Jeff Carter - Today's Rod Brind'Amour

If the Flyers traded Jeff Carter at the Trade deadline it would have been a monumental mistake. I work in the art of fudging numbers, and I am now going to fudge them just enough to show you why Carter is a great long term investment.

In 81 games during his rookie season Jeff Carter scored a very decent 42 points. Rod Brind'Amour scored 61 in his rookie campaign with the Blues. Brind'Amour would put up a slightly disappointing 49 points the following season before being sent to the Flyers - where he would find himself and score 77 points in his third season. So over 237 games in his first three seasons Brindy scored 187 points.

During 206 games (so far) in his first three seasons Jeff Carter has scored 117 points. If you take into account his scoring rate, with a little bonus twist of the increasing need for him to step it up down the stretch, it's a safe guess to say he'll score 12 more points this season in the 19 remaining games. If you also go back and factor his production into the games he missed last year he gets about 8 more points in the games needed to get to Brind'Amour's 237 games. In case you fell asleep, this is where we end up:

Brind'Amour - 237 games and 187 points.
Carter - 237 games and 137 points.

Now this is considerably lower total, but consider this: In Brind'Amour's rookie season Wayne Gretzky was the NHL's leading scorer with 163 points. In Jeff Carter's rookie season Joe Thornton lead the NHL with 125 points - which gives us a 0.77 to 1 point ratio. Now apply this to Brind'Amour:

187 x 0.77 = 144 points.

A seven point difference.

Jeff Carter is going to be a great asset. The fact that he's not achieving expectations does not mean that he's under producing. Brind'Amour went on to have nine great seasons with the Flyers as a great 2nd line center, coming 3 points shy of a 100 point season once. This "under-achieving" Jeff Carter might turn out to be a very reasonable, long term contract- something around 3 million a year for a long time - and he's only going to get better. He'll turn out to be a steal.

There is more in common between these two players than the # 17.