Columbus Blue Jackets prospect William Whitelaw finds himself in an entirely new environment and situation this season. But, for those of us who have followed prospects - especially prospects for the Blue Jackets - it's a very familiar scenario. Familiar from two standpoints.
First, Whitelaw is playing for the University of Michigan Wolverines this season. The Jackets have four former Wolverines on the NHL roster - and another (Gavin Brindley) playing for their AHL team in Cleveland. The second reason this may be familiar to us: Whitelaw finds himself buried on the depth chart behind more experienced NCAA players. We've seen our young players buried in the lineup in recent years, only to have them break out once given the opportunity.
An impressive freshman season with the Wisconsin Badgers put Whitelaw high enough on our radar to land just outside of the top-10 in our summer prospects ranking. Last year, he scored 10 goals and 17 points in 37 games, finishing 10th on the team in scoring (t-6th in goals).
Still, even after a solid rookie season at the NCAA level, William chose to enter the transfer portal. Naturally, heading to the Wolverines makes perfect sense from both a success and development perspective. They're frequently one of the power-house teams at the collegiate level; and certainly, they have their share of alumni spread around the NHL.
Unfortunately, the move has landed Whitelaw further down the roster depth chart. Most recently, he was playing on the team's third line, which is often the case when you're the new guy joining a stacked team. In 17 games with the Wolverines, he has just 4 goals and 8 points (6th in both categories). This puts him, roughly, about on pace to produce the same numbers as last year. There's still plenty of time left for him to produce more this year, but we hope to at least see some improvement year over year.
It's a marathon, not a sprint...
The good news here is, Whitelaw is just 19 years old. With two more years of NCAA eligibility after this one, the Jackets can allow him to stay at that level and develop at his own pace. I'm sure he'll be featured in a prominent role for the Wolverines in the very near future. A natural goal scorer with speed and all-around skill, he's an underrated prospect in this system.
As time goes on and the team graduates other prospects from within the system, this is the kind of guy you want to have around in order to replace depth scoring from within. I think he has NHL potential, likely as a middle-six scoring winger - not unlike Cam Atkinson. They'll play the long game with William Whitelaw, and that's just fine. We can wait.