It seems that on Winnipeg Jets Twitter the scene can never go along smoothly without coming back to an Adam Lowry discussion if not full on debate. The reason? Losing him in the expansion draft or some one else because of protecting Lowry.
There seems to be no consensus on his value, at least as it's perceived from the other side. One camp either over-values him, his production and his role or the other camp undervalues him.
Here is a link from the great site
Hockey Reference.com that lists all the players who scored at least 15 goals and had more than 29 points as a 23 year old player as Lowry just did. Those total are his career highest.
This list goes from the 2000-2001 season, Lowry is way down on the list at 73 out of 75 players.
What does this present? That's tough to answer because it depends on what you look at as being a future predictor of what a player will become. First look at Lowry's comparable players on the list.
Gerbe in 2010-11
Bjugstad in 15-16
Janmark 15-16
Rask in 16-17
Anisimov in 11-12
Fata in 03-04
It will be hard to predict what Rask will be but he's an interesting comparison because he has had this total in the same year as Lowry.
First here is how Lowry presents with being a 4th line centre:
Now this is him compared with Rask:
Now let's use this great tool to compare to the other players most of whom may appear a bit ahead of Lowry on the development curve. What is cool here is that we can compare Lowry's season to the ones that the Hockey Reference link shows.
Lowry 16-17 vs Anisimov 11-2
Lowry vs Bjugstad
Lowry vs Gerbe
Lowry vs Fata is not available due to data not going back past 2007.
So, is Lowry the kind of player that warrants this level of scrutiny in terms of his value? Furthermore is he worth managing the expansion list so that the Jets risk no losing him?
Perhaps comparing him with fellow forwards who could be taken as well is worth doing?
Lowry vs Dano
Lowry vs Copp
And for giggles, Lowry vs Perreault
The point here is that without diving too deep in to stats there are some obvious questions to ask.
1. Is Lowry so much better than Copp or Dano that he's not expendable if they are?
2. Does Lowry project to be more than what he is this season?
3. Would Lowry develop into anything close to the players above him who have scored 20 goals?
Again the simple thing that comes back is this: what's all the fuss about? With players such as Roslovic, Connor and even further out Spacek is losing Lowry in expansion such a bad thing? GMs and coaches get blinded by size and grit and Lowry is like a bright hot sun on the bench for Paul Maurice. That's the concern, if the Jets value him so much do they risk being blinded to what the roster could really be and how it can be used without him?
Winnipeg Jets Blogger •Winnipeg Jets Writer • 
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