Quote:
Originally Posted by Francis's Hairpiece
But weren't these guys you mentioned all first round picks? IF (big IF) Culkin keeps it up, that's impressive as a fifth rounder.
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Sure those guys were drafted high. I didn't mention most of the names who lead the OHL, WHL and QMJHL in scoring who are often not highly regarded prospects. Especially in the WHL and QMJHL there is a history of mediocre prospects or non-prospects leading the league in defensemen scoring or up near the top.
Basically what you can deduce from looking at a decade of the top 5 in defensemen scoring from all the junior leagues is that you'll see a few highly regarded names but there's also as many or more guys you'd probably have never heard of unless you're a big junior fan. So point per game average for a defensemen is not necessarily highly correlated with being an elite prospect.
Obviously the same is true of a lot of high scoring junior forwards who never even make the NHL.
So my point? It's always nice when your prospects are scoring well in junior but in general you can't read too much into stats. It's nice to see Culkin producing but we're not going to anoint him the next Brodie in our pipeline just yet. Hopefully he continues to have a great year and is solid overall as a defenseman.