its not a graph for nhl players starting at 18-19...its average. so if a player comes in at 23 thats where they would be averaged in at. Its crazy to me that someone could have the notion that development is not an excuse that gus should have....then you look at a chart and by age development on average has happened and people are at there peak at his age and you would call someone laughable and stupid for that. its completely reasonable for someone to think that.
If that's what the data states, if you read the actual text that goes with those charts(it's all on the website) and it's averaging in each player at their specific age that they enter the league, then I'll stand corrected, and admit I was wrong. I'm pretty sure that's not how that data works, though... about 99.9% sure.
It's taking each player, starting at age 18-19(or whenever the chart starts), and then averaging their WAR across the ages of all players. So it takes all players at 18 years old, and averages all their WAR. It then takes all players at 19 years old, and averages their WAR. So on and so forth, until the chart's data ends at whatever age... See where I'm going with this? So the chart will include... Patrick Kane's 18 year old year, 19 year old year, 20 year old year, 21 year old year, 22 year old year... so on and so forth. And that builds his curve. They do that for every single player. Then they build the average out of that by marking the average points for all age groups, and drawing your curve from year to year... So that curve will be different than someone who enters the league later, typically. Not every player ages/follows the same curve as far as production and development, especially those who enter the league years apart... This is simply an "average"...
Gus would get lumped into the data with other 26 year olds, and their production/curve. Except a large chunk of those 26 year olds have been in the league for 4, 5, 6, 7, or even 8 years at that point... whereas he hasn't. Do you see what I mean about the data being flawed for the argument, now? He can't be lumped into a development curve with other players that are also aged 26, because that data is not accounting for players who enter the league at age 26... It is simply tracking the average of all players as they progressed through ages 18/19 and up...
To get an accurate depiction, you would have to find all players who basically started their NHL career at age 26(or age 23 if you'd prefer since that was when he played his first NHL game), and then build the curve for them moving forward from age 26(or 23) on up.
