Merrimack’s Stephane Da Costa

13 years ago

Merrimack’s season ended last night the same way Ottawa’s Cup Finals appearance ended: with a boneheaded defensive play putting the puck in the back of their own net. That means it’s open season on Merrimack’s players. It’s likely that forward Stephane Da Costa will sign with an NHL squad and leave Hockey East behind.

Da Costa is a late 1989 birthday from Paris, France and attracted a lot of attention last summer but ultimately returned to school to continue working on his game.

Year	Age	Team	GP	G	A	Pts	NHLe G	NHLe A	NHLe Pts
09-10	20	Merrimack	34	16	29	46	23	42	65
10-11	21	Merrimack	33	14	31	45	16	36	52

Pretty impressive numbers. Suggesting that an NCAA free agent could jump into a lineup next year and clear 50 points would likely put that player in the Calder race.

As a quick comparison here’s a table of some notable NCAA free agents and some high draft picks from the NCAA in their age 21 seasons:

Player	Year	Age	Team	GP	G	A	Pts
Tyler Bozak	08-09	21	Denver	41	18	16	34
Bobby Butler	08-09	21	UNH	38	9	21	30
Christian Hanson	07-08	21	Notre Dame	47	13	9	22
Tyler Brenner	09-10	21	RIT	33	15	11	26

Most of these players returned to college for their age 22 seasons before making the jump. Stephane Da Costa is pretty clearly a cut above most of the NCAA free agents we’ve seen recently.

I wanted to see how Da Costa stacks up to some recent first rounders and found two players who I think are much better than Da Costa and two that might be decent comparables:

Player	Year	Age	Team	GP	G	A	Pts
Zach Parise	03-04	19	UND	37	23	32	55
Colin Wilson	08-09	19	BU	43	17	38	55
Drew Stafford	05-06	20	UND	42	24	24	48
Nate Gerbe	07-08	20	SUX	43	35	33	68

Colin Wilson and Zach Parise have remarkably similar age 19 seasons to each other and Colin Wilson actually has higher PPG than Parise’s rookie NHL season. Ultimately they both look better than Da Costa and that should make sense to us. They were drafted in the first round for a reason. Drew Stafford and Nate Gerbe’s numbers look very similar to Da Costa’s and I think that’s a decent target. Gerbe’s 23 and has 15 goals this season in the NHL and Stafford is 25 and is sitting at 28.

The Leafs can make another nice addition to their NCAA free agent prospect pool by signing Stephane Da Costa. Let’s hope they do.

Merrimack’s Stephane Da Costa

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