He's looking for possible comparables.

Are you suggesting that while searching for players with a similar 20 year old season to Eberle he should include players that performed better than Eberle?

Doing what you just suggested would have more of a tire pumping effect than anything Willis said.

Try to maintain at least a token level of logic while performing your usual shtick.

I understnad how people think gagner was rushed in because his offense numbers havent grown. But 49 points in his first year, and 42 in his second what was there left in junior. If he was 20 and put up 41 points in 65 games and was a rookie this year no one would question it. For a player to be at .65 ppg as a 21 year old is good.

But again 49 points in yor rookie year on a crappy team is not being rushed in.

Eberle on the other hand had a different development curve and needed the time in junior and has grown nicely. Good work ebs.

Two great young players that should both be part of the oilers future.

Wow, I really think some people just blast JW's articles because they already have it in their heads that they won't agree, and so don't bother to properly read the article, and already formulating their responses. It's fine to disagree with an article, just make sure you've read the article properly! At no point did he say "Eberle will be better than Brind'Amour" or "Eberle will be the star that Havlat never quite became", he's just saying that for now he's scoring in that range and that Tanguay and Havlat are the upper range of what we should expect (think LT's "Reasonable Expectations" articles). And he also said he'll do a more in depth look at Eberle's season when the season is over. Took me 2 minutes to read the article, why couldn't you do the same.

Good work JW, keep it up.

Hope Eberle is better than Tanguay

Would this chart look significantly different if it was adjusted to account for league scoring at the time of these rookie seasons? 2010-2011 is perhaps the stingiest year in recent memory, but I'm not sure how it compares, exactly, to the so-called dead puck era.

Yikes.

Tanguay has been a top 10ish LW for the better part of a decade.

I'd be ecstatic if Eberle = Tanguay.

While I'm still a neophyte at logic and statistics, I would argue that your use of hyperbole here is a little uncalled for. While obviously incomplete in its analysis, JW's take is a relative comparison only and should be considered as such.

It should also be noted that Eberle is a dream boat and his hair smells like cinnamon*

*Or so I've been told**

**By myself, in a dream.

So the players above Eberle are largely elite and the players below him largely not. It almost seems like points per game as a 20 year old, being a super simple analysis, does a surprisingly good job of ranking the offensive quality of players. I can see why someone might think it completely futile to look at Eberle's place on that ranking.

There's a wide range of players in that list. I'm looking forward to your year end recap JW when you put some effort to eliminate players that don't match up to Eberle.

Ohh yeah...FIST!

To me the key to that list is how few of those players *didn't* turn into at least top 6 forwards.

should tell us that Ebs (and Gagner) are near locks to be at works 2nd line talent.

How about similar boxcars, but a greater proportion of goals?

Good point, PD.

JW, hope you do this when the season is over.

JW.

Why would you use 75 points as an upper limit?

And why would you eliminate 18 and 18 year olds who have already passed that level of production?

As much as I like Eberle, this looks like another exercise in tire pumping.

I don't think your analysis follows from your own statistics. The players above Eberle on the list are elite indeed. But the players below him, for the most part, aren't. I'm not saying that I don't like Eberle, or that I don't think he will be a great player, but once again you managed to take a bunch of stats and interpret them in a way that you think supports some subjective opinion you have.

I wonder what the correlation is between 20yr old players' point production and eye colour. I think that will be as accurate a prediction of future success as the numbers you just splattered onto the screen.

I realise that this is a preliminary list, but I definitely think it requires pts/60 filter.

Hall's numbers look good until you see them by this metric and I believe Eberle's will probably be the same. I'm guessing he'd be a lot further down the list on a chart of the same players sorted by pts/60 a 20 yr olds.

Tangauy's a great player, but Eberle shoots more. It's hard to find a comparable for this kid..

See, the things is these players are stepping into different roles on different teams and getting widely varying ice times.

Their ages are like one of the least significant factors.

Jeff Skinner is a good example since he was able to move into a situation where he was surrounded by complimentary talent not thrown into the deep end like Eberle.

I expect, if Eberle was on the Canes, he would be much closer to Skinner's production.

At least you should look at P/60 not PPG because it flattens out the difference in roles, at least a little.

For example:

Voracek - 5V5 P/60 - 2.06 5V4 P/60 - 3.71 Eberle - 5V5 P/60 - 1.92 5V4 P/60 - 3.18

Using Stats to support ones opinion is usually what is done in most papers, arguments, proposals, ...etc.

IMO, Wanye's opinion is the ONLY opinion when it comes to Eberle!

