 29 12 13 5 25 30 16.768 3.085 Mitchell Marner 18.364 32 11 14 7 25 32 15.651 2.995 Travis Konecny 18.515 36 10 21 10 31 41 17.637 2.93 Dylan Strome 18.526 31 16 15 10 31 41 21.829 2.749 Christian Fischer 18.419 42 16 13 7 29 36 15.691 2.64 Pavel Zacha 18.444 30 12 7 2 19 21 15.086 2.519 Aaron Luchuk 18.447 44 18 10 3 28 31 15.168 2.517 Artem Artemov 18.66 43 10 16 5 26 31 14.839 2.445 Zachary Senyshyn 18.463 42 21 7 3 28 31 17.075 2.343

Bracco actually does even better by this measure, although Mitchell Stephens is ahead by a fair margin. If we were only including players with at least 16 games played, though, the Leafs would have the best and second-best players for ES Prim. P/60 in the 2015 draft class. Stupid Mitchell Stephens.

Finally, let's see how Bracco's power play performance stacks up:

Name Age GP PP G PP 1A PP 2A PP Prim. P PP P PP Prim. P/GP Mitchell Marner 18.364 32 11 16 4 27 31 0.844 Dante Salituro 18.833 42 11 9 5 20 25 0.476 Dylan Strome 18.526 31 4 10 8 14 22 0.452 Julius Nattinen 18.668 28 5 7 2 12 14 0.429 Pavel Zacha 18.444 30 6 5 5 11 16 0.367 Christian Fischer 18.419 42 6 8 6 14 20 0.333 Travis Dermott 18.732 35 3 8 4 11 15 0.314 Jeremiah Addison 18.901 42 11 1 3 12 15 0.286 Travis Konecny 18.515 36 2 8 4 10 14 0.278 Jeremy Bracco 18.499 29 1 7 5 8 13 0.276

His power play production leaves something to be desired, but given the lack of power play opportunities for his team and his production at even strength I don't think it's something to be terribly concerned about.

Jeremy Bracco vs The Future!

If Bracco can keep this pace up then he'll make me feel a lot better about not having drafted Travis Konecny. Right now it's looking like trading Konecny for Bracco would not be as lopsided a trade as their draft positions would make it seem; add in Dermott and Dzierkals and the Leafs come out looking pretty good.

And he should be able to keep up this scoring pace. So far he's improved his scoring rate every month, with 1.08 P/GP in November, 1.63 P/GP in December, and 1.75 P/GP so far in January. Even if he can't maintain the January pace, it's not unreasonable to expect Bracco to finish the season with a 1.5 P/GP scoring rate or better.

So what next? Bracco isn't dominating the league the way Marner is, but he's doing well enough to raise the question of how much good it would do him to spend another year in the OHL. Luckily, because he wasn't playing in the CHL when he was drafted, Bracco is eligible to play in the AHL or ECHL next season (thanks to WizardOfNaz for pointing that out in another comments section and preventing me from embarrassing myself here). It would be nice to get him into the Leafs' system, and playing in a pro league could make it easier to assess how much of a problem his weaknesses (size, skating) pose against better opponents.

Unfortunately, having Bracco play in a pro league would (to the best of my knowledge; let me know if I'm wrong) start burning years on his entry-level contract. If Leafs management thinks Bracco is still several years away from cracking the NHL roster, they may choose to keep him in the OHL for another season to maximize the value of his ELC.

Ultimately, Bracco looks like he has a pretty good chance of contributing in the NHL. We won't know for sure until he starts playing against stronger competition, but so far it looks like he was quite the steal at 61st overall.

Next time on Checking In With The Kids: Our first non-OHL prospect, Defenceman Andrew Nielsen of the WHL's Lethbridge Hurricanes!