Prospect Info: 37th overall: Vancouver selects Jett Woo (D, Moose Jaw)

[Melvin]

In my league factors I have USHL stats as projecting about 80% that of the CHL, which in turn is about 80% of the NCAA.

IOW, a prospect putting up a 1.00 PPG in the USHL is similar to a prospect putting up 0.8 IN CHL or 0.64 in NCAA.

 

[Catamarca Livin]

What do you have to suggest that the USHL is still below the CHL in terms of NHL equivalency?

The USHL filters players to intermediary leagues like the ECAC, Big-10, NCHC etc... instead of graduating players directly to the NHL. That’s why it doesn’t have an NHLe. Still, you can see that all intermediary leagues have a better NHLe than their CHL counterparts, save the the ECAC. This suggests that production is of greater value in these leagues. Why would that diminish the USHL via association? If anything, it suggests the opposite.

You seem to be associating junior leagues with the NCAA. You can compare the chl with the ushl as they are the same ages and junior leagues. The NCAA is an older age group. USHL has been attracting higher level prospects away from the bcjhl. USHL is better than BCJHL but not as good as the WHL.

 

[Fatass]

You seem to be associating junior leagues with the NCAA. You can compare the chl with the ushl as they are the same ages and junior leagues. The NCAA is an older age group. USHL has been attracting higher level prospects away from the bcjhl. USHL is better than BCJHL but not as good as the WHL.

And the BCJHL is by far the best junior A league in Canada. The prairie leagues have a couple good teams, and a bunch of very weak ones.

 

[Bleach Clean]

In my league factors I have USHL stats as projecting about 80% that of the CHL, which in turn is about 80% of the NCAA.

IOW, a prospect putting up a 1.00 PPG in the USHL is similar to a prospect putting up 0.8 IN CHL or 0.64 in NCAA.

From my understanding, your factors are different than that of the NHLe publicized by Hockey Abstract, correct? I have your older figures. Are they still the same?

Further, is your sample that of all players that have graduated from the USHL to the NCAA? How far back do you go? I've seen number crunchers put the CHL and the USHL on par. It hasn't always been that way. They must be calculating the equivalency differently than you have.

The original argument was that the USHL is viewed as an inferior league out of hand, and I don't think that is any longer the case. Once, maybe, but not now.

 

[Melvin]

From my understanding, your factors are different than that of the NHLe publicized by Hockey Abstract, correct? I have your older figures. Are they still the same?

That's correct. They serve different purposes and are calculated from different pools of players. Mine are relevant only in terms of how they project a draft-eligible player's probability of playing NHL games, not to attempt translate points into NHL-context.

The only exception is for comparing the NCAA conferences. I lack sufficient data to do this so I rely upon his metrics. Unfortunately I have strong reason to suspect that his conference calculations are bogus, so this is a bit of a problem.

My factors have changed from the ones I sent you as I have made a few corrections and improvements.

Further, is your sample that of all players that have graduated from the USHL to the NCAA? How far back do you go? I've seen number crunchers put the CHL and the USHL on par. It hasn't always been that way. They must be calculating the equivalency differently than you have.

The original argument was that the USHL is viewed as an inferior league out of hand, and I don't think that is any longer the case. Once, maybe, but not now.

My data currently goes back to 2006. It is based on the NHL success of players drafted out of the USHL compared to similar players drafted out of the CHL.

Just to use one example, Jaden Schwartz's 83 points in 60 USHL games puts him basically dead even with Zack Kassian's 63 points in 61 OHL games.

I have often said that the biggest hurdle with sports analytics is balancing recent data with sample size. It's possible that things have changed recently but it will take a few years before we have enough data to find out. This is a problem I have with NHLe, which calculates new factors every season. I don't believe in this, and don't change factors year-over-year unless there is a verifiable change in the league quality that I can actually explain (such as expansion.)

 

[Lindgren]

Woo came up with a power play assist in the third tonight (for those obsessing over his point totals (looks in mirror)).

 

[Megaterio Llamas]

Not a point

 

[WetcoastOrca]

Not a point

Man I hope he makes the Canucks as a top 4 guy. With that name and those hits he should be a fan favourite.

