NHLEs for the Leafs' 2010 Draft Selections

I hadn't planned on writing this post, but after the Leafs made their draft picks on Saturday, I thought it'd be of interest to look at where these prospects are in terms of offensive production, adjusted to the NHL level, to follow up on the posts I'd done for the AHL, NCAA, Junior, and European prospects who the Leafs held rights to during the 2009-10 season. In the following table, names are listed by order of selection. NHL Equivalencies are unavailable for Sondre Olden and Petter Granberg, who played in Sweden's junior leagues. Their stats below were taken from their games in the highest level Swedish junior league (the Under-20 Super Elite league). Daniel Brodin also played 20 games in the junior league, scoring 7 points in 20 games. Up in the Swedish Elite League, he scored 5 in 30 while averaging just 7:41 minutes of icetime per game.

Statistics for '10 Leafs draft picks, click to view at full-size:

All ages as of January 1, 2010 (as according to the Desjardins method). Of course, all players 18th birthdays must be before September 15 in order to have been eligible for the draft.

Brad Ross was selected with the 43rd overall pick, acquired from Chicago in exchange for the rights to NCAA forward Jimmy Hayes. Ross, age 17, would score merely 5 less points than Hayes, age 20, for every 82 NHL games according to NHLE. Hayes may be a huge specimen at 6 ft 5 and 210 lbs, but does not play much of a physical style that people hope for from a big man. On the other hand, Ross is well known to be a very feisty agitating type, a quality well indicated by his 203 PIMs and 11 fighting majors during the regular season. This was the major factor in the Leafs' pulling the trigger on the deal.

McKegg, with a projection of 0.38 points-per-game and 30 points per 82 games, ranks just behind Kadri, Ruegsegger, D'Amigo, and DiDomenico in production amongst those who didn't graduate to the NHL level in '09-10. Carrick, Brodin, and Nicholls are at the lower-end, as you'd expect of later-round selections.

Keep in mind that we're only looking at projected point-production here, this is not necessarily an indication of a prospect being ready for the big time. Obviously there are other facets of the game that players must work on before they can crack an NHL or even AHL roster. Also, NHLEs will not always accurately predict a player's scoring rate, so take those numbers with a grain of salt.