Winnipeg Jets Minor League Equivalencies

One of the things that was unclear for a long time was how much offense a player coming from junior, college or the AHL could be expected to bring with him. Thankfully, now we have a line in the sand – Gabriel Desjardins’ league equivalencies. Desjardins sat down and calculated what percentage of their offense in other leagues players typically take to the NHL with them.

It gives us an interesting tool to examine the Winnipeg Jets’ prospects outside the NHL with.

First off, I’d also like to credit Derek Zona for the idea – over at Copper and Blue they’ve been offering monthly updates on Oilers prospects for a long time using Desjardins’ numbers.

Without further ado, here are Jets’ forwards currently outside the NHL.

The averages are a helpful line in the sand, but that doesn’t mean Fredrik Pettersson is going to score 45 points over an 82-game NHL season any time soon. He’s been a pretty good scorer over his last two seasons in Sweden, but an AHL stint sandwiched between them was decidedly disappointing.

Mark Scheifele’s numbers are okay, but not mind-blowing, given his draft selection. Still, there’s little doubt that he’s the most offensively gifted Jets prospect right now, despite the fact that he’s younger than most of the other guys on the list.

There are other decent prospects in the system, but there aren’t a lot of high-end scorers at any level. After Scheifele and the Pettersson mirage, Spencer Machacek projects to score 28 points over a full NHL season.

The picture on defense is a little better.

Paul Postma’s numbers have been pretty good all down the line. He scored 84 points in his final season of junior, and well there was a slight bump in Postma’s rookie AHL season he’s on pace for his second strong performance in the minors.

Will O’Neill is a rather interesting case. A late pick back in 2006, O’Neill is in his fourth college season and in his sixth post-draft year after spending two seasons in the USHL. He’s had three straight strong offensive seasons, but college defenders are a funny thing – sometimes they bring all their offense, sometimes none of it when they turn pro. O’Neill’s not a guy I’d feel comfortable betting on, but he keeps cranking out the numbers.