The Journey: Historical Context for Top U20 Goal Scorers in the NCAA

Ben Gehrels

2024-03-16

Welcome back to The Journey, where we track the development of prospects as they excel in junior, make the NHL, and push towards stardom.

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In case you missed it, check out Part One (AHL & KHL) and Part Two (SHL & Liiga) of this mini-series.

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Goals are always at a premium in fantasy. They are harder to obtain than assists and are given an extra value boost in many formats. So when it comes to prospects, players that can regularly put the puck in the net carry additional fantasy intrigue.

It can be hard to contextualize scoring numbers, however, given the complexities of accounting for age and specific leagues. This week, we will focus on prospects in the NCAA who are 19 or younger and keeping up with the best goal scorers in their respective leagues. The aim is to identify any surprises and standouts by comparing prospect production by goal rate with the top U20 historical campaigns in each league.

Tune in next week for a look at contextualized production in the CHL.

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Under-20 skaters by goals per game

Format:

Rank league-wide in total goals: Name (Team, age), # goals in # of games, goals per game

NCAA – 2023-24

1st: Cutter Gauthier (ANA, 19), 32 in 34, 0.94 goals per game

2nd: Macklin Celebrini (2024, 17), 29 in 32, 0.91 – 17 years old

4th: Ryan Leonard (WAS, 18), 25 in 34, 0.74

7th: Gavin Brindley (CBJ, 19), 23 in 35, 0.66

18th: Jimmy Snuggerud (STL, 19), 20 in 36, 0.56

25th: William Smith (SJS, 19), 18 in 34, 0.53

33rd: Bradly Nadeau (CAR, 18), 17 in 34, 0.5

38th: Rutger McGroarty (WPG, 19), 16 in 31, 0.52

46th: Gabe Perreault (NYR, 18), 15 in 30, 0.5

50th: Aiden Fink (NAS, 19), 15 in 34, 0.44

It has been a very exciting year at the top of the NCAA scoring race this year. A whopping seven college players in 2023-24 are currently scoring more than 1.5 points per game: Celebrini, Smith, Perreault, McGroarty, Massimo Rizzo, Collin Graf, and Cutter Gauthier. Only four players surpassed that threshold last year (including someone named Frankie Ireland???), zero the year before, three in 2020-21, and then zero in both 2019-20 and 2018-19.

If we expand the criteria slightly, there are an additional four players clicking at over 1.4 points/game: Jackson Blake (CAR), Jack Devine (FLA), Gavin Brindley (CBJ), and Ryan Leonard (WAS). And Lane Hutson (MTL) leads all defencemen with a mark of 1.34.

Big year.

On the goal-scoring front, Gauthier and Celebrini are having particularly historic campaigns. Kyle Connor scored the lights out in 2015-16, for instance, but Gauthier sits three goals back of his mark with four games in hand. Celebrini is right there too in terms of goals per game and is accomplishing this at 17 years old, whereas everyone else on this list was 18+.

NCAA – Notable Historic U20 Single Seasons

16th: Kyle Connor (2015-16), 35 in 38, 0.92

17th: Brian Rolston (1992-93), 35 in 41, 0.85

18th: Chris Drury (1995-96), 35 in 37, 0.95

39th: Cutter Gauthier (2023-24), 32 in 34, 0.94

44th: Thomas Vanek (2002-03), 31 in 45, 0.69

51st: Adam Fantilli (2022-23), 30 in 36, 0.83

54th: Brian Gionta (1997-98), 30 in 40, 0.75

58th: Cole Caufield (2020-21), 30 in 31, 0.97

62nd: Mike Cammalleri (2000-01), 29 in 42, 0.69

67th: Macklin Celebrini (2023-24), 29 in 32, 0.91 – 17 years old

78th: Dany Heatley (1999-00), 28 in 38, 0.74

94th: Brock Boeser (2015-16), 27 in 42, 0.64

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(Note: #1-15 were all from 1989-90 or earlier, mostly by non-NHLers, so they have been excluded here)

Celebrini has definitely asserted himself more and more over the course of the season. My impression heading into this year was that he was a solid first-overall candidate but not exactly generational like Bedard. That is a vague, loaded term and may still be true, but it seems clear at this point that Celebrini is undeniably elite. Jack Hughes looks just like this in the Hockey Prospecting model, for example: 99% star potential all across the board. Celebrini is about as "can't miss" as it gets.

Imagine Bedard and Celebrini as a 1-2 punch on the same team? Instant dynasty potential.

