NCAA Hockey 101: Michigan freshman Kyle Connor’s case for Hobey Baker

At the end of the first half, I looked at a number of potential Hobey Baker candidates, and in that group I included five forwards to go along with four goalies and two defensemen.

Almost across the board, their cases have weakened. Those goalies have come back toward the pack to a considerable extent, the defensemen have slowed down their insane scoring paces, and most of the forwards have seen their production tail off

That’s not to say they aren’t playing well to this point, but they’re just not ripping their competition to quite the same extent as they did in the season’s early goings. The only guy from that group who I would still say is in the conversation is UNH forward Andrew Poturalski, who had 16-16-32 to lead the nation in scoring through 16 games. Obviously he hasn’t kept up the two-points-a-game pace he carried through the end of December, but his 6-10-16 in 16 games since is still nothing to sneeze at. He’s consequently still second in the country in scoring.

Likewise, the only other reasonable candidate from this list, Harvard senior Jimmy Vesey, has cooled a bit as well. He went from 8-8-16 in 10 games to 12-10-22 in the 17 the followed. Better than Poturalski in the second half but not on the balance.

However, one name that was on the bubble and didn’t end up getting mentioned in the first-half assessment was Michigan freshman Kyle Connor, a Winnipeg Jets draft pick whose first-half numbers — 11-11-22 in 15 games, about 1.47 a game — were pretty good for anyone, and flat-out great for a freshman, but whose second half has been out of control. In his last 13 games, he has 13 goals and 16 assists, a run of 2.23 points per game.

And as a result, he’s starting to look like the only reasonable Hobey candidate in the country.

Not surprisingly, he and his linemates run Nos. 1, 2, and 3 in the nation in points per game, and it would very much appear as though Connor is driving the bus in that regard. His shots on goal per game — a better indicator of potential future production than merely looking at past points — is a ninth-in-the-country 4.29, and he’s the only freshman in a seas of juniors and seniors in this regard. You have to drop all the way down to Luke Kunin of Wisconsin at No. 22 (3.78 per game) to see another rookie on the list.

Now, you can reasonably argue that scoring more than 1.8 points per game is not in any way sustainable, and that is the correct read on the situation. But Michigan probably has about eight or nine games left before the regular season ends, and as a result even if he drops off appreciably — which doesn’t seem all that likely — he’s still probably going to lead the nation in points at the end of the year.

His competition probably just can’t match him. Poturalski has two more regular-season games and probably two or three more postseason games at most, and he’s found it difficult to score against the five actual good teams in Hockey East this year (2-8-10 in 10 games versus 20-18-38 in 22 against everyone else). So unless he absolutely crumples UConn this weekend (very possible!) and whomever UNH draws in the first round of the playoffs, he’s just running out of runway to close the gap on Connor.

Likewise, Vesey possesses the power to score more or less at will, but he and just about every other forward worth considering (Quinnipiac’s Sam Anas, Omaha’s Jake Guentzel, etc.) are a mile back. Anas is nine points behind Connor with two additional games played, and he’s actually the closest non-Connor-or-Poturalski-linemate forward to the group.

(I’ll mention here that there are goalies worth considering, as both Cam Johnson at North Dakota and Alex Lyon at Yale are north of .940 for the year. But if Connor Hellebuyck couldn’t get consideration when he cleared .950 a few years ago, being .003 ahead of the third-place guy isn’t going to get you very far.)

So if it’s down to Connor vs. Poturalski, which I think is a fair view, we have to keep several things in mind. First, the voters hate giving the Hobey to a freshman unless he blows away the field. Jack Eichel forced their hand last year, of course, netting 66 points in 36 games before the NCAA tournament began

I mean, that’s 1.83 a night and… wait a minute.

Connor is sitting on 1.82 points per game. And he’s scoring more goals on a nightly basis (0.86 to Eichel’s 0.65). Granted, Eichel was a draft-eligible player at that time, and Connor has already been selected by the Jets. But Connor is only two months younger than Eichel, who’s now a near-dominant player in the NHL on a nightly basis. It makes sense, then, that he’s producing one-hundredth of a point fewer. At least, to some extent. Not to start dissecting how much better Hockey East in 2014-15 was than the Big Ten is now, but the point here is that you can’t knock the hustle.

A freshman to some extent is a freshman, because it’s not like Connor is one of these 22-year-old rookies his conference is trying (probably with success) to get bounced out of the college game. And if you gave freshman Jack Eichel the Hobey for scoring 1.83 points per game, which was the only reasonable thing to do, then so too must you necessarily give it to Connor.

So let’s say Connor wins it, which isn’t a guarantee but I think it should happen. How does he compare with Eichel and the only other freshman to win the award, Paul Kariya?

Now, you can see that Connor started slow — where “slow” means “slightly more than a point a game” — and his recent scoring surge isn’t sustainable, but he’s quickly running out of runway to slow down if regression is indeed coming.

And two things to note on the Kariya numbers: I removed the scoring in exhibition games which are always included in his famous 25-75-100 number (they used to include scoring in exhibitions for everyone back then) and only counted games up to the start of the NCAA tournament. I did the latter for Eichel as well. And obviously Kariya is a mile ahead of the pack there, but with an era-adjustment Eichel and (presumably) Connor would both end up slightly ahead of him, given that they get a big bonus for playing in an era when goaltending is arguably over-competent.

The fact that anyone at all is keeping up with Eichel and Kariya is a little surprising, but for it to be another freshman, regardless of age, is bonkers.

You’d really have to mount an incredible argument to contend that anyone is even close to Connor’s level of electability here.

A somewhat arbitrary ranking of teams which are pretty good in my opinion only (and just for right now but maybe for a little longer too?)

1. Quinnipiac (won at RPI, tied at Union)

2. Boston College (swept at Vermont)

3. St. Cloud (swept at Omaha)

4. North Dakota (swept Minnesota-Duluth)

5. Providence (swept Notre Dame)

6. Michigan (beat Ferris State)

7. BU (took three points from UNH)

8. Yale (beat St. Lawrence and Clarkson)

9. Notre Dame (got swept at Providence)

10. UMass Lowell (won at AIC, beat UMass)