Is Dobbers' upside for Krug correct?

[Rob_Canadian]

I'm thinking that the upside for a rookie should be something he will never reach and should for that reason should be really high.

I disagree, upside should be on a players upper limits of potential. That means the upside has to be obtainable, but in the balance of probabilities is unlikely.

This does not mean you put an unobtainable number as your upside. There is no value in that.

To flip this around...if Dobber set an upside and a player breaks it, the upside was clearly not correct.

You are right, it means his estimation of this players potential is incorrect. With that said if Dobber puts and upside of 53 and the player hits 55 I would say Dobber nailed it considering these are merely estimations. If the players hits 60+ then he definitely under shot.


As for Krug's potential to hit higher than 53?

Krug has a non NHL average points of .74 per game played. If he were to have an 82 game season and managed to hold his pre NHL average you are looking at 61 points.

From here you apply a whole bunch of assumptions not exclusive to: ice time, pp, injury risk, team performance and general point decay that usually occurs when a player moves up to the NHL. Most of the time these factors reduce the point potential of a player.

So after that I would say 53 is probably quite optimistic.

[ynotzz]

Thanks. Very good answer. Some well deserved rep heading your way.

[Mr. Guru]

I tend to agree with Fungchen in that the word 'upside' is tossed around too casually and carries different meanings to different people. I don't care about some silly number based on a fantasy situation? Nobody can base strategy around that. I prefer to deal in facts and probabilities.

When I use the term 'upside' it's in reference to what I believe the player might eventually be capable of given his skill set and ignoring all other factors. Linemates change, teams change, coaches change, none of these things are predictable and therefore become 'noise' when setting upside projections.

Based on my definition Krugg's upside is nowhere near 70+ points.

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