You're missing the point here. The adjustment to the CHL is not small. It's a league where the competition level is higher, and you play more games. There's a reason it is universally seen as the ideal route to the NHL. Coming in and putting up a PPG as a defenseman in his 1st, and only, season in the OHL is more impressive than putting up more points, as a 3rd year WHL player.
I'm sure you'll be delighted to hear i think there's nuances that ought not go unconsidered.
First, i wasn't able to find on a quick search a good resource for players transitioning from the USNTDP to CHL to ascertain how difficult the transition is. It could be done going player by player year-to-year on the USNTDP roster but that's just too much work. I'm content to agree to disagree on that point, but i'm not just going to take your word for it. USNTDP is a high quality program for high quality players with high quality training, staff, nutrition and all that makes an athlete. It can't be compared to, say, the BC Midget League Theo transitioned from.
Unless you have a resource to prove it, I won't concede that transitioning from the USNTDP to the CHL is so difficult as to give the "1st season" argument significant weight.
The one point per game (55/55) season Cam played major junior, he played on an absolute powerhouse team that won a championship. Their leading scorer had 106 points in 57 games. Cam was 7th in team scoring. Theo's draft year he had 50 points for 3rd best on a bad team, leading scorer had 58 points.
(Theo's first year, at 16, transitioning from BCMML, his team was garbage and their leading scorer had 40 points for the year, Theo had 35 for 3rd on the team.)
During their respective draft years, Windsor scored 58% more goals than Seattle. Cam's team had 6 players score more that Seattle's leading scorer with another three players within a couple points with less games played, including Cam. When Cam had 55 points, two other dmen on his team had 61 and 54. When Theo had 50, the next highest dman total was 26.
The year Theo had 79 in 70, Seattle
still scored a 100 goals less than Windsor did during Cam's season.You have to account for these facts when looking at points and how impressive the production is.
I'm not hinging their developmental curves to a couple of months difference. I'm looking at where they actually were in their development, which is an important factor. You're trying to split hairs here. Do you really think the scouts would look at Theodore compared to his draft peers, and say "Hey, he's younger, so technically he's a year back." No, they're going to compare him to his peers, directly, because those are the ones who are at the same developmental stage.
I don't know how scouts weigh different things but i'm sure it factors into projections. Given the huge difference a year can make for a teenager's physical development, they'd be fools not to consider it at all.
To go a step further, if what you're saying is true, Nurma, why was Fowler so much more highly regarded than Theodore? It seems to me that, if that age difference was a bigger factor than the cut off point, Theodore would have been viewed much more highly by the scouts. According to you, he was a player who should have been compared to 2014 draft eligible players. Shouldn't that raise his stock immensely? He'd have an extra year of development over many of his peers, after all.
Cam was more highly regarded than Theo because he was way more polished. Also because one can't predict the future (capt. obvious). Theo took a huge step during his draft+1 season, not only in production but two-way play and leadership.
That doesn't mean he should've been compared to 2014 draftees by the scouts. That would mean assuming that the "extra" time will lead to significant progression. Scouts can't make that assumption and i've never said they should. But he did make that progression
when he was the same age as Cam Fowler.
What i am saying, is that the birthdates of these two players are such that their age difference is nearly a year longer than their draft years would indicate, and that making performance comparisons "by age" leaves a lot of room for nuance and discussion. Trying to consider as many things as i can as objectively as i can leads me to think a more appropriate development curve comparison is with draft vs. draft+1.
I would vehemently disagree with any notion that Theo is likely to become better than Cam, but for other reasons, not their comparative development curve at this stage.
