First a caveat: I don’t believe a player’s value has everything to do with his ability to hit a certain arbitrary benchmark, like 30 goals in a season.



But asking a question like “Can Player X score 30 or more goals in his prime?” does lead us to (a) examine some compelling statistics, (b) watch game tape and (c) ask an accomplished NHLer how exactly he does what he does.



So with full acknowledgement of its limitations, we’ll tackle that question, as it pertains to Mitch Marner, today.



Finding Comparables



As a rule of thumb, very few major junior players break into the NHL at age 19 and make an immediate impact. As of the Christmas break, Marner has done that: He is tied with teammate Auston Matthews with 0.79 points per game in 33 games played. Only seven other teenage rookies have had a better start than Marner in the salary cap era.



The rest of the short list includes two generational players (Sidney...