2020 NHL Draft Prospect Profile: Seth Jarvis cannot stop scoring

The 2020 NHL Entry Draft is coming up, and this year’s draft class has the potential to be one of the best in recent memory. For the entire month of May, we will be profiling each of the top prospects available in the draft — many of whom could be candidates to be selected by the Minnesota Wild. Follow along as we dive deep into the strengths and weaknesses of each notable player eligible to be drafted.

Stats alone are not enough to evaluate a player when reviewing him as an NHL draft prospect. As most fans will understand, it is very easy for stats to be inflated because of relatively easy competition or to be suppressed because of relatively difficult competition. That being said, it is hard to ignore when a player puts up nearly 100 points playing junior hockey.

Seth Jarvis is an 18-year-old winger out of Winnipeg, Canada who has been rising up draft boards recently. A dominant season in the WHL has turned him from a late second-round prospect to one with a legitimate chance to go early in the first round.

2019-20 season review

Jarvis has spent parts of the past three seasons playing for the Portland Winterhawks of the Western Hockey League. The 2019-20 season was a tale of two seasons for Jarvis. In his first 32 games, he recorded 35 points, but he increased his production significantly across the last 26 games, recording a ridiculous 63 points. Overall, this gave him 98 points (42 goals and 56 assists) over 58 games. That total was good for second in the entire WHL, behind only Minnesota Wild prospect Adam Beckman, who paced the entire league with 107. This was a far step ahead of the 39 points he recorded in 61 games during the 2018-19 season.

Skill set

Almost every observer raves about Jarvis’s excellent hands. His passing ability and shooting ability are both phenomenal. Passing wise, he consistently delivers clean feeds, and he uses this ability often to help produce offense. As a shooter, Jarvis has a very accurate shot. This accuracy, combined with his quick release, makes him a real goal scoring threat offensively.

As a skater, Jarvis is very fast and he is also very agile. He moves side to side well, which helps him create space for himself. Jarvis is also an intelligent player, and he is able to use that intelligence and good vision to help open up the ice as well. He had no trouble going right through a defender en route to scoring a goal in the clip below:

At 5’10, Jarvis is not the biggest player, but that has not held him back so far. He is a hard-working player who is willing to get physical and does not shy away from that part of the game. There has been some concern among scouts, though, that his size could be more of a disadvantage at the NHL level.

Bottom line

Corey Pronman of The Athletic summed up his review of Jarvis by saying, “There’s nothing about his game that’s truly special and distinguishes him from other players, but he does a lot very well and his production is hard to ignore.” Looking at the first part of that statement, it might be hard for a team to justify using a pick early in the first round on Jarvis. While he is a fine player, Pronman’s assessment is not the type associated with a traditional pick. But still, Jarvis does do a lot very well. It is hard to find too many faults with his game. And his production is certainly hard to ignore. He was clearly a focal point offensively for his team, and he was doing so last season at a level nearly unmatched in the WHL.

Some observers have legitimate concerns over how well Jarvis’s skills will translate into the NHL. If he can adapt well to playing at the NHL level, he has the potential to become a consistent offensive producer — the type that any team would be happy to have.

Multiple ranking sources have Jarvis being selected anywhere from No. 11 to No. 16, which means there is a strong possibility that he will be available when the Wild are on the clock for the first time.