Not bad company considering some of those kids were in their 3rd NHL season when they were 20.

Good job again sir. Its always going to be apples and oranges. But this is at least interesting to look at. Prognosticating a career is witchcraft don't let anyone tell you any different.

Blasphemous Heretic!

Oh yeah Hossa and Tkachuck were never elite players at all being below Eberle for PPG at age 20. Virtually all the players below Eberle are or were Elite material with the exception of a select few (Like Radek Dvorak) How does Allen say "retard" in the hangover? Ruh-tard?

JW, most of the comments that try to rebuttle your arguments are from people that have poor reading comprehension.. like this guy.... it is really quite hilarious.

I'm just going to throw this out there: GOOD article JW! I for one like seeing comparisons like this, some of you are drawing too many conclusions. Its just a list!!! relax, he's not spreading some sort of new gospel. And if the intentions were to 'pump some tires', would that be such a bad thing?...I dont know about u guys but my tires are deflating at an alarming rate. Lets look at the bright side of what we have

I had a similar thought. How many of the players on this list were rookies? That would be a better comp IMO. Regardless, I think we can all agree that Eberle measures up well statistically and with the infamous 'saw him good' metric. Quite a player.

Stats are stats. They can back up or distort.

A 20 yr old first year NHL players stats will differ from team to team based on ice time, situations thrown into, line mates, impact on line mates when in lineup, team mates, team success, and coaching style.

Other non data intangibles include size, confidence, leadership skills, are they liked in the room, Intelligence, reliability, commitment, injury prone, and perhaps most importantly, how many jerseys do they sell?

The last one is the fan's measurement of everything else. On a side note, I think salaries should be directly factored by the number of jerseys a player sells. But that would be trolling.

I would love to see an article on the NHL salary vs Jerseys Sold for 100 different players though... Are you up for that Willis?

Ya, all those people snapping up jerseys in the south ...

Tanguay was part of a very tough Avalanche team along with Drury, Hejduk, Sakic, Foote, etc. Don't discount Alex Tanguay just because of what he is now. Injuries have definitely played a part along with one bad year in Tampa. Besides being an offensive comparable to Tanguay is a good thing, he spent years as a nearly ppg player with Col/Cal. We all already know that Eberle has much better defensive instincts than Tanguay.

What ever happened to Eric Daze? A player with so much promise just disappeared!

Hmmm. Good point.

Daze. Poor guy. Bad back. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Éric_Dazé

Just think Eberle is only going to get stronger and faster as will Hall and Mags. Seeing how good they are now just imagine 3 years from now!! All this misery will soon be alot of fun and good times! Hell throw in Omark as well, He's played fricken fantastic these past 9-10 games. Vancouver will soon be $hitty again and we will be destoying all. Ahh cant wait.

Coming into this season I was holding Eberle in the highest regard of the three rookies. He has done everything I imagined and can't wait to see how good he is three years from now. I like the comparisons JW, I would also love to see how he stacks up against just other 20 year old rookies.

nice article. I love looking at the comparable players to our young guns. As we get closer to the end of the season I would like to compare with those who were rookies at 20 and see how that looks.

In any case thanks for giving me something interesting to read in an otherwise dreadful hockey spring.

The rookies have been great for sure.

I am concerned that so many take a lot of big hits that are avoidable. Finding the balance between productivity and staying healthy is one of the skills that seperates great from good players. Injuries accumulate and diminish a player's game. You need a lot of games under your belt to be one of the greats.

With so many rookies playing, I think the Oilers should have someone to teach positioning along the boards, and plays to avoid that will get a player hurt, before one of these great young guys gets a serious injury. Eric Lindros could have used it and he was a horse of a guy.

Pajaarvi's head thing was avoidable, he went back first to the boards and when Bouw checked him his head slammed. That is a rookie mistake, but unfortunately the learning curve has to be short for head injuries. Eberle got nailed a couple of times trying to beat the D along the boards and to my eye one shook him up good. At his size he will become Hemsky if it keeps happening.

The team should get a coach or consultant to teach these guys the ropes physically in the bigs and protect their investments.

A face off coach would be nice too. Maybe Vandevelde could moonlight.

I like Robert Reichel as a comparison, just going by style of player. He was crafty and could score from anywhere, with real nice moves in close if I remember correctly.

Eberle is going to have one heck of a fantastic career if everything continues down the path he is on!

One crazy thing about that list is how good of a year Ryan Smyth had. His 39 goals blew everyone else out of the water.