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Kings Prospect Rankings – NHL Equivalencies

Posted on by Robert P

Fans tend to overvalue prospects. It’s easy to get overly enthusiastic about a prospect putting up big numbers in juniors (think Brandon Kozun and Tyler Toffoli of years past). But how do these numbers translate to the NHL? Has anybody every tried to figure this out?

Through the efforts of Gabe Desjardins and others we are able to approximate a prospect’s NHL equivalent point totals. Each league has different equivalency numbers which you can adjust according to a players age.

I’ve gone ahead and done the dirty work and taken Kings’ prospect ’12-13 point totals from their respective leagues and converted them to their NHL equivalencies. Taking a page from Fear the Fin and Copper and Blue, I’ve adjusted these numbers to a ‘per game’ rate and projected them over a full NHL 82 game season.

Without further ado let’s take a look at the charts. Starting with forwards…
(Tables are sortable.)

Los Angeles Kings – Prospects – Forwards

Player League NHL PPG NHL82 G NHL82 A NHL 82 P
Vey, Linden AHL 0.40 10 22 32
Hyka, Tomas* QMJHL 0.30 9 15 24
Kozun, Brandon AHL 0.35 14 15 29
Legein, Stefan AHL 0.10 2 7 8
O’Neill, Brian AHL 0.08 2 5 7
Dowd, Nic NCAA 0.25 8 13 20
Pearson, Tanner* AHL 0.31 9 16 25
Prokhorkin, Nikolai KHL 0.14 6 6 12
Kitsyn, Maxim KHL 0.12 7 2 10
Mersch, Michael NCAA 0.39 20 12 32
Lowry, Joel NCAA 0.29 13 11 24
Schumacher, Michael OHL 0.23 7 12 19
Toffoli, Tyler AHL 0.39 19 13 32
Shore, Nick NCAA 0.35 12 16 29
Weal, Jordan AHL 0.22 7 11 18
Andreoff, Andy AHL 0.15 6 6 12
Czarnik, Robert AHL 0.03 2 0 2

(*currently injured)

  • Linden Vey leads the way in NHL PPG. Vey is having a very productive year in Manchester after being shifted back over to center from wing. His ascension is likely what made Andrei Loktionov expendable– this early in the season– in the mind of the organization.
  • The big surprise is who is behind Vey, and alongside Tyler Toffoli. Michael Mersch is a 20 year old, 6-2 198lbs., left wing attending the University of Wisconsin. He was drafted in the fourth round of the 2011 draft. He currently has 20 goals already this season in 34 games– good for 4th in the NCAA.
  • Nick Shore is also having a strong NCAA season. Shore is currently the University of Denver’s leading scorer. He is probably next after Vey at center on the team’s organizational depth chart.
  • Russian prospects, Nikolai Prokhorkin and Maxim Kitsyn, are having disappointing seasons in the KHL. Kitsyn has seen most of his time in the VHL (Russia’s version of the AHL) where he has underwhelmed. Prokohorkin struggled to score in the AHL and went back to the the KHL where he has only managed 3 points in 14 games. He’s also spent time in the Russian minors.

Los Angeles Kings – Prospects – Defensemen

Player League NHL PPG NHL82 G NHL82 A NHL 82 P
Forbort, Derek NCAA 0.16 4 9 13
Deslauriers, Nicolas AHL 0.15 2 10 13
Ebert, Nick OHL 0.18 4 11 14
LaDue, Paul USHL 0.20 4 12 17
Gravel, Kevin NCAA 0.12 1 9 10
Miller, Colin OHL 0.30 9 16 25
Roach, Alex WHL 0.24 6 13 19
Kolomatis, David AHL 0.17 3 10 14
MacDermid, Kurtis OHL 0.04 0 3 3

  • Overager, Colin Miller is putting up big numbers in the OHL this season as captain of the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds. At age 20, he is doubling his career point production on the squad. He is the 6th leading scorer on the team despite missing a month of the season with an Achilles injury. He was drafted in the 5th round of the 2012 draft.
  • Derek Forbort entered the season with big expectations but has been unable to meet them from an offensive standpoint. He is now behind two defensemen on the University of North Dakota depth chart, as Oilers prospect Dillon Simpson has surged ahead of him.

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