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Prospect Info: '24-'25 Prospects Thread: Generation Z

Empoleon8771 said:
I think my top-5 prospect list right now would probably be:

1. McGroarty
2. Brunicke
3. Koivunen
4. Pickering
5. Murashov

Murashov's upside is higher than arguably everyone ahead of him, but there's also a lot of risk with him just due to his age, position and lack of AHL games. Pickering is kinda the opposite, I think his upside is fairly mild (#4/5 DFD) but he also seems like a very safe bet at becoming that.

I figure whoever they pick with their 1st will end up their new #1 prospect while whoever they take with the Rangers 1st will probably fall on that McGroarty and Brunicke level. That said, who they draft at those picks will obviously influence that.
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1. McGroarty
2. Murashov
3. Brunicke
4. Ilyin
5. Koivunen
HM Pickering

For reference, here was my list last year after the Yager/McGroarty trade. Koivunen with a big jump, while Blomqvist falls off the top 6

1. McGroarty
2. Blomqvist
3. Ilyin
4. Murashov
5. Pickering
6. Ponomarev
7. Brunicke
8. Howe
9. Koivunen
10. Broz
 
Dipsy Doodle said:
Honestly, the Pens are in the "Malone, Mango Salsa, Armstrong, Christensen, Orpik, Welch" stage of the retool right now. Lots of quantity but not much quality, a few pieces who'll contribute but many will add up to nothing.

This draft will be the first chance to add a significant piece. We'll see how it goes.
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I forget, is this also the Dan Focht era?
 
DearDiary said:
1. McGroarty
2. Murashov
3. Brunicke
4. Ilyin
5. Koivunen
HM Pickering

For reference, here was my list last year after the Yager/McGroarty trade. Koivunen with a big jump, while Blomqvist falls off the top 6

1. McGroarty
2. Blomqvist
3. Ilyin
4. Murashov
5. Pickering
6. Ponomarev
7. Brunicke
8. Howe
9. Koivunen
10. Broz
Click to expand...

Illyin over Pickering is absolutely wild.
 
Gurglesons said:
Illyin over Pickering is absolutely wild.
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How would you compare their potentials?

If I remember correctly, when Pickering was drafted, he was supposedly a project who had a high ceiling. As of now, I don’t think that ceiling is higher than #4 dman.

Illyn on the other hand, I have no clue what his ceiling is. He’s got great hockey iq with nice skills so that’s always a telltale sign of a guaranteed NHLer at least.
 
Kasperi kapanen said:
How would you compare their potentials?

If I remember correctly, when Pickering was drafted, he was supposedly a project who had a high ceiling. As of now, I don’t think that ceiling is higher than #4 dman.
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Honestly I dont remember this being the case at all. I remember seeing a lot of people saying he has a very high floor which seems to have been spot on. A 6'3 smart defensive player is atleast a bottom pair guy
 
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Kasperi kapanen said:
How would you compare their potentials?

If I remember correctly, when Pickering was drafted, he was supposedly a project who had a high ceiling. As of now, I don’t think that ceiling is higher than #4 dman.

Illyn on the other hand, I have no clue what his ceiling is. He’s got great hockey iq with nice skills so that’s always a telltale sign of a guaranteed NHLer at least.
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Illyin is the type of random prospect every team has that seems interesting to writers and rarely pans out.
 
DearDiary said:
1. McGroarty
2. Murashov
3. Brunicke
4. Ilyin
5. Koivunen
HM Pickering

For reference, here was my list last year after the Yager/McGroarty trade. Koivunen with a big jump, while Blomqvist falls off the top 6

1. McGroarty
2. Blomqvist
3. Ilyin
4. Murashov
5. Pickering
6. Ponomarev
7. Brunicke
8. Howe
9. Koivunen
10. Broz
Click to expand...
who most closely aligns with craig adams?
 
Malkinstheman said:
Honestly I dont remember this being the case at all. I remember seeing a lot of people saying he has a very high floor which seems to have been spot on. A 6'3 smart defensive player is atleast a bottom pair guy
Click to expand...

A lot of mixed opinions on Pickering iirc, including what type of player he was. I think I recall reports gushing about his shot (I deffo read best dman shot in his draft), skating and flashes of skill but being worried about lapses and inconsistency and reports saying Dumo mk 2. I think a lot of that came from how recent his growth spurt had been and the fact he was still settling into his body.

In any case, I'd agree with how Gurgs put it. A guy his size, his skating at age 18, the sky's the limit, particularly in a dman who who doesn't necessarily need great skill and points totals to really impact a game. Tbh, without having really kept track of this season and his progress very well, I still kind of see it. He still has all the attributes to be a top 4 offence eraser if his reading of the game is good enough, and compared to some guys who became that player he's very much on or ahead of schedule. I think a bunch of the posts talking about him as low ceiling at this point are basing it on points, but as far as I'm concerned Dumoulins are more important players than Schultzes.
 
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Fernstrom appears to have been loaned to Orebro’s U20 team after the big club was eliminated. So might not be a WB/S option. Had 2+1 in their last playoff game.

