Prospect Info: Blues 2024-2025 Prospect Thread

[Renard]

It seems that Leo Loof is forgotten by this forum. Earlier this year, it was reported that he was called up by the Blues. But it never happened.he

Looked not viewed a an offensive threat, but he can defend.

 

[BleedBlue14]

It seems that Leo Loof is forgotten by this forum. Earlier this year, it was reported that he was called up by the Blues. But it never happened.he

Looked not viewed a an offensive threat, but he can defend.

I think it's moreso that our defense right now is so loaded in the middle/bottom half that it's not really too big of an issue/deal. There are alot more pressing needs/exciting prospects. I think it's pretty fair to assume that he'll play NHL games. I'm just not sure if the capacity is more than someone in the mold of Tucker but a bit better.

 

[PocketNines]

He reminds me of what we all hoped Dmitrij Jaskin was gonna be.

I think one of the more impressive and important parts of Stancls game in my recent viewings isn't as much the physical tools(knew about the size/skill combo), but it's the high level mental processing and poise he possesses with and away from the puck. He's not reliant on being bigger or faster than everybody else to make plays or control the puck, He knows how to manipulate defenders and use his size/skill in a high level/transferable to professional hockey type of way. I thought he anticipated play very well and his details away from the puck are a breath of fresh air. Tons of upside in this kid.

You're speaking to exactly what I am also seeing. You watch him watch the game and make decisions. He is ahead of things. He is in control. He gets himself in position to disrupt the other team's attempt then knows exactly how to get it going the other way. He notices exactly when the other team makes a mistake and he pounces on it. His mental processing is top notch. It is the reason for the excitement. A lot of guys have excellent hockey skillsets, but they need a brain in charge of the deployment and Stancl has this. When I listen to him in interviews, I hear a future coach after he's done playing.

 

[Brian39]

Pronman at the Athletic has a new list out ranking NHL prospects under 23. Here is where the Blues prospects ranked:

Tier 1 (1-3) Elite NHL Player
Tier 2 (4-11) NHL All Star
Tier 3 (12-37) Bubble NHL All Star Top of the Lineup Player
Tier 4 (26-38) Top of the Lineup Player
Tier 5 (39-77) Bubble Top and Middle of the Lineup Player
Tier 6 (78-139) Middle of the Lineup Player

Blues prospects ranked:
Adam Jiricek 54
Dvorsky 62
Snuggarud 71
Neighbours 117
Adam Jecho 133
Stenberg, Stancl, Lindstein not ranked

Other notable prospects ranked:
Nate Danielson 36
Calum Richie 48
David Edstron 50
Stian Solberg 53
Denton Matteychuck 64
David Jiricek 65
Jiri Kulich 79
Simon Nemec 81
Zach Benson 83
Konsta Helenius 85
Easton Cowan 99
Jett Luchanko 110
Gabe Perrault 126

I find it interesting that he is so high on Danielson. Dvorsky out performed him last year and this year so far. I also found it interesting that David Jiricek and Mateychuck both ranked below Adam Jiricek. Also, how does Jecho make this list ahead of Stenberg, Stancl, and Lindstein? I also was surprised that Kulich, Benson, Helenius, and Perrault were all rated below Dvorsky and Snuggarud.

After my (very) initial skim of that list, it is pretty obvious that it is by far the most I've ever disagreed with Pronman. I think that a lot of the criticism of Pronman is overstated because (as discussed earlier in this thread) the task of accurately assessing every young hockey player with NHL aspirations is a truly impossible task. There is a reason that every NHL team has separate departments for amatuer vs pro scouting and still misses on dozens of players per year despite pumping seven figures worth of money into the process. Asking anyone to accurately assess 5 years worth of players across 10+ pro leagues, the NCAA, and junior hockey is a crazy ask. Especially when that person's primary job is to scout draft-eligible prospects.

All that said, this list is bonkers.

I don't understand why they had him update it right now. He usually releases this list every September on the eve of training camps. That allows him to do all his draft work during the year and then spend the summer digesting everything from the previous season (including watching games/film/highlights and stat deep dives from leagues that you don't focus on when evaluating a draft class). Why in the hell would anyone expect that he's watched any meaningful amount of drafted players when he is (or should be) waist deep in evaluating the 300+ draft eligible guys who merit a look before the draft? Sure, you might see some of these guys in a junior or Euro game where you are watching a couple 17 year old draft hopefuls, but how much NHL and AHL is he expected to watch professionally?

16 of the top 20 players on this list are playing North American pro hockey and haven't played a single game with a draft-eligible player that Pronman would be scouting. I believe that about two-thirds of the top 50 meet that criteria. This list just screams reputation/stat based movement since he put out his September list.

