Pierre-Luc Dubois vs Matthew Tkachuk

The 2016 NHL Entry Draft is rapidly approaching, so it’s time things got serious. The Vancouver Canucks currently have in their possession the fifth overall selection and it’s widely believed they will spend it on a forward. If one was arguing from the stance of positional need, the argument could be made for a defenceman. Most scouts and analysts believe two high-end forwards in particular separate themselves from the best defencemen available to the Canucks, though.

Cape Breton Screaming Eagles Pierre-Luc Dubois and London Knights Matthew Tkachuk are both in the conversation to be the 4th overall pick behind the consensus top three – Auston Matthews, Patrik Laine and Jesse Puljujarvi. Both players are worthy of the 4th overall pick. No matter what, one of them will be available at 5th overall.

Given his performance in the OHL Playoffs and Memorial Cup, it’s fair belief that Tkachuk will be the 4th overall selection — maybe even third. There’s no way to know for sure though until it happens, so let’s examine the possibility the Canucks are picking between the two.

Let’s start with the higher ranked player according to NHL Central Scouting, Dubois. Though Dubois was the 7th ranked North American skater by Central Scouting Services in the mid-term rankings, he’s since seen his star rise to 1st. Part of that was the consistently dominant offensive output from late November onward. His points-per-game rate rose ever so slightly and finished at 1.6 for the season.

Dubois’ combination of agility and explosiveness make him an exceptional skater with a higher top gear and consistent ability to create separation. His hockey IQ and patience are high-end too, as Dubois is never one to force plays that aren’t there. Dubois is an opportunistic forward, that will create plays when possible and take advantage of anything the defence affords him. If I were to try and pigeonhole Dubois as any one archetype of forward, I would struggle mightily as he’s equal parts playmaker and shooter. Just an incredibly well-rounded player.

He has a full 200-foot game, where he uses the aforementioned skills in the defensive zone. His goal from the CHL/NHL Top Prospects game is below:

Dubois was forced by necessity to play the majority of the season as the Screaming Eagles first line centre, alongside first round pick Evgeni Svechnikov and free agent Maxim Lazarev. He’s a natural left winger, that played there almost exclusively to that point in his junior career. His combination of speed, hockey sense and active sense made the transition seamless, though. 

As a first-year centre, Dubois won 50.4% of his faceoffs. That’s as average as it gets, really. It’s fair to wonder though if more experience at the position will help Dubois build upon those numbers. He may eventually be a left-winger in the NHL, but I wouldn’t dismiss his ability to play centre either. 

According to www.Prospect-Stats.com, Dubois posted a gaudy 59.74 GF% last season. Meaning the Screaming Eagles controlled roughly 58% of the goals being scored at even strength with Dubois on the ice. That’s a remarkable feat at any level. For the Screaming Eagles, who finished the season with a +49 goal differential and a 7th place showing in the QMJHL, Dubois was pivotal to their success. Dubois’ 14.54% GF%Rel indicates the Screaming Eagles did a much better job of controlling the goal differential with him on the ice, than without.

Dubois finished the season +40, which was 5th in the QMJHL and 122 PIM, which was 12th in the QMJHL. He also was the recipient of the CHL 2016 Top NHL Draft Prospect.

That brings us to Matthew Tkachuk, who might have a bone to pick with Dubois. It was Tkachuk, after all, who was supplanted as the #1 ranked North American skater from mid-term rankings by Dubois — dropping just the one spot, to second. It was less an indictment of Tkachuk than it was a reflection of Dubois’ excellent second half.

It’s not like Tkachuk didn’t have his own second half accolades, though. He was a key member of the American team that won Bronze at the World Junior Hockey Championships and enjoyed an exceptionally good OHL Playoffs and Memorial Cup.

One key to remember is that the NHL CSS rankings are released in early April, and since then Tkachuk has been making hay in the OHL playoffs and Memorial Cup.

One important note is that Matthew Tkachuk was at the US World Juniors camp and tournament in December. That means he didn’t play an OHL game from December 11 to January 8th. Tkachuk posted 11 points in 7 games, playing mostly alongside consensus first overall pick Auston Matthews. 

Curtis Joe at Elite Prospects summarizes Tkachuks game very well:

Tkachuk was downright dominant in the OHL playoffs and Memorial Cup. He ended up with 48 points (25-23-48) in 22 games. 38 of those 48 points, or 79.2%, were primary points including 7 of the 8 points he posted in the Memorial Cup tournament. Tkachuk played through the OHL Finals and Memorial Cup finals with a sprained ankle – he had 15 points in those 8 games.

His first goal from the Memorial Cup final, where shows some fantastic hand-eye coordination, is below:

There is ample concern about Tkachuk’s production and how much of it is accounted for with secondary points — often considered more noise than signal. Those concerns hold weight but are likely overstated.

Unfortunately, the OHL just updated their site, so we do not have the same information that is available in the QMJHL thus we are not sure of his advanced stats and have to rely more on old school stats and eye tests. 

Tkachuk was a part of 33.5% of London Knights goals this past season – a team that led all of the CHL in goals for with 319. There is a reason why the Knights will likely have three first round picks in the Entry Draft and a few other players taken in the first couple rounds of the draft — they boasted silly amounts of depth.

