Jets Nation Prospect Profiles 2016: #15 Chase De Leo

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 the Moose’s leading forward point scorer, Chase De Leo.

The 20-year-old skater is a very interesting prospect. De Leo is an effective “undersized” scorer but has never put up elite numbers like Nic Petan. He does not shy away from physicality but does not play the same aggressive game as Brenden Lemieux or JC Lipon. He is defensively sound and enjoys being respected for his two-way game but does not project as a shutdown player like Adam Lowry or Andrew Copp.

One thing to note with De Leo’s scoring, however, is that the forward has spent both his AHL and major junior career as a middle-six forward. It is rare to see a player score as well as De Leo did in junior while predominately playing on the second-line, and a drop in ice time could have artificially deflated his scoring to what many similar prospects carried.

De Leo was a late birthday, with being born on October 25th, and because of this the forward only played one season in major junior after being drafted, unlike most players that would see two. De Leo came to the Moose as a rookie and lead all forwards in scoring. The “undersized” forward was able to be the ninth highest scoring forward in the AHL under the age of 21, despite playing for one of the lowest scoring teams.

His point per game pace drops him a bit, but he was still the fourth highest point per game producer on the Moose with at least 20 games played.

Two of the four that outscored De Leo are Scott Kosmachuk and JC Lipon, who both place behind De Leo in our prospect profile at #17 and #16.

All three have been solid scoring forwards in pro and junior. Kosmachuk is a goal scorer that loves to drive at the net. Lipon is an agitative pest that has an under-appreciated playmaking ability and has been developing into a shot volume producer. With De Leo having 23.4% of statistical cohorts playing in the NHL for 200 games or more, all three have pGPS percentages last season in the twenties.

What places De Leo above the other two in our prospect profile list?

Age.

De Leo being still 20 for another few months makes the skater quite a bit younger than Kosmachuk or Lipon. Being young makes for a larger range of possibilities, or for the statistical minded folks: a wider distribution. With the pGPS model, we see that 19 percent of De Leo’s statistical cohorts that made the NHL peaked as third-line or greater talents, which means De Leo still has a greater chance at hitting his peak than Lipon who had 16 percent or Kosmachuk who had 11 percent of cohorts peak at third-line or greater.

Being younger doesn’t mean that De Leo is destined to hit his ceiling, it just means that the possibility of hitting is a bit higher and the door will be open longer for De Leo to make that step.

With the competition high for the Jets bottom-six with added depth, we will likely see De Leo once again on the Moose in the top-six. The extra talent on the Moose could end up with De Leo losing ice time to others once again. It will be up to De Leo to prove in the AHL to the Jets that his upside is still high and try to avoid a sophomore slump.