Jets Nation Prospect Profiles 2016: #13 Tucker Poolman

We are in the dregs of summer, so we take a critical look at the Winnipeg Jets organizational cupboards and highlight who we feel are the Jets’ “Top 20 Prospects” when looking at a combination of potential and probability of positive impact for the franchise.

We continue our prospect profile turning to North Dakota defender, Tucker Poolman.

Tucker Poolman is a very interesting prospect. He has size, can skate, can defend, and has put up points. The Jets have been very excited in his development and have left the door open to the defender signing an entry level contract with the club both this summer and the last.

But, there is a caveat to all of Poolman’s accomplishments, and that is his age. The 23-year-old sits closer to the same development point as Mark Scheifele and Adam Lowry, than his draft classmates like Josh Morrissey or Nic Petan.

One hopes for their prospects to score well, but age of a player when scoring needs to be taken into account. For example, being a top scorer in the CHL at 17 is impressive and those players tend to be NHL regulars, but most overage 20-year-old top CHL scorers tend play in the ECHL or depth roles in the AHL.

Poolman was the top-defender in the USHL and one Junior Player of the Year, but as an overage 20-year-old. He was a top-20 scorer in the NCAA last season, but as one of the older players on the ice at 22.

This age caveat means we do not talk about Poolman’s performance in the same light as Josh Morrissey or Jacob Trouba, but it does not mean that Poolman has played poorly or has no potential.

Poolman has the tools, and even if he is an older prospect, he is still playing well in all aspects of the game. The right-handed defender defends well, can move the puck, and has a cannon of a slap shot on the power play. The eye-test projects Poolman as a potential third-pairing defender who can eat special teams’ minutes on both the power-play and penalty-kill.

Using the pGPS model, we see that only 7% of Poolman’s 301 statistical cohorts have made the NHL into careers of 200 or more games. It’s understandable that Poolman carries few NHL cohorts, as it is rare for NHL talents to still be in college at that age. So, the question then follows: does the model undercut Poolman unfairly due to the opposite of survivorship bias or is it fair as him playing as an older prospect is a signal of where his ceiling stands.

As a very strong fan and supporter of statistical analysis in hockey, I still have placed Poolman above many who have put up relatively better numbers. In part, it is because there is a strong sense from the organization that they wish for Poolman to succeed and will give him a real shot in the future.

The other part, though, comes to statistical analysis. Statistical models, like pGPS, tells you something about the player; it tells you the proportion of similar players that made the NHL. On average, a player with a higher proportion of successful cohorts is a better bet than ones with lower. But, not all make it.

Some carry high percentage of cohorts being successes and miss, while others have a low percentages and make it. The differences in these two groups of players and their more common cohort is not entirely random. There are quite often legitimate reasons why a low percentage player hits or a high percentage player misses, and this is where the eye-test comes in with scouting being merged with statistical analysis.

And for these reasons, we have Tucker Poolman 13th overall in our top-20 prospect series.