Where does Scheifele rank among the leagues best centres?

Lots of people were dumbfounded back in the summer of 2011 when the first pick of the Jets 2.0 era was Mark Scheifele. We didn’t know much on the Kitchener Ontario native, as he only played one year in the OHL at that point. His biggest supporter was his junior coach, Jets legend Dale Hawerchuk. Other than that, many fans didn’t know what the Jets got. 

He was ranked 16th among North American skaters before the draft, but when the Jets brass took to the stage in Minnesota, they seemed very excited to draft Scheifele with the seventh overall pick.

Over the next two seasons his junior numbers continued to improve, and he was a big part of team Canada, at both the 2012 and 2013 World Junior tournaments. Jets fans watched as their prized prospect developed into one of the top centres in junior hockey. The young centre came into the league full time when he made the Jets at just twenty years of age in 2013. Criticism hit him right out of the gate with fans quickly jumping on his inability to stay on his feet in his first year. Some fans felt he didn’t do as much as he could have in his rookie year. He finished ninth in rookie scoring with 34 points in 63 games during the 2013-14 season.

His second year improved as his points per game increased from 0.54 to 0.60. His 49 points in 82 games had him fourth on the Jets scoring list, and he made the transition to the second line centre role. Almost all of Scheifele’s numbers improved, along with a lot of his team mates. His four playoff games that year was a rough awakening, as he only totalled one assist, and finished a minus 2. Last season was much better. He finally took over and showed he can play centre on the top line. He finished second behind only Blake Wheeler in points with 61 points in 71 games. Compared to the rest of the leagues top centres he finished 17th in points. He was only three points or less behind stars like Steven Stamkos, Ryan Getzlaf or even Jeff Carter.

This year is arguably Scheifele’s best year. He is sitting fifth among centres in points with 53, trailing only Backstrom and Malkin with 54, and Crosby and McDavid with 60 points. He has shown this year that he can be one of the best centres in the league. If you look at the top centres in the league over this season and last, Scheifele is right up there. Since the 2015-16 season Scheifele is seventh in total points for centres with 114. He is only six points behind fifth place Evgeny Kuznetsov and one point behind sixth place Joe Thornton. What makes it more impressive is Scheifele has played 12 less games than both Thornton and Kuznetsov. He has even played 12 less games than second place Pavelski who is only 11 points in front of Scheifele. His points per game places him sixth with 0.92. He’s only behind elite centres like Crosby, McDavid, Malkin, Seguin, and Backstrom.

At the age of 23 he’s now in an elite class of centres. He should only continue to grow and develop. When Scheifele is in his prime one can only imagine what heights he could achieve. At the rate Scheifele is developing he should be in the elite class of centres for at least the next ten years.