With about 15 games to go, the league-worst Sharks sit at 39 points, two below the Blackhawks at 41. Assuming these two continue to battle it out at the bottom and there are no surprises at the lottery, that means Celebrini will either be joining Will Smith, William Eklund, and Quentin Musty in San Jose or Connor Bedard, Lukas Reichel, Frank Nazar, Oliver Moore, Kevin Korchinski, and Nick Lardis in Chicago. Loser probably gets Ivan Demidov, who looks like a Matvei Michkov lite, an excellent consolation prize.

Pushing past pure production for a moment, Mitch Brown's tracking stats paint Celebrini in an even more flattering light. He is incredibly impactful on defence and in transition, too—not just on offence. He is constantly attacking the middle, moving the puck against the grain, transporting the puck confidently and effectively out of his own zone, keeping opposing teams on their heels, backchecking consistently, making good reads on defence, and stripping pucks. Dominant.

Meanwhile, with the surprise trade to Anaheim a few months ago, Gauthier will be joining a young Ducks core absolutely bursting with talent: Trevor Zegras, Leo Carlsson, Mason McTavish, Troy Terry, Pavel Mintyukov, and Olen Zellweger—to name just the best of the best. This should be a good team for a long time, and he will be right at the heart of their success.

Gauthier (6-2, 193 lbs) is a known commodity at this point. He plays a power game highlighted by an incredible shot, and the rest of his skills and attributes are above-average across the board. This year, playing with a bevy of incredible playmakers at Boston College (Smith, Perreault, Leonard), he has repeatedly prowled around in the high slot or at the right circle for someone to find him and then blasted pucks past dismayed goalies. Again and again and again. Some examples:

Perreault with the wicked backhand feed right on his tape:

Sniping on the power play. Boston College passes it around a bit, and the second they send it over to Gauthier, it's in the net.

Here he turns a fairly innocuous-looking play into an OT dagger. He slips off the bench, slides into space, then uses the advancing defender as a screen to end the game:

One more. By now you can see the goal coming before it's in the net:

It actually seems like Gauthier has not had to use his frame and physicality a lot at the college level to score these buckets of goals. That will certainly be an asset once he turns pro, though, one that many other top college scorers don't have in their arsenals. That shot is clearly NHL-ready, and the Ducks have several dangerous playmakers who can step in for Smith and Perreault.

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While Leonard (25 goals, 0.74 goals per game) is not having a historic goal-scoring season like Gauthier and especially Celebrini, he is still trending very nicely as a fantasy asset. He has always been in the same "goal scoring power forward who hits" category as Gauthier in my mind, which is an extremely valuable type of prospect to own in multicategory formats.

It's purely a stat-based measure, but a player hitting an NHL equivalency of 50 in his Draft+1 campaign is not something you see every day. Capitals fans finally have some exciting pieces coming down the pipeline: Leonard, Andrew Cristall, Ivan Miroshnichenko, Clay Stevenson, maybe Hendrix Lapierre. It's not a ton of talent but at least there is some glimmer of hope for the post-Ovechkin era in Washington.

This year's tracking data on Leonard is not available yet, but he always stood out to me in the past for his ability to drive the net and get pucks to the middle of the ice. Whether in his draft year or at the World Juniors, Leonard consistently leads all the skaters in Brown's data set in Boards to Middle Plays/60. That instinct for the net will help him seamlessly translate his goal scoring to the NHL. While some shooters can get away with sniping from the perimeter at lower levels, they tend to struggle in the pro game when the gaps close and there is less time to make decisions.

As Coach Greg Revak points out, entering the opposing zone in the middle of the ice gives you a ton of options:

Here Leonard cuts to the middle, takes a pass from Perreault near the red line, then enters the zone with speed, pushing the defenders back and creating room for a drop pass to Smith, who then feeds a forgotten Perreault cross crease:

Here again he enters the zone behind the puck carrier, receives the puck near the slot, then fires a quick cross-crease pass to Smith. Get possession in a high-danger area and then make a fast play into an even higher danger area. Rise and repeat. Expected Goal models are going to absolutely love this kid.

And of course, he can also finish at will with snipes that look just like Gauthier's:

Like Gauthier, Leonard has a stacked tool kit with no holes that features several high-end weapons. This was his Elite Prospects scouting report from his draft year (5 being NHL average):

If you play in multicategory formats, seeing "The Third Tkachuk" as a loose comparable should bring stars to your eyes. Leonard is a line driver who should help prop up Washington's top six right away once he makes the show. If he can find synergy with a high-end playmaker like Cristall, this could become a dynamic duo in the mold of Ovi – Backstrom.

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Thanks for reading! Follow me on X @beegare for more prospect content and fantasy hockey analysis.

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