Why the Jets shouldn’t be worried about Mark Scheifele’s Future Projection…Yet

Mark Scheifele has come under attack by some Winnipeg Jet’s fans as being a bust. He was drafted 7th in the first round in 2011, and two years later and now at age 20, he has yet to be a contributing factor for the jets playing a total of 11 games for 1 point.

But Jet’s fans should not be calling him a bust yet, as there have been plenty of players aged 20, even 21, that were drafted when they were 18 and have gone on to have successful NHL careers. The frequency table below includes all centres drafted in the first round between 1990 and 2010 and have played at least 10 game a season. Not surprisingly, the total number of centres beginning their NHL career spikes at 19, with teams giving their prospect one more year to grow in junior/minor hockey, something that is not uncommon. At age 22, the total number of centremen entering the league drops substantially from 113 at age 21 to 25 centremen at 22.The reason most likely being that these players have failed to show that they will produce in the NHL and teams beginning to give up. So, at the age of 20, Mark Scheifele is still in the age frame where he will have an NHL career.

But what about points? Can the jets fan expect him to be a point per game player? While every player is different, we can look at all centremen drafted in the first round since 1990 again and see how well their careers panned out in terms of points per game.

Below are graphs produced for centres drafted at 18 but start their careers at different ages, up to 23, since the age 24 only has 2 observations. What is clear is that players that start their career at ages 18 and 19 are generally superstars, with some players averaging over 1.5 points per game in some seasons. This trend dissipates as players get older, however. Since Scheifele is 20, we will focus on that age group for now.

While players that begin their career at age 20 do not score more than 1.5 points per game, the overall average is almost on par with those starting at 18, 19, and even 21 (shown in the final graph). These players also tend to have more consistent careers than those who start playing at age 18 or 19, to the point where around the age of 30, they are playing just as well as those who started at 18 or 19.

So, in conclusion, jets fans should not be too worried yet, there is still good history that says he will be a good NHL centre in terms of points per games, he may not be the knight in shining armor they were hoping for, but there is no doubt he could end up being a top 10 centre in the NHL one day.