Eric Staal only put up 31 pts in 81 games his rookie season. No need to flip a table, temper your expectation. He may or may not need a season to get in the NHL groove. But sure if we’re in year 3 and he hasn’t broke 40+ points than absolutely start flipping those tables. No need to freak out on an 18 year old.
I’m an eye test guy. Zadina puts it where only elite shooters do, and Svech powers it through. Like I said it’s Hossa vs Kucherov. Both are great. I leaned towards the pure sniper personally but have zero complaints about getting the all around guy who maybe scores just as many in the end.
In Eric Staal’s rookie year (2004), 4 rookies crossed the 40 point mark:
Michael Ryder, age 23 - 63 points
Marek Zidlicky, age 26 - 53 points
Tuomo Ruutu, age 20 - 44 points
Ryan Malone, age 24 - 43 points
^ note only one of these guys (Ruutu!) was actually a young rookie. The rest were guys who had been over-seasoned in the minors, college, Europe. And even Ruutu had been playing pro in Liiga for years before making the jump.
Last season, 6 rookies crossed the 40 point mark:
Alex DeBrincat, age 20 - 52 points
Nico Hischier, age 19 - 52 points
Pierre-Luc Dubois, age 19 - 48 points
Will Butcher, age 23 - 44 points
Jake Debrusk, age 21 - 43 points
Alex Kerfoot, age 23 - 43 points
^ In that group, the top 3 jumped directly from juniors to the NHL. Butcher and Kerfoot jumped directly from college to the NHL. Kerfoot is the exception, having played 1 season in Providence before moving up.
Year before last, 7 rookies crossed 40 points:
Austin Matthews, age 19 - 69 points
Patrik Laine, age 18 - 64 points
Mitch Marner, age 19 - 61 points
Sebastian Aho, age 19 - 49 points
Matthew Tkachuk, age 19 - 48 points
Zach Werenski, age 19 - 47 points
Brayden Point, age 20 - 40 points
As we know, except for Point these guys all jumped to the NHL at the earliest opportunity. Point is a little guy who fell in the draft, and it took an extra year for Tampa to commit to his ELC.
My point being, the bar has moved for these guys. Top-3 picks of the past several years are expected to come in and impact the game immediately. Guys like Reinhart and Strome who don’t explode out of the box are regarded as missed opportunities (Flyers fans won’t admit it, but they were breathing into a bag about Nolan Patrick at times last season). The expectation is that a star-level talent, which Svechnikov is, will be in that 50-70 point zone.
Aho had 49, as a Canes benchmark. If Svechnikov falls well short of that, it will be a fairly significant concern IMO. We flat-out cannot afford to get a 2nd line player from a lottery pick. We don’t have the talent elsewhere in the lineup to build around some other player, and we’re not going to be picking up more top-3 picks or signing John Tavareses. Svechnikov and Aho are the core talents for the foreseeable future. They need to be actual stars, or we’re looking at a very long stretch of not having the top-end forward talent to contend.