The word "steal" is thrown around so often that it loses its weight. But just seven months removed from the 2023 NHL Draft, the New York Rangers appear to have found one in Gabe Perreault.

There were indicators from the start that the Rangers got good value out of their 23rd-overall pick. Perreault ranked eighth on Bleacher Report's Big Board and was a top-10 prospect on many scouts' lists.

What Perreault is doing at Boston College has taken his stock to another level. With a 19-4-1 record, BC is the top-ranked team in Men's College Hockey. With 12 goals and 31 assists in 26 games, the freshman leads the team in points.

To spell it out, Perreault is the top point producer on the top team in college hockey. Overall, the freshman winger is second in the NCAA total points (43) and is first by points-per-game (1.65).

It's a great season in any context. It's a spectacular one given that Perreault is a freshman who isn't playing true first-line minutes. Statistically speaking, he's having one of the best seasons by a post-draft player in recent memory.

Few players at the same age over the last 30 seasons have produced at the level that Perreault has. What also sticks out is that, by assists, he is virtually unparalleled.

Craig Janney was a top NHLer who had a career-high 106 points for the St. Louis Blues—more than teammates Brett Hull and Brendan Shanahan—before medical issues shut down his career. Paul Kariya is a Hall of Famer and probably the best player in college hockey history. After them it's Perreault and he's in the territory of John Leclair, Martin St. Louis, and Doug Weight.

It's difficult to put Perreault's season in context because finding comparable players requires going back decades, and the list of names is breathtaking. These aren't just good players. These are some of the best players of the previous generation.

How is he doing it? Well, with a little help from his friends. Perreault played alongside top prospects Will Smith (San Jose) and Ryan Leonard (Washington) at the US National Development Program, where they dominated.

The trio are on a line together at Boston College and their chemistry continues to overwhelm the opposition. It would be overly simplistic to pigeonhole any of them into archetypal roles, but Perreault, with his supreme hockey IQ and dexterous hands, is at his best when setting up the other two as shooters.

But the son of former NHLer Yanic Perreault isn't riding coattails here. He is, at worst, an equal part of this unstoppable Cerberus. And when the group inevitably does get separated once they go to their respective NHL teams, he may be the one with the easiest adjustment. Few prospects have Perreault's ability to read the ice. He can create offense from the perimeter but also has the hands and quick processing to make plays in the slot. There's a reason BC Head Coach Greg Moore plays him in the bumper slot on the power play.

He's made improvements in his foot speed, but that's still an area of weakness. Despite that, he's a major driver of offense through the neutral zone because of his ability to read the forecheck like a running back finding seams.

Though he is a playmaker first, he's getting hot in the goals department; Perreault has nine goals in his past 10 games for BC. He's not going to win any hardest shot competitions but he has a quick release, incredible placement, and the ability to fool goaltenders with misdirection in tight.

Let's pump the brakes a bit. Perreault's numbers, in comparison to top players from the past, don't reflect the scoring rates of different eras and other variables like usage and teammates. The Rangers have a humbling history of former draft picks who have proven that "sure-thing" top prospects are rarely that. To chalk him up for anything remotely resembling a Hall-of-Fame career would be ludicrous.

We don't need to avoid a high measure of confidence in Perreault's future as a dynamic player for the Rangers, either. The Draft Digest, which accounts for data as far back as 2000, shows that, for a second-straight season, he is producing well above the baseline for a first-line forward. The model predicts a 71.8% chance that will we become a first-line caliber offensive producer at the NHL level.

Considering that players drafted in the back half of the first round have less than a coinflip's chance of having any sort of NHL career, the Rangers should be thrilled with that projection.

Some of his legendary compatriots on the all-time stat sheet could lead to unrealistic expectations. When it comes to some current and recent NHL household names like Kyle Connor, Zach Parise, Clayton Keller, and Jaden Schwartz? He's earned his place in that conversation. Nobody should count any chickens before they hatch, but Perreault has proven that he is one of the top prospects outside the NHL and has a shot to become the next All-Star forward at Madison Square Garden.