AHL Production vs. NHL Odds: How Do They Correlate?
Comparing AHL point-scoring by age to the chance of establishing an NHL career beyond an occasional call-up.
Have you ever been looking at the stats of your favorite team’s prospects, but not known what to think? Today, you’ll get a guide for that.
I looked at over 2,000 player entries of data at the American Hockey League (AHL) level to answer the following question: What point-per-game rates translate to NHL careers?
Over different 10-season samples, I found the point-per-game rates of AHL forwards between the ages of 20 and 25 with at least 20 games played in that season. Then, I calculated how many of those forwards within a specific point-per-game range played 150 or more games in the NHL.
For example, between 2010–11 and 2019–20, there were 94 AHL forwards aged 21 who played 20 or more games and scored 0.400–0.499 points per game. Nineteen of them played at least 150 games in the NHL, good for 20.21%.
I repeated this process 45 times, just with different ages and point ranges. So, let’s get into the numbers, with graphics to help.
Stats courtesy of QuantHockey, graphs courtesy of Line Graph Maker
20-Year-Olds (Sample: 2009–10 to 2018–19, 443 Players)
The data, visualized:
While European players can enter the AHL immediately after being drafted, the sample size of age-18 players is scarce, even in a 10-season sample. The same is true for 19-year-olds.
Under the current rules (which are set to change), Canadian Hockey League (CHL) players can graduate before their age-20 season. So, it’s a much better place to start.
Getting into the data, NHL probabilities are split into four different groups, from the looks of it. When forwards score below 0.200 points per game, their chances are minimal—only six of 66 met the games-played requirement to qualify as an “NHLer.”
For offensively-minded players, producing at such a rate is more or less a death sentence. But there are a few enforcers who crafted out NHL careers in that list: Liam O’Brien, Michael Pezzetta, and Zac Rinaldo.
The second grouping is from 0.200–0.499 points per game. Cumulatively, they play at least 150 NHL games 27.75% of the time—not great odds, but solid careers are still formed. Arguably, the best of the bunch is Los Angeles Kings star Adrian Kempe.
NHL odds become much more promising from 0.500–0.799 points per game, which is the next group. While the difference between 0.500 and 0.799 points per game seems like a lot, the numbers don’t heavily favor one over the other.
Quite a few current top-six players are here: Anthony Cirelli, Mark Stone, and Tage Thompson are just some. While it’s more likely that the higher end of the point-per-game range produces stars, NHL talent still comes out of the lower end.
Then, we have those who scored above 0.799 points per game. Making the NHL at a 90.24% clip, that’s obviously very good, but what’s more intriguing is what comes out of those careers.
By my count, just under half of those players became legitimate top-six forwards, and many still are today: Dylan Strome, Jordan Kyrou, J.T. Miller, Kevin Fiala, Kyle Connor, and others. Unlike the prior groups, this one produces stars.
Here are the players during 2024–25 who scored in that range, ranked from best to worst production-wise: Frank Nazar (Chicago Blackhawks), Matthew Poitras (Boston Bruins), Liam Öhgren (Minnesota Wild), Conor Geekie (Tampa Bay Lightning), Matthew Savoie (Edmonton Oilers), Noah Östlund (Buffalo Sabres).
21-Year-Olds (Sample: 2010–11 to 2019–20, 529 Players)
