really really love this approach to prospect analysis. viewing NHL scoring translations as a distribution rather than a single translation factor is very helpful https://twitter.com/CJTDevil/status/1256251247172227072

for example, european junior leagues are thought of as underrated, i think. you can see here, though, that if the CHL is the gold standard as a prospect-scoring barometer, we may only want to consider Finnish and Swedish U20 guys who are in the top 5-10% of league scoring

this is where league adjustments come into play. i think folks essentially adjust everyone's scoring rate to see how they may have scored if they played in the OHL. this isn't ideal - i imagine different ice sizes and style of plays have a big influence on point output

but it can at least serve as a benchmark for examining scoring rates of other junior leagues

based on this research (and I think Manny's research has similar results across the board), leagues like USHL and the Russian MHL might be better places to look for overlooked skaters

we're less sure of how USHL and MHL guys pan out, but the high-end guys should be good!

the other advantage of drafting from those two leagues is that even the second-tier Russian pro league offers mostly better competition than another year of CHL, and even the worst NCAA conference should be comparable to another CHL year but with less pressure to sign a guy

and, for USHL guys, depending on the team they go to, you can argue that playing in college is closer to playing in a European pro league than it is to another year of Juniors.

Yegor Spiridonov scored 0.95 points/game his draft year in the MHL and Timur Ibragimov scored 0.65 points/game.

Of the 1300+ draft-eligible forwards who played at least 15 MHL games since 2009 (per EliteProspects), Spiridonov's PPG is 28th-highest. Timur's is 123rd

Those are both in the top 10% of forwards in their respective leagues! In the 4th and 6th rounds, I think it will be very difficult to find WHL guys who scored in the top 25ish % of historical draft classes.

To that end, here are a few MHL guys who scored well this year and, in the case of overagers, scored well their first draft-eligible year

https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/568059/alexander-pashin

https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/339555/artyom-galimov https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/514678/alexander-gordin

Pashin is a known quantity in that he'll probably be a 2nd-round pick. But the other two are going relatively overlooked because they're overagers despite the fact they've scored well for a while in the Russian system.

Here's Gordin, for example:

Those are great odds, even for a 19YO. He's ranked 35th among European-league skaters, the 7th MHL guy on the list. By comparison, there are 9 WHL skaters alone by 35 on the North American list.

Jake Neighbours, the 7th-highest ranked WHL skater, will probably go in the 2nd round. Gordin isn't listed among the top 125 skaters by any big-name industry folks https://edmontonjournal.com/sports/hockey/nhl/cult-of-hockey/top-nhl-prospects-rankings-2020-draft-consensus-view-of-20-experts-on-top-125/

The Sharks hired a Ukranian and a Finnish scout in 2018-19 and promptly selected two MHL skaters and one Finnish Jr. skater in the 4th-7th rounds of the 2019 draft. The team has 4 picks in each of the 5th and 7th rounds this year, and I hope they pursue a similar strategy.

I know that a couple of scouts who went on record weren't impressed with the Ibragimov pick, but maybe we shouldn't be too surprised a dude who scored among the top 10% of forwards in his league the past decade just signed an ELC.

From http://pick224.com , here are a few forwards whose estimated primary points/60 were about in the top 10% of all 487 first-year draft-eligible guys in CHL, USHL, MHL, SuperElit and Jr. A SM-Liiga:

Nikita Savelyev
Pavel Tyutnev
Maxim Beryozkin
Maxim Nevolin
Sean Farrell

Daniil Gushchin
Alex Laferriere
Brendan Brisson
Sam Colangelo
Marat Khusnutdinov

Some of these guys like Brisson, Colangelo, Khusnutdinov, Gushchin, and Farrell are 2nd-round (maybe even 1st-round) picks, but I still reckon they'll go later than similarly ranked CHL guys.

There's more to scouting/drafting than point totals and point-scoring rates, but I think guys who have scored well in MHL and USHL are good guys to start with, as they should be undervalued due to the leagues they play in.