Idle Moments: Anton Lander’s Slim NHL Chances

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The big news today was that the Oilers signed expiring ELC RFA Anton Lander to a one-year, one-way contract for the 2014-15 season (reportedly worth 600K).

Lander is an interesting case. He's inspired a lot of think pieces about the Oilers' draft record and development process.

Concerning the player in isolation, it is generally agreed that his 2011-12 year was a failure for both player and organization.

In his first year as a North American pro (at 20), under Renney, Lander played 56 games, scoring 2-4-6 points, while buried on the 4th line (he played only 8.86 TOI/60 5×5) with scrubs and other bits of twine for forward linemates (most common forward linemates: Petrell and Eager–each c. 200 minutes of 5×5 TOI, next closest F is Magus with under 100 minutes).

Since then, he's enjoyed a couple of strong cups of NHL coffee and hasn't come near making a boxcar impact.

2012-13 11 0-1-1

2013-14 27 0-1-1

OUCH!

This has inspired some well earned skepticism regarding the player's NHL future.

Here’s the complete list of F who played at least 60 games through age 22 with fewer than .2 pts/gm since 1995-96: http://t.co/P4yj6buadM

— mc79hockey (@mc79hockey) May 12, 2014

There’s a few gems on that list (Malholtra, Sobotka and Gordon, for example, stand out). But, overall, it’s an uninspiring list.

However, if we accept that Lander was rushed in his first North American pro season, we can basically eliminate him from this list as he wouldn’t have the necessary NHL gps to merit consideration.

This objection leads one back to Lander’s AHL career.

2012-13 was Lander’s first proper season in the AHL (47 9-11-20; 8 5-3-8 in the playoffs). 20 points in 47 games is hardly worth getting excited about. Mind you 2012-13 was the lock-out year in which the OKC Barons boasted the likes of Hall, Eberle and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins for a 3rd of the season. If we look at the month-to-month splits for Lander, we see that he basically didn’t score at all until March (10 of his 20 points came in the final 8 games!). If you include his playoff games and look at March-April, his boxcars are 16 11-7-18.

It is hardly unheard of for marginal hockey players to go on 16 game runs of scoring points. It would be easy, therefore, to dismiss last year’s late scoring.

It is the 2013-14 AHL season that Lander’s future (and most likely his current contract) hinged on. This season his AHL boxcars 46 18-34-52 (1.13 PPG) were interpreted by many as a sign of hope for Lander (incidentally, if you go back through last March, 62 29-41-70 1.13PPG). Which is not to say that Lander has established himself as an NHL player. Not by a long shot. Cautious optimism mixed with a lot of healthy skepticism is the order of the day in my opinion.

Still, today on twitter a conversation emerged around trying to pin-point Lander’s actual record versus the pantheon of potential comparables.

Guys who can score at 22 in the A but can’t play in the NHL are a dime a dozen.

— mc79hockey (@mc79hockey) May 12, 2014

This claim struck me as overwrought on first blush. Scoring at a 1.13 clip at 22 in the AHL isn’t a rare feat, but nor is a very common one I assumed.

So, I had a look. Here’s the list of every 22 year old AHL player to score 1.00 PPG or better in the post-lockout era.

(click to embiggen all photos)

So, 19 players fit the criteria. A couple of things pop out immediately. First, this isn’t an overly big or small list. Second, we can immediately see a few quality NHL players and prospects as well as a number of suspects. Third, of this list, only five players manage to outscore Lander.

At any rate, I had a preliminary look at players who were under 22 and scored at at higher rate than Lander and posted the results on twitter. At first blush, it looked like there were only a handful each season. I encountered some push-back from Tyler Dellow, who clarified his position.

As I noted in my tweet, the criteria Dellow is keen to establish is the following: 1) have you scored in the AHL at 22? 2) if so, did you score in the AHL prior to your 22 year old season? and 3) if you didn’t score and you “blossomed” at 22, did you have a record of success?

Here’s the same chart above, listed with each players’ 21 and 20 year old seasons. I’ve structured the chart ordinally, descending on the basis of PPG for each player’s 21 year old season:

Dead damn last on a list that includes more than a couple of suspects. As Dellow suggested, prospects with strong 22 year old seasons are far more impressive when coming off strong (he pegged >0.75 PPG) 21 and 20 year old seasons. The names and ordinal structure of this chart certainly back that claim.

It’s worth noting, of those who played a significant number of games in the AHL in their 21 year old season, only 3 scored at a rate lower than 0.75 PPG. It’s not an inspiring list: Brock Trotter, Jakub Klepis and Anton Lander.

Up-Shot

This is hardly an exhaustive search. I’m sure if we took a look at players from a greater pool of seasons, playing fewer games, etc. we might discover a few more interesting comparables.

That said, while Lander’s 2013-14 season (and the back-end of his 2012-13 season) are certainly welcome signs, they are hardly evidence of a prospect in stellar standing.

Meanwhile, all the Lander caveats apply: his blundered development path may well have impacted his point production, which he may well have finally gotten on track late (i.e., as of last March); and, he’s considered a defensively reliable center, capable of taking on penalty killing duties.

Finally, none of which is to say, the Oilers made a mistake in offering Lander another year to prove his NHL viability. The butt-end of the 50-man roster is best spent offering players like Lander (i.e., players with enough tools to translate into a–still–potentially useful NHL player) a brief window to prosper.