 

[ChilliBilly]

Not a point

Damn, nice hit. Not sure where Dach is ranked right now, but Sportsnet had him 4th in NOv.

 

[Megaterio Llamas]

Damn, nice hit. Not sure where Dach is ranked right now, but Sportsnet had him 4th in NOv.

I've seen Dach ranked as high as third. He is generally ranked top ten everywhere I have seen. Promising kid for sure.

 

[Bleach Clean]

That's correct. They serve different purposes and are calculated from different pools of players. Mine are relevant only in terms of how they project a draft-eligible player's probability of playing NHL games, not to attempt translate points into NHL-context.

The only exception is for comparing the NCAA conferences. I lack sufficient data to do this so I rely upon his metrics. Unfortunately I have strong reason to suspect that his conference calculations are bogus, so this is a bit of a problem.

My factors have changed from the ones I sent you as I have made a few corrections and improvements.

Please PM me the new factors. I am very interested to see the changes, even if it is a work in progress.

Why do you think the Hockey Abstract calculations are bogus?

I'm unclear at to the point of your first paragraph. Isn't NHLe an attempt to adjust for the performances in disparate leagues? If true, isn't this to help the projection of a draft-eligible player's probability of playing NHL games? In other words, NHLe is a projection based upon probability itself.

My data currently goes back to 2006. It is based on the NHL success of players drafted out of the USHL compared to similar players drafted out of the CHL.

Just to use one example, Jaden Schwartz's 83 points in 60 USHL games puts him basically dead even with Zack Kassian's 63 points in 61 OHL games.

I have often said that the biggest hurdle with sports analytics is balancing recent data with sample size. It's possible that things have changed recently but it will take a few years before we have enough data to find out. This is a problem I have with NHLe, which calculates new factors every season. I don't believe in this, and don't change factors year-over-year unless there is a verifiable change in the league quality that I can actually explain (such as expansion.)

Ah, I see... fair point. I may be jumping the gun a bit. I incorporate the year over year NHLe, and the indirect strength of the USHL this implies. Perhaps I am moving too quickly.

Question(s): You said that you take the NHL success of players drafted out of the USHL and compare them to similar players drafted out of the CHL. What is this similarity? Also, how did you determine the relative strength of the USHL to the NCAA?

 

[bandwagonesque]

The USHL is not considered "less competitive" than the CHL. Of the US leagues, only the ECAC gets ranked behind the CHL in NHLe.

And it seems that you don't understand that exceptions do not prove (or disprove) the rule.

Your first statement has already been dealt with so I'll address the second:

There is no rule, and no information has been discovered that comes close to establishing one. Timw33 simply posted an incomplete list of defensemen who performed reasonably well after putting up good d+1 seasons in the CHL. That does not constitute proof of anything. That does not establish a rule. You know this, and I know you know it. If either of you want to go through the D cores of the league and find more complete information, go ahead. You constantly press people for information to support their contentions. So, go ahead -- you'll agree it would be hypocritical not to. In my brief glance at the league's rosters I found that most teams seemed to have at least one former CHL defenseman without good offensive numbers in their D+1 season playing regular minutes. The Bruins last year had three. These do not appear to be exceptions. I suspect they are a significant proportion of CHL defencemen currently playing in the league. If you take away the arbitrary exclusion of leagues similar to or probably inferior to the CHL, which appear to have been excluded for the sake of strengthening an argument without any statement supplied about perceived differences in player development between the leagues, then there are far more. These aren't safe conclusions, but I'm not the one trying to make a point. If you or anyone else would like to make one, be our guest.

 

[Melvin]

Please PM me the new factors. I am very interested to see the changes, even if it is a work in progress.

Why do you think the Hockey Abstract calculations are bogus?

This is based on a discussion we had on here, with a few fans of the league. The NHLe calcs have the conferences in the following order: NCHC, H-East, Big 10. Some posters on here, I forget who and would have to find the thread, posted some pretty compelling evidence that the Big 10 is the strongest conference, despite it having the weakest NHLe. I am going from memory so I might not have that quite right, in any case, the NHLe's for the conferences were well out of whack with what the head-to-head conference records were, to a strong enough degree that it caused me to question them. I think this might have been in the Quinn Hughes thread. I really need to figure this out.

