Through his first 32 games of the season, Seth Jarvis was well on his way to a career season. He had 15 goals and 20 assists, just four points shy of his career high. When the calendar turned to 2020, however, Jarvis was one of the few things to not disappoint. In the final 26 games of the season, he had 27 goals and 36 assists for 63 points.
Birthplace: Winnipeg, Manitoba
Date of birth: February 1, 2002
Shoots: Right
Position: Right Wing
Height: 5’10”
Weight: 172 lbs.
Team: Portland Winterhawks (WHL)
His 63 points in the second part of the season would have been enough to place him in the top 32 of WHL scoring. His entire season was good enough to finish second in the league in scoring, raising his draft stock in the process.
Of his 98 points, 27 were scored on the power play and he add three points shorthanded leaving him with 68 even strength points, proving that he could drive offence in his second full WHL season.
Strengths
If it seems like there are a lot of players in the first round of the 2020 NHL Draft that seem to have high levels of hockey sense, it’s because there are. Jarvis is yet another player who not only has the skills to attack a defence, but the ability to know the right way to do it.
Players who have the ability to choose their attack as opposed to just being better than everyone else at a lower level tend to translate their offence to the next level with more success.
Another strength in Jarvis’s game is the ability to skate. He’s not the fastest skater, but he does everything well. He’s able to change direction, and he’s strong on his skates. There is room for improvement, but it’s something that allows him to drive offence.
What separates Jarvis from perhaps some other players in his range is that he has the ability to turn on a switch and take over a game. This is different from someone who turns their switch on and off. This is turning it on and then pressing the turbo button. His compete level is something that is evident and what forecasts him to be a play driver from the wing.
Jarvis is not the biggest player, but he has a unique ability to make plays that you may see a power forward make. His balance is incredible, and can often be seen driving to the net with defenders hanging off of him. He also initiates contact in a way that allows him to play bigger than his frame would suggest.
Weaknesses
Despite his insane run of goal scoring in the second half, he doesn’t project to be an elite finisher. His shot is fine, and it is versatile but most of his goals come from close to the net. Unlike most wingers his size, he’s not going to fire shots from the circle and beat goaltenders with ease, but he has the ability to head to the front of the net.
While he has a high level of skill, he doesn’t have that one ability that you can point to to take him to the next level. That’s not really a weakness, but that’s because there’s not much that Jarvis doesn’t do well. He combines a lot of good to great skills in a package that makes everything better together.
Rankings
Elite Prospects: #12
Future Considerations: #11
Hockey Prospect: #7
McKeen’s Hockey: #12
McKenzie/TSN: #18
NHL Central Scouting: #11 (North American skaters)
Jarvis represents the start of the second tier of the draft. He’s consistently just outside of the top-10 in rankings and is somewhat in a no man’s land when it comes to his position in the draft.
He projects to be a top-six right winger at the next level, and there aren’t any reasons to discount that belief. His skill level with the puck on his stick is just below the top group of forwards who are ahead of him, and the combination of his skills put him at the top of the second tier of the draft among players like Dawson Mercer, Mavrik Bourque, Dylan Holloway, among others.
There isn’t much to pick between that group. If Jarvis’s second half is indicative of the player he can be on a regular basis, he may end up being one of the steals in the draft, but looking at Mitch Brown’s tracking data, he’s not a volume shooter and the fact that he goes to the net and doesn’t have an elite shot means there are questions to how good his goal scoring will be.
The strength of his game is his playmaking more than his shooting despite the fact that he had 42 goals in his draft year.
He also doesn’t carry the puck in as much as top wingers do at the junior level which makes him a little bit different than the rest of his peers. Scouts believe that he absolutely has the ability to be a line driver from the wing. His play in the defensive zone and on the penalty kill shows that his game is not just about offence either.
Jarvis won’t have to wait long to hear his name called in the first round of the draft, which is a far cry from where he was prior to the season starting. The pandemic affected the ability for some players to rise up draft boards late, meaning that Jarvis’s second half will have made a lasting impression on many.
