How can a player that looks this good when you watch him, a player that scouts rave about, and was good enough to earn an invite to Team Canada's World Junior Team at 17 not manage to fill the net at a more frequent pace in the OHL? As usual, the answer can be found at CHLstats.com. We can see that the Kingston Frontenacs had the second lowest shooting percentage in the OHL (8.2% vs league average of 10.5%) and fourth lowest goals per game in the OHL (2.9 goals/game vs league average 3.5 goals/game). Without their top player, Sam Bennett, for much of the season, the Frontenac's offense was completely anemic, although Crouse produced a very high percentage of his teams total point, 29.8%, which is 6th highest among 17 year-old OHLers.
Clearly, Crouse's offensive totals were impacted by being on a team that only managed 2.9 goals/game, and this should be considered when comparing him to players like Dylan Strome and Mitchell Marner whose team's averaged 4.9 and 4.25 goals/game respectively.
Looking at the close comparables to Crouse, both at his actual scoring rate as well as his adjusted rates, is also pretty interesting. Names like Corey Perry, Ryan Getzlaf, Rick Nash, Gary Roberts, Ryan Johanson, Patrice Bergeron, and Nathan Horton were all reasonably close comparables to Crouse at one point or another in their junior careers.
While there are a number of really good players to choose in the first round of this draft, in my view Crouse should be mentioned among the top options available in the middle of the first round. To paraphrase Chris Edwards, I'd think you'd have to be nuts to discount Crouse's potential without fully considering the factors that drove his less than inspiring point totals this season.