Rather than PM them, I'll post them later so that everyone can provide feedback.

EDIT: The discussion was here: Player Discussion - #40 Elias Pettersson, Pt. VI

It seems pretty clear that H-East is the weakest conference and always has been at least for some time, yet NHLe frequently has calculated it as the strongest.

I'm unclear at to the point of your first paragraph. Isn't NHLe an attempt to adjust for the performances in disparate leagues? If true, isn't this to help the projection of a draft-eligible player's probability of playing NHL games? In other words, NHLe is a projection based upon probability itself.

It is a subtle difference but an important one. The point of NHLe is to adjust a player's points to an NHL context. It does this by looking at all players that switched leagues and doing a before/after analysis. This means that for example the strength of the KHL is influenced by players like Phil Larsen and Linden Vey and such.

I am not really trying to measure the strength of the league in that sense. I am merely looking at how the production of draft-eligible players translates to future NHL success. Therefore my numbers are only influenced by whether or not a player "made the jump." This is a reason why I have the KHL lower than the SHL, because even if it is a "better league," the fact is that 18-year-olds who produce in the SHL are more likely to "make the jump" and produce in the NHL than similar players in the KHL. IOW, my model implicitly has a built-in "Russian Factor" just because of how it was put together. There are other reasons though why a junior player's performance may be better than you might think due to the NHLe. Some of the pro leagues really really dislike giving ice time to younger players, so a teenager putting up points there is a much bigger deal than the NHLe might suggest.

So when I have one league at 1.5 and another league at 1.6, it's not necessarily saying that the latter league is "better" than the former league, just that a teenager putting up points in the latter league is slightly more likely to become an NHL player than the same player profile in the former league. It's a subtle distinction and hard to explain, so I hope that makes sense.

Ah, I see... fair point. I may be jumping the gun a bit. I incorporate the year over year NHLe, and the indirect strength of the USHL this implies. Perhaps I am moving too quickly.

This is a matter of personal preference. I don't like to change factors for a league unless I have an actual underlying reason for why the league quality may have changed. Has there been any important changes to the league structure, its rules or its schedule? Has there been an expansion or a contraction? Have they moved to a different system for relegation/promotion? Etc. Otherwise, year-over-year league quality is just a moving target and I feel more comfortable averaging it out and taking the larger sample size of multi-year factors.

Question(s): You said that you take the NHL success of players drafted out of the USHL and compare them to similar players drafted out of the CHL. What is this similarity? Also, how did you determine the relative strength of the USHL to the NCAA?

I don't compare any leagues to one another directly, my index is the OHL and all leagues are adjusted based upon their predictability as compared to a similar player from the OHL. Here are some of them for current league configurations:

OHL 1.00
WHL 0.95
QMJHL 0.95
NCAA 1.20 (see above re: conference-specific adjustments which I am not confident in right now.)
USDP 0.85
USHL 0.75
SuperElit 0.75
Jr. A SM-liiga 0.80
MHL 0.85
BCHL 0.50
NLA 1.90
Allsvenskan 2.70
SHL 3.5
SM-Liiga 2.65 **
Liiga 3.40 **
KHL 3.25

** This is a bit of a weird one. In 2013 the league re-branded as Liiga and while there is not clean split in terms of quality, there were a number of changes to the league around this time period which did have a major effect on the quality. Since there was no easy way to split them all up, I just decided to put two different factors for the older branding and the new branding. This could probably be optimized and split a little bit more evenly.

 

[Cupless44]

Jett Woo named WHL Player of the Week

 

[The ultimate fan]

Jett Woo named WHL Player of the Week

It's like he went on a tear after learning he wasn't selected to try out for the world junior team it seemed he either scored or had the primary assist on just about every goal Moosejaw scored this past week. And their opponents didn't score much either. That's the way you show them it was a mistake to be not invited to try out as after a slow start he has shown he's got some offensive abilities too to go with his solid defensive game and very physical presence. I believe he is at least a point per game average now which is very good.

