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Breaking Down the Draft Picks: Andrew Peeke

August 4, 2016, 12:14 PM ET [1 Comments]
Paul Berthelot
Columbus Blue Jackets Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
This part four of five breaking down the prospects the Blue Jackets selected at the 2016 NHL draft. You can view the previous profiles here:

Calvin Thurkauf
Peter Thome
Vitali Abramov

Andrew Peeke is a defencemen from Florida. He spent this past season playing for the Green Bay Gamblers in the USHL. He's big at 6'3 and is a smooth skater. He is everything the Blue Jackets want in a defencemen.

Looking at the defencemen currently slated to start the season with the Jackets, everyone is at least 6’1. This trend continues in the AHL where again all defencemen outside of Jamie Sifers are over 6'0. This trend starts at the draft where the Blue Jackets under Jarmo Kekealinen have targeted big defencemen. Of the 11 defencemen the Blue Jackets have taken since Jarmo took over in 2013, nine have been over 6’0 tall. Even looking at defencemen the Blue Jackets have brought in outside of the draft, whether it be undrafted free agents in Oleg Yevenko, or Jacob Graves or a trade in Scott Harrington, the trend of big strong defencemen continues.

Peeke fits the same mold as all of these defencemen and compares very well to recent second round picks, Dillon Heatherington and Ryan Collins. All three are big and all three can skate. What separates Peeke from the other two is he has shown at least a moderate ability to move the puck and put up points.

This is a crucial point when evaluating defencemen. Rhys Jessop was one of the first people to really get into this idea that successful defencemen tend to score in junior. His post Defense, Defensemen, and the Draft is still one of the best pieces of draft research I have seen. Garret Hohl has also done a lot of work on the draft and wrote two great posts prior to the draft this year about Logan Stanley, which you can read here and here. Garret discusses that while Stanley is a good prospect; his low scoring put him as a long shot to be an NHL player. Peeke falls into that same category, he's a fine prospect, but there were better players available at 34. Rhys and Garret focused on the CHL, so their posts don’t directly correlate to Peeke. There is however some data on the USHL.

Back when I was first starting to get into hockey writing I did some research into USHL defencemen which you can read here. It isn't the most in-depth piece but I did find that USHL defencemen who scored below a 0.7 point per game rate were in tough to make the NHL. From 1999-2009 there were 59 defencemen selected out of the USHL. 51 of the players scored below 0.7 ppg and 46 failed to make the NHL. This isn't perfect, there were exceptions, but most exceptions where either high scoring players who failed to adjust to the NCAA game or those who made improvements and saw their offense increase in college. Peeke falls into that latter part, he scored 30 points in 56 games, a 0.54 ppg rate, he needs to improve his offensive game as he heads off to the NCAA.

Despite Peeke falling below that 0.7 threshold there are some signs that his offensive game might pick up as he moves to the NCAA. For starters he has that smooth skating which is a must have in today’s NHL. Eliteprospects Elite Prospects described him as having “a hard accurate shot, but needs to use it more.” Per Prospect Stats.com Peeke average 1.5 shots per game, which ranked 21st among all USHL defencemen, who played at least 20 games. The HockeyProspect.com Black Book noted that Peeke has good hockey instincts and great vision of the ice. He has shown those skills predominately in the defensive zone though he “certainly has the tools to be more effective in the offensive zone.” HP also notes Peeke’s strong shot and encourages him to use it more. As he progresses into the NCAA, if he plays in a system where he is utilized to shoot more, he could see his offensive totals rise. He’s a good passer and adding the threat of a shot to his repertoire would make him all the more dangerous.

With that being said Peeke still has a long way to go. The majority of his production this season came on the power play. Only 17 of his points came at even strength and only eight of those points were primary. His offensive production stemmed from secondary assists. His 17 secondary assists finished third in the USHL among defencemen. Defencemen by virtue of their position are going to have more secondary assists than forwards. So this isn’t detrimental to him, however it’s not a great sign that he didn’t pick up more primary assists or goals.

If Peeke is unable to improve his offensive game, he may end up in a similar situation to that of Ryan Collins. Collins was drafted out of the US National Team Development Program, where he had just seven points in 59 games. His first season in college, he scored nine points, and made the American World Junior team. This past season he only had four points, was cut from Team USA, and found himself in the press box as a healthy scratch down the stretch for the University of Minnesota. Collins is the worst case scenario and a reminder of what can happen if you don’t produce offense.

Peeke will be off to college this fall where he will suit up for the University of Notre Dame. He will be joining a young d-core that had just a single junior and senior player last season. Peeke has the draft pedigree and should play a big role on the squad, and hopefully that helps improve his offensive game.

You can follow me on Twitter @PaulBerthelot
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