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

Dillon Dube, 24, is on a 67-point pace over his last 38 games. I would love to say that this is his new normal but his outlook is clouded by lack of consistency. After opening the season with only four points in his first 17 games, he then exploded for just shy of a point per game from late November to late December. Then he lapsed again with three points in 12 games before picking up 14 in his last 13.

What should we expect from Dube moving forward? Will he be able to put things together and consistently put up 65+? Or is he more of a 50-point streamer who goes on sporadic hot streaks?

Trajectory

Looking back to his junior days, Dube never really popped on the scoresheet like you would expect from a top-tier prospect. But he did show excellent year-over-year growth and development. He put up a point per game in his draft year on a weak Kelowna (WHL) squad, which is fine but not overly impressive, but then upped his scoring pace the following two years to 1.4 and 1.6 points per game in his D+1 and D+2 campaigns. Then he stepped into the AHL and immediately excelled, putting up 57 points in 57 games across parts of three years.

At that point, his star potential—which had been decent but not high-end to that point—jumped up to a sparkling 40%, meaning he had an above-average shot at scoring above a 57-point pace over his NHL career according to historical comparables. Just look at that consistent growth.

Hockey Prospecting recently revamped their player comparables, and the model now sees Ryan Getzlaf, Robert Thomas, Brendan Morrison, and Adam Deadmarsh as having the most similar trajectories to Dube. That's two star producers, a fringe star, and an average producer who peaked in the 60-70-point range as part of Vancouver's superstar line with Markus Naslund and Todd Bertuzzi.

Comparables are fraught with difficulty, but this constellation of players paints a promising picture for Dube. He will not become a Getzlaf-level player, but if his floor is Brendan Morrison, which ain't half bad.

Deployment

Accounting for playoff experience, Dube hit his projected 200-game Breakout Threshold with 23 games left to play in 2021-22. Although he finished with only 32 points on the year, he managed an encouraging 61-point pace over the final 23 games after crossing his BT—production that suggested he could be a 60+-point player moving forward.

But then this feast-or-famine pattern popped up again this year.

Calgary as a whole is going through some serious growing pains, however, and that provides important context for Dube's ebbs and flows. The Flames went from second in the league by goal differential in 2021-22 (+85) down to 16th in 2022-23 (+6).

At the same time, all that upheaval in Cowtown seems to have helped solidify Dube's spot in their top six: he has played nearly 70% of the time with some combination of top forwards Elias Lindholm, Tyler Toffoli, Nazem Kadri, and Andrew Mangiapane. Accordingly, he has also received a healthy dose of offensive zone starts (60%), meaning the team is putting him in a position to succeed on the scoresheet.

His play-driving is firmly average on this team, so he is not yet at the level of Calgary's top players in that regard, but he is not getting caved in either. And except for recent addition Jakob Pelletier, Dube is facing the second-highest quality of competition on the team amongst forwards—even slightly higher than noted two-way phenom Mikael Backlund. So he is not being sheltered and still managing to hold his own, a positive sign that he will be able to handle a top-line role moving forward.

Advanced Stats

If you are not familiar with the Buy/Sell Meter on every player's Frozen Tools page, it is a quick, colour-coded way to see if a player is underachieving or overachieving. Dube's profile is coated entirely in dark blue right now, which indicates his stats are normal and sustainable across the board. That means he is neither a buy-low or sell-high candidate but should be able to sustain the extended runs of prolific production we've seen from him at times over the last couple years.

Although we would like his powerplay share (28%) to be higher, and for him to be bumped up to the top unit, the most encouraging stat in Dube's profile is his consistently high Individual Point Percentage, which shows how often he is involved in goals scored while he is on the ice. Keeping in mind that 70% is generally a star-level IPP, Dube has steadily improved from 55.6 as a rookie to 69.8 this year, another positive sign that he will be able to sustain a 65+-point pace moving forward.

Impact

Dube's JFresh player card—which incorporates Patrick Brown's Wins Against Replacement stats and Cory Sznajder's manually tracked microstats—shows that Dube primarily generates offence off the rush. He excels in transition (zone exits and entries), often electing to carry pucks through the neutral zone and launch a quick shot on net.

Digging a bit deeper, Dube enters the offensive zone with a great rate of success (91%) but often loses possession (32%) and fails to generate scoring chances (38%). That speaks to his above-average speed and trigger-happy mentality and suggests that his processing lags behind his other tools.

His Even-Strength Offence WAR is oddly low, so some aspect of Dube's efforts is not yet translating consistently to the scoresheet in terms of his isolated impact on scoring chances by expected goals (xG). His current linemates, Elias Lindholm (31%) and Tyler Toffoli (67%), are producing a much higher EV Offence WAR right now. An optimistic reading would see room for growth here as Dube spends more time alongside these star-level players.

Conclusion

Dube's breakout looks legitimate and sustainable to the point that I am comfortable forecasting him for 60+ points a season moving forward despite the fact that his current total of 37 is already a career high. He is a young forward signed for one more year at a modest cap hit of $2.3 million. Because of Dube's relatively muted career totals, Calgary should be able to re-sign the speedy winger to a decent, longer-term contract after his current deal expires at the end of 2023-24. With his role on the team increasingly secure, there is even more room for him to grow production-wise as Calgary continues to sort itself out in its post-Tkachuk and Gaudreau era.

Dube's main issue is consistency. Fantasy managers will be reluctant to invest too much in a player who vacillates between an 80-point and 20-point pace from month to month. Those swings are just too wild to be able to depend on him yet. Fortunately, that means he will likely still come cheaply via trade. He is currently a 65+-point player disguised as a 50-point player, which is the difference between a fantasy mainstay and a replacement-level producer.

Keeping in mind that Dube is still averaging only 15 minutes per game with fairly limited powerplay exposure, his shot (1.8) and hit (1.7) rates should only increase as his usage expands. Those peripherals, on top of his production, make him a sneaky-good option in multi-cat formats. With all the hype surrounding the 2023 draft, it would probably not be that hard to move a highly valued pick in the 20-30 range for a return involving Dube—especially if you are looking to accelerate a rebuild. Players in that range, even in a draft this deep, likely have a similar ceiling to Dube but have way more uncertainty and a much longer development timeline. If you can, take the sure bet over the question mark.

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