Quote:
Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm
Sure, maybe. What do you think it is?
Jankowski is a pretty special race and it's almost impossible to compare him to other players coming up. A guy that was a relative unknown moving into juniors and basically up to his draft year. Played at a Canadian High School hockey club, made the massive jump from that league to the America College ranks, skipping prep school all together.
Looked out of place early, which is totally acceptable and started to get really comfortable as the season wore on. I don't give a crap if he "breaks out" next year (not your quote, seen it in this thread though) because it's about just improving game-to-game, month-to-month, season-to-season for Jankowski.
I don't think I've ever seen a more wide-eyed and bushy tailed kid at the draft like I did with him last year, he was very much a boy.. with fantastic hockey skill. I think it's all about maturing and keeping pace with the steep learning curve he has ahead of him.
We'll see how it plays out.
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I think that the system effect, while it almost certainly exists (though, nobody in this thread has actually shown that yet), isn't sufficient to invalidate concern about Jankowski's low production relative to what typically makes a guy good in the NHL, and relative to other members of his draft class and even this year's draft class.
For starters, there are clawback effects. Team can't score? Well then, if Jankowski was a good scorer he'd likely be getting more minutes, and that would negate some (or maybe all) of the effect of having low quality of teammates. Would Monahan have scored more if he were in Halifax? I don't think it's clear, but the argument that Jankowski's stats were depressed suggests that it is clear. And maybe it is. So show me.
Secondly, Jankowski's NHLE(82) isn't just slightly low, it's quite low. 18 points. Monahan's a 33. Klimchuk and Poirier got 26. Jankowski would need 45% more scoring just to be on par with the late first rounders
from the year after him. Is that how much his stats are depressed because of who he plays for? Maybe it is, but then again, show me. Back up those assertions with some proof.
I get that Jankowski's circumstances make him less likely to produce on par with his draft class. But then don't they also make him less likely to ultimately become the impact player that we hope he will? The "Superfreakonomics" argument says that all the factors depressing Jankowski's current performance are likely to depress his ultimate performance. And that's why I feel that he was overrated by the Flames management, as is overrated in our survey.
Here is a correlation between draft NHLE82 and career PPG.
Jankowki is about a 10. But hey, I guess that's not cause for concern if he's young, played in Quebec high school (not even Junior 'A'), and his college team doesn't score. Or maybe, those are simply causes for concern that are reflected in his NHLE.