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The Official 2026 Off-Season Thread: Revenge of the Nerds

Preston said:
The tldr is likely that he's in that Jack Hughes/Bedard offensive tier of pretty damn likely being a ppg+ player with 100 point upside. Hard to know how his game will adapt vs the others but he's right there.

Just perhaps behind them overall due to being a winger tho.

Regardless tho, you've gotta pick the guy I think. Adding a potential 90+ point guy for free is nice.
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I wouldn't call it free because it cost you a future first but the rest I agree with
 
Marner and Bedard would be 5-6 months younger than the other two in this comp. Lafrienier a couple months older.

Pre-Draft 3:

McKenna (WHL): 66gms, 36gls, 103pts (45gl/128pt pace)
McDavid (OHL): 63gms, 25gls, 66pts (33gl/86pt pace)
Bedard (WHL): 15gms, 12gls, 28pts (66gl/153pt pace)
Marner (---): ---
Lafreniere (QHL): 67gms, 46gls, 87pts (56gl/107pt pace)

Pre-Draft 2:

McKenna (WHL): 72gms, 50gls, 167pts (57gl/190pt pace)
McDavid (OHL): 70gms, 32gls, 118pts (38gl/138pt pace)
Bedard (WHL): 62gms, 51gls, 100pts (68gl/132pt pace)
Marner (OHL): 73gms, 16gls, 68pts (18gl/76pt pace)
Lafreniere (QHL): 74gms, 46gls, 128pts (51gl/142pt pace)

Pre-Draft 1:

McKenna (NCAA): 35gms, 15gls, 51pts (35gl/120pt pace)
McDavid (OHL): 67gms, 65gls, 169pts (80gl/207pt pace)
Bedard (WHL): 64gms, 81gls, 163pts (104gl/209pt pace)
Marner (OHL): 70gms, 53gls, 142pts (62gl/166pt pace)
Lafreniere (QHL): 52gms, 35gls, 112pts (55gl/177pt pace)



Celebrini is 6 months older in this comp. Eichel 2 months older. Cooley is a year and a half older.

Pre-Draft 1:

McKenna (NCAA): 35gms, 15gls, 51pts (35gl/120pt pace)
Celebrini (NCAA): 38gms, 32gls, 64pts (69gl/138pt pace)
Eichel (NCAA): 40gms, 26gls, 71pts (53gl/146pt pace)
Cooley (NCAA): 39gms, 22gls, 60pts (46gl/126pt pace)



hmm i think i was letting his late bday mess up the stats comps. that last year of junior especially looks crazy elite when age adjusted.
 
Preston said:
The tldr is likely that he's in that Jack Hughes/Bedard offensive tier of pretty damn likely being a ppg+ player with 100 point upside. Hard to know how his game will adapt vs the others but he's right there.

Just perhaps behind them overall due to being a winger tho.

Regardless tho, you've gotta pick the guy I think. Adding a potential 90+ point guy for free is nice.
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His vision and manipulation of pace is insane. Closest thing I've ever seen to kucherov in a prospect.
 
Preston said:
The tldr is likely that he's in that Jack Hughes/Bedard offensive tier of pretty damn likely being a ppg+ player with 100 point upside. Hard to know how his game will adapt vs the others but he's right there.

Just perhaps behind them overall due to being a winger tho.

Regardless tho, you've gotta pick the guy I think. Adding a potential 90+ point guy for free is nice.
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YouTube scouting all night last night concludes he’s a notch below Celebrini and a notch above Bedard. But closer to Bedard than Celebrini.

He’s Marner if Marner was a man, with fewer assists but way more goals.
 
Preston said:
If McKenna played another year in the WHL we wouldn't be having this conversation. College took some time for him to adapt, in addition to exposing some of his flaws that the WHL was never gonna do.
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Wasn’t he also banged up at the start of the year? And dealing with a 7 year jail sentence for a month or so?
 
I do love how i had time to do a shocked triple take at that partially-revealed '12' before everyone clued in that it was the leafs number.
 
Also the age changes the WJC comps (for dumb zeke at least):

Draft year:

McKenna: 7gms 4gls 14pts
McDavid: 7gms 3gls 11pts
Bedard: 7gms, 4gls, 8pts (6 months younger)

Marner wasn't on the team pre draft, tho he was 6 months younger.
 
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Volcanologist said:
Nonzero chance we take Stenberg, esp if he has an impressive Worlds
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Nobody should care what happens at the Worlds.

Both because it’s a tiny sample size and because it’s such a weird mish-mash of a tournament against randomly variable levels of opponents.

Lots of the Laine > Matthews crowd got super horny about how flashy Laine looked at the Worlds that year running up scoring totals on the PP against punching-bag opponents.
 
Another fun stat for McKenna:

9.9% S% in college


Compare that to Cooley: 22%
Eichel: 15%
Celebrini: 18%


I know he may not be quite the sniper that some of those guys are, but I think he may have suffered from some poor luck too! In that tiny college season, that can happen quite easily!

If he shot even 15% he would have been at 1.65ppg - of course I'm assuming that some of his misses weren't turned into assists which is likely wrong. But fuck it, let's have fun.
 
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