Hockey Duckie
Registered User
I guess the best comparison is our board's ranking of Pastujov. We talked highly of Pastujov before he went pro. The first year he went pro, that high-end production in juniors ceased to exist and his ranking plummeted behind Sidorov in this year's board rankings. Pastujov ranked 9th in last year's board prospect rankings, with Gaucher being 8th. This year, Pasta is ranked 19th, but Gaucher remains up high at 10th overall. I don't comprehend why Pastujov would drop so drastically or drop behind Sidorov because the talent didn't go away for Pastujov; Pasta just wen to a higher league level of competition.
Similarly with Colangelo. In our 2022 HFboard prospect rankings, Colangelo was ranked 17th. Then in 2023, he was dropped to 25th. This summer's prospect ranking, Colangelo got bumped all the way up to 7th. Why the wild disparity in rankings from year to year?
Scouching's template looks to be based upon production at the pro level, where talent gets to prove itself against potential, because that is the end goal of every prospect. In his prospects pyramid, the only player to display that impact at a pro level in a large sample is Zellweger. There isn't much fluctuations of a prospect yo-yoing up and down tiers for Scouching's pyramid rankings/tiers. That makes a lot more sense, otherwise, his rankings would be as whimsical as our rankings from year to year.
As for Colangelo being in the bottom tier, I could understand that today ranking because Colangelo's college career has fluctuated in extremes. Even in his senior year in college, his play stagnated in the 2nd half. I recall comparing Colangelo and Cutter's goal scoring once we acquired Cutter. They both were producing similarly, but Colangelo's scoring stalled for a long minute in the 2nd half of the season while Cutter's goal scoring just kept soaring. Even our GM was iffy on signing Colangelo to where Colangelo had to prove himself with a AHL ATO contract instead of being offered an ELC outright. Although, I'd put Colangelo in the "Maybe" section instead of the "Everyone Else".
Hinds' physique and tool box potential is lesser than Warren's, which is why Warren is in the "Maybe" section and Hinds in the "Everyone Else" section. Scouching doesn't knock Warren down the pyramid despite being injury plagued for the past two seasons. Hinds, otoh, has been exceeding his consensus potential of a solid stay-at-home defenseman with us on our HFboards, but Scouching isn't a believer at the moment. In the last month of the AHL, Hinds went from +1 rating to a -8 rating. That skews the overview of Hinds in his first pro season at the AHL level. I know this, but I don't think Scouching goes into this much depth since he's covering all of the NHL prospects.
At the HFboard's "NHL Draft - Prospects" Forum, there's a thread about best future D corps. I chimed in for our Ducks' youths, but I didn't dare list Warren nor Hinds nor Moore as our notable, top youths. They are just DFD's with the hopes they can earn their way into the NHL.
