The important thing is that Tyrell Goulbourne believes in himself

What I’ve learned on Twitter / hockey blogs – you don’t put up 70 points in a year you are not a hockey player. #Goon4Life #4L4L

— Tyrell Goulbourne (@Tgillz12) August 9, 2015

We can’t confirm that Tyrell Goulbourne is talking about us here, but …

• “Flyers waste No. 71 pick on Tyrell Goulbourne”
• “Chances we’re talking about an actual skill player here seem slim.”
• “He’ll probably join the Phantoms next year, where he’ll likely focus his time on becoming a well established face punching “energy guy” who can maybe dupe some general manager into thinking he’s worth an NHL job.”/

… so OK, yeah. He’s probably talking about us.

Goulbourne does have a point. You don’t need to score more than 70 points in the WHL to become a successful NHL player. You just need to be good with your fists.

Here’s a list of every Kelowna Rockets forward to ever play a game in the NHL:

There are Kelowna players who have performed at about Goulbourne’s offensive production in their final WHL year who had successful NHL careers, but they were all plugs.

Every player on this list who had a) less than a point per game in their final WHL season and b) more than 100 NHL games played also finished their NHL careers with more penalty minutes than games played.

In other words, they are all NHL #Goons4Life.

• D.J. King had 215 penalty minutes and 11 points in 118 NHL games.
• Travis Moen, probably the most successful player here, had 780 penalty minutes and 134 points in 724 NHL games.
• Todd Fedoruk, a fine enforcer from a different era of hockey, had 1,050 penalty minutes and 97 points in 545 NHL games.
• Nick Tarnasky has 297 penalty minutes and 30 points in 245 NHL games.
• Scott “I never went to Harvard but I can kick your ass“ Parker had 699 penalty minutes and 21 points in 308 NHL games.
• Troy Bodie has 172 penalty minutes and 21 points in 159 NHL games.

Maybe Goulbourne will be the only player in the 25 year history of the Kelowna Rockets to buck this trend. Or maybe he won’t be a very good NHLer.

Let’s hammer the point home, shall we?

If that’s not enough, consider this. After I wrote about Goulbourne last month, questioning whether or not he’d be more than just the next Zac Rinaldo, we got in touch with Josh W. from Canucks Army.

Josh has developed a model called “Prospect Cohort Success” which attempts to gauge whether or not a player will have a successful NHL career by judging them against players who had similar careers at lower levels. It spits out a percentage of a player’s cohorts who have had successful NHL careers, judged by if players have seen more than 200 games of NHL action. This number is the player’s “PCS%” … it’s a pretty simple concept, really.

Only 1.46 percent of Goulbourne’s cohorts have gone on to have successful NHL careers. Here’s that full list of cohorts, which is 137 players deep and not at all impressive. (Unless Brent Dodginghorse impresses you; idk what you’re into you weirdo.)

There are always exceptions to every rule in life, and Goulbourne could always be one. Maybe he will grow into a successful NHL player and will go on to have a productive career as a skill player in the NHL. We’ll all be happy for him if he does.

In the meantime, well … #4L4L is probably something he should be hoping for, because the fourth line is probably his best / only chance at playing in the NHL.