 

[M2Beezy]

It's like he went on a tear after learning he wasn't selected to try out for the world junior team it seemed he either scored or had the primary assist on just about every goal Moosejaw scored this past week. And their opponents didn't score much either. That's the way you show them it was a mistake to be not invited to try out as after a slow start he has shown he's got some offensive abilities too to go with his solid defensive game and very physical presence. I believe he is at least a point per game average now which is very good.

Lindy boy Linderson did the same thing last year

Hopefully someone tells Lind he sucks so he elevates his game again, he needs to pick up the pace

As for Woo, I guess each player is diffy and hopefully he just keeps on motoring along at his fast progression rate

 

[Lindgren]

With two assists tonight, Woo is now at exactly a point per game: 28 gp, 6/22/28. He's tenth in defencemen scoring in the WHL, fifth for defencemen in pts per game.

 

[Bleach Clean]

With two assists tonight, Woo is now at exactly a point per game: 28 gp, 6/22/28. He's tenth in defencemen scoring in the WHL, fifth for defencemen in pts per game.

While Brook is away, Woo will play. Good on him to get up to a PPG. Bodes well.

Tangent: Brook over Gadjovich in 2017 would have been a great move.

 

[Lindgren]

While Brook is away, Woo will play. Good on him to get up to a PPG. Bodes well.

Tangent: Brook over Gadjovich in 2017 would have been a great move.

It does make sense that his production would go up in Brook's absence (and that's likely more of a factor than the Kole Lind effect).

 

[timw33]

Tangent: Brook over Gadjovich in 2017 would have been a great move.

That 2nd round that everyone thought we did great in is really looking dire compared to how everyone behind them is developing.

 

[Bleach Clean]

That 2nd round that everyone thought we did great in is really looking dire compared to how everyone behind them is developing.

It's a fascinating case study though. I had other players ahead of Lind and Gadjovich, but I couldn't fault the Canucks for going after production. Lind had 87 in 70 while Gadjovich had 46 goals. That's the type of production you want out of draft year forwards. However, both had skating issues and Lind was weak. Fast forward to now and they look like bad picks. On the flipside, Brook was a solid skater, good athleticism, but lacked high end production. He's now looking like MTL's best prospect.

Take this a year down the road and Brackett drafts Woo (good skater, was injured) and Madden (good skater, very slight). Production for each wasn't amazing. Right now, both look like good picks. Then again, neither has hit pro. Let's see which batch turns out?

 

[ginner classic]

While Brook is away, Woo will play. Good on him to get up to a PPG. Bodes well.

Tangent: Brook over Gadjovich in 2017 would have been a great move.

While I wanted Gadjovich badly for the 4 months prior to the draft, I had Brook ahead of him when we picked. Hague and Brook would look like a pretty sweet 2nd round at this point. They were the higher ranked players on my list. I still feel like we got good value with Gadjovich, his skating just has not progressed though.

 

[VanJack]

Almost overnight, Woo has become pretty important to the Canucks future imo. A right shot d-man who can contribute offensively, and punishes people along the wall and with open-ice hits. Canucks don't have anybody like that, on the right or the left side. Too bad he's stuck in junior for another season.

 

[Hyzer]

Almost overnight, Woo has become pretty important to the Canucks future imo. A right shot d-man who can contribute offensively, and punishes people along the wall and with open-ice hits. Canucks don't have anybody like that, on the right or the left side. Too bad he's stuck in junior for another season.

Uh, I really wouldn't go that far.

His tracking right now is literally a requirement to be an impact player in the NHL. Even the worst defenseman dominated in juniors (i.e., Gudbranson).

He is very far away still.

I'm happy that everyone is excited but him "lighting" it up like this but it really isn't anything special

 

[iceburg]

Almost overnight, Woo has become pretty important to the Canucks future imo. A right shot d-man who can contribute offensively, and punishes people along the wall and with open-ice hits. Canucks don't have anybody like that, on the right or the left side. Too bad he's stuck in junior for another season.

This is Woo's 4th year in the W. But I guess his first year might not count because it was only 7 games....not sure how that works.