Oiler NCAA Prospects and Competition – Part 1

This is a two-part post looking at Oiler NCAA prospects through the lens of Ryan Stimson’s new Quality of Competition and Quality of Teammate metrics. Part One looks at recent Oiler NCAA signings. Part Two will look at Oiler draft picks currently in the NCAA.

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NCAA prospects are sometimes difficult to keep track of. They disappear under the radar only to r
esurface 4 years later (or longer). We don’t get to see a lot of their games on TV. We don’t get the same level of local or national coverage here in Canada. They don’t attend training camp. Then they arrive on the scene with a 2-year Entry Level Contract at the age of 22 or 23.

That’s why I love finding new ways to track how those NCAA prospects are doing while they’re still playing college hockey. Maybe they can be a little less of a black box when they finally jump pro.

New Data!

On that note, Ryan Stimson (@RK_Stimp) recently developed a way to track the quality of competition and quality of teammates at the NCAA level. While there’s debate as to just how much quality of competition matters at the NHL level, Ryan makes the argument that it makes a huge difference at the NCAA level. The gap in talent is greater in the NCAA and the shorter season prevents the competition from evening out over time.

Please click through to the link above for more information about the metrics. Ryan does a great job of explaining it. (Also, this whole post is just using his data, so please click the link.) I’ll just cut to the chase here and say that, using this new information, we have three new pieces of information that weren’t immediately accessible before for NCAA players:

• Estimated Time On Ice (all situations)
• Quality of Competition (separated by forward and defence)
• Quality of Teammates (separated by forward and defence)

Within the article, Ryan has a link to two visualiations in Tableau. One for competition and one for teammates. Using them, you can find this information for any player who was in the NCAA last season. I took the liberty of pulling the data for all the Oiler relevant players and present them here.

This post will focus on recent signings including Drake Caggiula, Patrick Russell, Joey Benik, and Matt Benning.

Drake Caggiula

Ryan actually talks about Drake Caggiula in his piece. Caggiula was an undrafted free agent who developed a decent amount of hype after an impressive 1.31 points / game this last season. Not a big guy (5’10”, 185 lbs), he has a reputation for playing gritty but having skill to go with it. I’ve read mixed reviews on his skating, with some calling it ‘elite’ while others (like Corey Pronman) felt he wasn’t the quickest (paywall). The main knock on him is concern he was being carried by his more famous linemates (Vancouver 1^st rounder Brock Boeser and Chicago 1^st rounder Nick Schmaltz).

Here’s how to read the visualizations below. The first graph (QoC) is the quality of competition graph. The closer you are to the top of the graph, the harder the defensive competition you face. The farther to the right you go, the harder the forward competition. So the hardest competition is the top-right while the easiest is the bottom-left. For most players, there seems to be a much greater gap in forward competition than defensive competition. The second graph (QoT) follows the same format but with the quality of teammates the prospect played with. I’ve inserted an arrow to highlight the prospect in question. Click the image to make it larger and easier to read.

Caggiula was relied upon to play almost 23 minutes a night. He plays with the top forwards on the team, which we already knew. However, as Ryan points out in his article, it looks like North Dakota managed to get that trio out against middle tier opposition forwards. So Caggiula got to play against somewhat softer competition.

What This Means: That Caggiula racked up his points against somewhat softer competition should temper our offensive expectations of him a bit this coming year. He certainly has skill, but he got a ton of help with some elite prospects on his line and avoided the toughest matchups.

Patrick Russell

Despite only being a sophomore at St. Cloud State last year, Russell is an older prospect. He will turn 24 this January. Much less heralded than Caggiula, he still managed to put up 1.0 points / game and did so in a 6’1”, 205 lb right-shooting frame. His foot speed might be an issue but he certainly has offence and size.

Russell averaged about 22 minutes a night, so certainly relied on by his team. He, like Caggiula, played with the top players on his team. Unlike Caggiula, Russell played against the toughest D and among the best forwards the opposition had to offer.