After his run after the trade he went kinda cold again, no points in his last 5 or so games including playoffs. But it seems like he finished the year in their top 6 so probably bodes well for him next year. All in all a nice throw-in.
 
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Depends on your opinion of high upside.

If you mean 50-60+ point-getting d-man… no Pickering didn’t have that.

If you mean 6’5 all situations 2/3D who can make stops, make a play, drive transition… yes.

I lean towards the latter being a “high upside” outcome. There’s not too many of those in the league. He’s still pretty young. Some more AHL time may do him well.
 
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Next 2 drafts are the building blocks for top 6 centers. dubas needs to address this now. No rebuild can work without centers. Dubas has to get back the second from the Habs to do a RFA offer for either MacTavish or Vilardi. Draft O'Brien and get one of the above and now were talking.
 
chethejet said:
Next 2 drafts are the building blocks for top 6 centers. dubas needs to address this now. No rebuild can work without centers. Dubas has to get back the second from the Habs to do a RFA offer for either MacTavish or Vilardi. Draft O'Brien and get one of the above and now were talking.
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I agree but I don't think the way to do it is offer sheets. Certainly not for the next two years (2026 and 2027) because there are major generational talents available in McKenna and DuPont. After that, yeah, go for it. By then too we should have quite a bit off the books and plenty of space.
 
No guarantee Pens will have any real shot at those talents. Love to get lucky but Pens draft one of the centers this year and see what Dubas does with respect to moves at the draft. He knows the hole here after Sid and Geno so address things now so you have players ready for 2027. But Rangers are 10th presently so maybe they stink next year and Pens have a couple shots in the lottery.
 
Just spit-balling something I keep having a feeling will happen; I feel like the biggest win we could have this season is NYR falling and getting a top 10-12 pick and then passing their pick next year onto us. We then hope for an absolute cataclysmic fail next year by them and hopefully a decent top-10 chance at winning the lottery to go with whatever we end up with.

I know theres an equally good chance Shesterkin regains full form and we end up getting a 15-22 pick with it next year, but whether I like it or not, I have a gut feeling every now and then (like 40% of the time) that we're going to sign Marner this off-season. Dubas is obviously a nutbar about things he wants, and I think he wants Marner bad. No matter what the the off-season looks like, barring an entire roster explosion, I can't see a team with prime Marner, an aging but effective Sid and the rest of the players we have locked in being bad enough with some of the teams out there right now to be a top-5-7 lottery pick team.

We sign Marner and it shows we aren't able to fully commit to any rebuild. We get into this dark age of Montreal Canadian/Maple Leaf-esque half decade of existence with the 13-18th over all draft pick year over year until he bottoms out or leaves and we can truly have a shot at 1st overall in 2032. Maybe we move Marner after Crosby/Malkin/Letang retire for some foundational pieces and bottom out in 3 years instead, who knows.

What I do know is Dubas is sitting there with his $25 million in cap-space bag eye-******* Marner, feeding the ducks to pictures of Mitch and Sid together being besties at Marner's wedding.
 
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Easily the best scenario for this team is that the Rangers' pick gets kicked to next season and the Pens end up finishing bottom 3, and the Rangers end up being as bad or worse, giving the Pens two shots at winning the McKenna lotto.

And yeah, Marner's a huge mistake if they sign him. He'll require like $14M AAV and a full NMC to even get him interested. Even then, you're just ratf***ing your chances at a rebuild, and locking yourself into a contract with a guy who isn't a foundational player (I like Marner a lot, but he's not "the guy") and ensuring he's gonna be unmovable down the road when this team's coach and system have destroyed his value. Imagine trying to move a guy with full control over his destination, hovering around 75pts, and making $14M AAV. I know the cap's going up, but good f***in' luck, man. :laugh:
 
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CheckingLineCenter said:
Depends on your opinion of high upside.

If you mean 50-60+ point-getting d-man… no Pickering didn’t have that.

If you mean 6’5 all situations 2/3D who can make stops, make a play, drive transition… yes.

I lean towards the latter being a “high upside” outcome. There’s not too many of those in the league. He’s still pretty young. Some more AHL time may do him well.
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Are we talking at the draft?

Because, that's why he dropped.

He wasn't a lock at being a top pairing offensive guy, but the skill set was there and he had a unique aspect in his size. Pickering's D+1 year made it obvious he wouldn't hit those offensive totals, but at the time of the draft who was a huge upside pick. Same thing as Poulin.
 
Yeah, I hope the NYR pick gets kicked to '26. Another scratch ticket for McKenna is the best case scenario, and even if we don't win, I like the odds of NYR falling off in a deeper draft.
 
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With how weak the Metro is, I can see the Rangers do better next year. Maybe not top of the east better but I imagine better than 14ov. The other half of that question is, say they finish 13ov this year and keep the pick and finish 22nd over next year and give the pick to us. Is the guy we take in 2026 as good as the 13thov pick in 2025 given the reported strengths of the draft?

Entirely possible that the guy at 13thov is the same caliber at the 20th next year.
 
If the Rangers miss the playoffs this year they're canning Laviolette for sure. I guess that's a coin flip on if that improves them or not but I think there'd be some changes for sure.
 
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