The Scottsdale native finished the season +45, which was 5th in the OHL and 80 PIM, which was tied for 30th in the OHL.

Both are naturally left wingers, but the wild card is if Dubois will be able to translate his game at centre at the next level. I feel he can — just like quite a few scouts — and on the flip side there are quite a few people who think he will be a left winger in the NHL. If Dubois can make it as a centre in the NHL, that could make him more attractive as 6’3″, 200 lbs centres are hard to come by. As they say, “they don’t grow on trees”. 

So if a team feels Dubois is a centre, then the slight edge has to go to Dubois in that aspect.

Tkachuk is regarded as a physical and hard-nosed power forward, but Dubois actually finished the season with 42 more PIM. Dubois isn’t afraid to take the body and be physical when it makes sense. He also doesn’t back down when engaged by his opponents. There are actually some concerns that Dubois needs to play more disciplined.

We can see around game 18 of his season, Pierre-Luc Dubois starts his climb from 1.0 PPG to the 1.6 PPG which coincides with his rise up the draft rankings. It’s funny that a similar uptick is seen by Tkachuk a few games earlier in his season, he then hovers around the 1.8 PPG for the remainder of the OHL season.

The early season fluctuation is common as players have their offensives outburst, and alternatively their slow streaks, affect their PPG rate more drastically than later in the year – so the difference between the two to start the season is not unexpected.

Here is the major point of discussion when discussing the two players – as we can see Tkachuk’s secondary points during the regular season make up a much larger percent of his offensive output. There is some concern that Tkachuk has been riding the coat-tails of two of the best players in the CHL. Asking if he is riding those coattails is an important question. When you are selecting a player with such a high pick, you need to minimize the risk and that risk is big. With that being said, I think the concern is overstated. Tkachuk brought the percentage of secondary assists down considerably during the OHL playoffs and Memorial Cup.

Brian Fogarty at Hockey Prophets did a fantastic job of breaking down all of Tkachuk’s secondary throughout the regular season, and it does re-affirm the thought that the concern about them are likely misguided. Quite a few of the plays were created or aided by Tkachuk. Looking at all the factors, including linemates, team offensive production and PPG – it’s fair to believe that both Dubois and Tkachuk have a similar offensive ceiling. If they reach that is a whole other debate that we won’t know the answer to for 5-7 years.

When we look at comparable players and using the pGPS rating (you can read more in-depth about pGPS here) for both of them, they  have a 100% success rate of going onto becoming NHL regulars:

Given their offensive production, that isn’t surprising. Tkachuk’s matches went onto being slightly more productive NHL players, but not a drastic difference.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first – both of these players look like great prospects that will help whoever selects them for years to come. Both will likely need to return to their respective CHL teams next year and both will likely make a big impact for their country at the World Juniors. (USA for Tkachuk, Canada for Dubois). The questions are merely who will go fourth and who will go fifth (or later, if that somehow happens). There have been suggestions that one is much better than the other, or that one or the other is overrated – that’s wrong. They are both fantastic prospects.

Some prefer Tkachuk and some prefer Dubois — there is nothing wrong with that.

First thing to wonder is what the Oilers will do. Do they trade down or take one of these forwards?

As we’ve seen, Tkachuk is extremely effective playing with high-end players, whether that was Mitch Marner and Christian Dvorak in London or Auston Matthews at the World Juniors. There is some concern about his secondary assists, but there is no denying that he helps aid those players in creating time, space and opportunities. Given that, it’s fair to think that he would be a perfect compliment to Connor McDavid. There is  thought that the Oilers (or any team trading up) will take Tkachuk with the 4th overall pick, for all the reasons I have suggested above.

If that is the case, that would leave Pierre-Luc Dubois there for the Canucks at 5th overall. The decision for management is do you take Dubois, do you take a defenceman like Olli Juolevi or do you trade down?

Taking a defenceman, who most likely would be Olli Juolevi, is a possibility but with the acquisition of Erik Gudbranson in late May, Ben Hutton, Luca Sbisa, Nikita Tryamkin and the prospects expected to be in Utica, the Canucks have actually assembled a reasonably decent group of young defenceman. Also, it’s best to take the best player available, rather than drafting for need. Juolevi would likely be 2-3 years away from making the Canucks on a full-time basis. 

Trading down is an option, but it requires a dance partner. We aren’t privy to the conversations had between general managers, so given that, it isn’t fair to speculate. I do always like the idea of getting more picks, and the drop in talent between Dubois and someone like Tyson Jost or Clayton Keller isn’t huge, so getting more picks and taking a forward isn’t a crazy idea. But that isn’t the point here.

If Tkachuk is taken 4th, then the Canucks would be wise to take Dubois. With the trades of Hunter Shinkaruk and Jared McCann over the last couple of months, the argument can be made that aside from Brock Boeser, they lack a high-end offensively skilled prospect. Dubois would go a long way towards fixing that problem. If Dubois is selected 4th overall, the same justification can be applied to Tkachuk.

Either player will help the Canucks in the long run, it’s just that they aren’t in control of who will be there when they make their trek up to the podium. It’s unfortunate, and given the landscape of the top 4 picks and teams located there, this isn’t likely going to change. The Canucks are best suited to remain at 5th overall, take whichever forward is ‘left’ and be on their way. 

Either way, it’s clear that the Canucks will be getting a high-end prospect.