How Does Chabot and White’s WJC Production Stack Up?
Thomas Chabot and Colin White both had productive World Juniors - What are the comparables?
Unless you happened to take the week off with the Sens, you’ve probably heard a little something about Colin White and Thomas Chabot making themselves noticed at the World Juniors. While having an impressive WJC is hardly a guarantee of success in the NHL, we can take a look at the other players who have had similar levels of WJC success and see how they have turned out. We’ll limit things to the past 20 years, to try to keep era differences to a minimum.
Colin White
White had a great tournament, scoring 7 goals in 7 games. In the past 20 years, there have been 40 other players to set a goal per game (or more) in a single tournament.
10 didn't do much at the NHL level (done, or likely done, with under 200 NHL games played), though Igor Grigorenko had a solid KHL career. Two of those have spent time in Ottawa, Andre Petersson and Nikita Filatov.
3 were never drafted. 8 have been drafted in the past five years, so don't have enough track record to say. Several of those sure look like solid NHL players though, like Johnny Gaudreau, Auston Matthews and Patrik Laine.
Another 6 have managed respectable NHL careers. They've put in a few seasons as NHL regulars, but the point production wasn't really there. This is the likes of Richard Panik, Tomas Tatar or Marek Svatos.
Finally, 14 solid NHLers. Not all of these are likely comparables (hi there Crosby and Ovie), but would you really complain if White had career numbers like Simon Gagne or Mike Cammalleri (or Mark Stone)? I sure wouldn't.
Thomas Chabot
Right off, Chabot is the first D to be named Tournament MVP since they started handing the title out in 2002, so I guess that's pretty good. He also put up 10 points in his 7 games, and I suppose that's pretty good too. That makes him one of only EIGHT D to set that point per game pace for a single tournament in the past 20 years, and the list of the other seven names is absurd - Erik Karlsson, P.K. Subban, Alex Pietrangelo, Kevin Shattenkirk, Ryan Ellis, Erik Johnson and Carlo Colaiacovo. If Chabot has a career like the worst one on that list, that's pretty damned good.
Even the list of D who fell a point short of meeting or beating that pace is pretty good. Jacob Trouba and Dmitry Orlov are both doing pretty well for themselves, and Zach Werenski is having a great rookie year. That just leaves Olli Juolevi, who went 5th last year and is still in the OHL, and Jakub Jerabek who was never drafted.
It's still no guarantee, but if he does turn out to be a bust he'd definitely be the exception.