I may regret bringing up the comparison as partly I will be dating myself, but also the player types aren't a complete match, and I'll be unfair to ZP as I'm comparing him to an inner circle HOFer (IMO) but anyhow
Flames drafted Al MacInnis at 15 OV in 1981
in his D+1 season he basically went back to the OHL, put up some nice offensive numbers after getting into 2 NHL games
in his D+2 season he played 14 NHL games, put up 3 points and had a strong OHL season (one of the ones that compared to ZPs D0 and D+1 years) with 38 goals in 51 games. At that point (admittedly I was a kid) I think if you asked anyone he was a defensive misadventure and no one thought of him as NHL ready
for those 2 training camps and the ones that followed was never quite sure if he would make the club but he as basically viewed as a one trick (slap shot) pony, if he could get that on net and not kill his teammates with it that is. In his D+3 year he played 19 games on the farm (point per game- different era mind you) and 51 in the NHL, he was a minus player (for the last time in 19 years)
by 84-85 he was a regular but still didn't have much of a reputation league wide, though he did represent the Flames at the all-star game. by 85-86 he was cooking (IMO) but his reputation hadn't caught up- he had 54 points and was a plus 37 playing a top 4 role on a cup finalist. Yet he only finished 16th in AS voting behind not only his rookie teammate Suter, but once or future flames like Sarge, Ramage and Brad Marsh.
in his D+6 season he made the 2nd allstar team and got Norris votes, he got Norris votes (including multiple top 3 finishes and a win) in 11 of the next 17 years. despite being a defensive 'joke' reputation wise for the first 4-5 years of his career he ended up (yes this stat has its limits) as 16th in career plus minus (the top 20 are all HOFers mostly inner circle and Brad McCrimmon- a story for another day)
anyhow they are different players and play a different style, but Chopper was viewed (certainly by late Calgary years and all of his ST L tenure) as a great defensive and all around player- it took a while for him to learn and even longer for his reputation to catch up. suspect if it wasn't for Bourque (and I suppose Coffey but I prefer MacInnis to Coffey- homer alert I know) there would have been multiple Norris trophies on the mantle
anyhow long rambling aside ZP has not fallen behind #2 at this juncture and will be keeping pace even with a 70:30 NHL:AHL split or similar next year
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