What This Means: Despite a lower scoring rate than Caggiula, Russell was not sheltered at all last year in the NCAA. That’s encouraging for him. I still suspect Caggiula is the better prospect, but if Russell’s foot speed isn’t enough of an issue to hold him back, the gap between them may not be as large as one might think based on the hype alone.

Joey Benik

Benik was signed to an AHL contract with Bakersfield this Spring. He was Russell’s teammate on St. Cloud and with 1.17 points / game, he actually outscored Russell. So why was Benik signed to an AHL contract while Russell got the NHL one?

Well, Benik is a left shot to Russell’s right. Though he was a senior and Russell was a sophomore, Benik is only a year older than Russell. Further, most of Benik’s extra points were on the powerplay. At even-strength, their points totals were almost identical (32 for Benik vs 31 for Russell). Oh… and Benik is 3 inches shorter and 30 lbs lighter. Was there any difference in their usage?

This is the same set of graphs as we saw with Russell, but with Benik highlighted. Firstly, Benik has about the same TOI per game as Russell, around 22 to 22:30 per game. However, Benik had slightly worse quality of teammates, getting second-line forwards while Russell got the first line. The gap in quality of competition, though, was not large. Benik played slightly easier defence and forwards, but it’s pretty close.

What This Means: Based on this, I’m not sure how large the gap is between Russell and Benik. Russell is younger, larger and played top quality competition. On the other hand, Benik is only a year older, outscored Russell (albeit mostly due to the powerplay), and played with somewhat weaker teammates while his competition was pretty close to Russell’s. Further, Benik has a longer track record of scoring. Last year Benik actually led St. Cloud State in points, getting 0.97 p/g compared to Russell’s 0.62 as an older freshman. Frankly, if Benik was a bit taller and heavier, I suspect he’d have an NHL contract. As it is, the Oilers get a test-run on a reasonable NCAA prospect with an AHL contract.

Matt Benning

Many accuse the Oilers of being an Old Boys Club. The Benning signing didn’t really help that perception. Matt is Jim Benning’s nephew. Jim, currently the GM of the Canucks, was Chiarelli’s Assistant GM in Boston. Chiarelli actually drafted Benning while he was the Bruin’s GM. Benning was available because he chose to turn pro and Boston wanted him to stay for his senior year at Northeastern.

He is a right-shot defender with decent scoring. He got 19 points this year and 24 points last year. At 6’0”, 203 lbs, he’s about average size. The Oiler Rig’s own Alex Thomas offered this scouting report: “I saw him a bit in the NCAA and he didn’t do any one thing great, but did a lot of things well. He’s got a decent first pass, is hard to play against and plays a very smart style.”

Firstly, Northeastern clearly relied on Benning heavily. He played 27-28 minutes a night and did so against the top forward opposition. While he, not surprisingly, played with the best forwards as well, he seems to have gotten the worst defensive partners. According to the data, Benning often got paired with defensive partners who averaged the least TOI on the team.

What This Means: Benning was Northeastern’s #1 defender, playing the most minutes, against top competition and with the best forwards. He may have been tasked with carrying along weaker defensive partners. Whatever the optics are, Benning appears to be a legitimate defensive prospect in a position of need for the Oilers.

Summary

Each of the recent signings for the Oilers is an interesting prospect in his own right. Drake Caggiula racked up an excellent point total with famous linemates against middling opposition. Patrick Russell is a larger power-forward type who put up good numbers against tough competition while his less heralded (and smaller) teammate Joey Benik scored an AHL contract for his excellent offensive work with second tier teammates against slightly lower competition. Matt Benning was Northeastern’s stud #1 defenceman who looks to make the transition to the AHL at a position of need for the Oilers.

Next Up

In Part 2 of this series, I will look at Oiler draft picks currently in the NCAA, which include forwards Aiden Muir, Evan Campbell, and Tyler Vesel as well as defencemen William Lagesson and Vincent Desharnais.