Owen Pickering

Scouting report

Owen Pickering is a 22-year-old defenceman with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins in the AHL, a Pittsburgh Penguins first-round pick, 21 overall in 2022. He has 1 goal and 0 assists in 6 games, 0.17 a game, which works out to about 5 NHL points over 82 at his league's exchange rate. His team scores 4.2 a game, one of the better offences around. And the five best scorers around him average 1.30 points a game, well above the norm. Linemates like that pad a stat line, so the model takes some of his points back. Listed at 6-foot-5 and 213 pounds.

His most likely outcome is a third-pair defenceman, with a fair sample behind it. Players drafted from 2010 to 2017 with numbers like his give him a 68% chance of becoming an NHL regular and 5% of a top-pair career. If he makes it, figure about 24 points a season at his best. This is a points model, so it can't see what he does without the puck. A third-pair job tends to come down to defending more than points.

Written by the model from his numbers, on a fair sample. prospects-0.3.