 

[Quaz]

After my (very) initial skim of that list, it is pretty obvious that it is by far the most I've ever disagreed with Pronman. I think that a lot of the criticism of Pronman is overstated because (as discussed earlier in this thread) the task of accurately assessing every young hockey player with NHL aspirations is a truly impossible task. There is a reason that every NHL team has separate departments for amatuer vs pro scouting and still misses on dozens of players per year despite pumping seven figures worth of money into the process. Asking anyone to accurately assess 5 years worth of players across 10+ pro leagues, the NCAA, and junior hockey is a crazy ask. Especially when that person's primary job is to scout draft-eligible prospects.

All that said, this list is bonkers.

I don't understand why they had him update it right now. He usually releases this list every September on the eve of training camps. That allows him to do all his draft work during the year and then spend the summer digesting everything from the previous season (including watching games/film/highlights and stat deep dives from leagues that you don't focus on when evaluating a draft class). Why in the hell would anyone expect that he's watched any meaningful amount of drafted players when he is (or should be) waist deep in evaluating the 300+ draft eligible guys who merit a look before the draft? Sure, you might see some of these guys in a junior or Euro game where you are watching a couple 17 year old draft hopefuls, but how much NHL and AHL is he expected to watch professionally?

16 of the top 20 players on this list are playing North American pro hockey and haven't played a single game with a draft-eligible player that Pronman would be scouting. I believe that about two-thirds of the top 50 meet that criteria. This list just screams reputation/stat based movement since he put out his September list.

Except that his list is still slanted to draft position/his ranking when these players were drafted and not really based on how they have done since being drafted. The over ranking of Nate Danieslson is a good example of this. Pronman also likes bigger players and derates smaller players. For some reason he really like Jecho, as I don't think anyone else would have him rated above Stenberg, Stancl, and Lindstein.

 

[bleedblue1223]

That list was hilarious, even Blues aside, it's hilarious.

 

[PocketNines]

I do think he should be laughed at. Yes it's an impossible task. If you tackle an impossible task and you fail badly you aren't immune from being laughed at. This is just a junk report, it is actually misleading. I'm sorry your job is super hard, but also, this is the business you have chosen.

 

[bleedblue1223]

On some level, I think some of his rankings are done to create a reaction.

 

[Bluesnatic27]

I usually don’t like onto Pronman bashing, but this list deserves it.

Also, i love how 5 years ago, all the players Pronman would rate highly were small, finesse players and all of the giants were cast away. Now, it’s the complete opposite and it’s just as bad. I mean really? Jecho is a top 150 prospect?

Edit: even worse, Jecho is a top-150 U23 player?!

 

[taylord22]

If you're going to do something like this - which I agree is a near impossible task - you have to be consistent with your approach and scales. Almost totally absent from his analysis is any meaningful adjustment between production vs. minutes vs. quality of competition.

It manifests very notably in his skill grading, which appear to have some (although it's not clear) sway in tiering. It's utter nonsense. When you're (e.g.) grading the puck skills and hockey sense of a guy in Junior vs. a guy playing in a professional league, and the guys playing Junior overwhelmingly trend higher, alarm bells should be ringing.

Draft position + Geography + Game 'Noisiness' (ie...who's got them 'clips') is how this list is built.

 

[PocketNines]

Jecho above Stancl, Stenberg and Lindstein isn't defensible. It was not defensible coming into the season and if the purpose of a mid-season update is to notice the movement during the year then he is particularly failing.

It's open proof that the job cannot be done or at a minimum Corey Pronman simply cannot do it. How you can not notice the top scorer at the WJC or believe that Jecho has more potential than Stancl ... incredible, that takes actual work. It means he just isn't even good at prospects, at all.

This effort is so poor it's legit to ape monkey movements at him for it

 

[STL fan in MN]

I looked at Pronman’s list. I almost stopped at Tier 1. I can sort of see the reasoning of putting Celebrini ahead of Bedard but also putting Stutzle ahead if Bedard? No way. No reasonable person would do that. I wouldn’t even have Stutzle in the Elite category.

Frank Nazar and Jackson Blake not even on the list.

Charlie Stramel ahead of Gabe Perreault

Kaiden Guhle apparently has average skating? (it’s fantastic)

I could go on and on but agree with pretty much everyone else here that the list is garbage. Not going to waste anymore time on it.

 

[ChicagoBlues]

It seems that Leo Loof is forgotten by this forum. Earlier this year, it was reported that he was called up by the Blues. But it never happened.he

Looked not viewed a an offensive threat, but he can defend.

Easy! Loof needs to make himself memorable.

 

[MortiestOfMortys]

Oh man, Pronman is getting just absolutely torched everywhere. Lotta Habs fans mad about Hutson which is gonna tip the scales, but the consensus on this seems like a resounding “no.” Gotta be a tough day in the Pronman house.

That said, nobody has ever liked the Blues prospects. Name an outlet, and at best they’ve only ever had us at middling. Wheeler and Pronman love to do the thing where they go “this player has size speed skill and hockey sense, scores a bunch, and was captain of his squad, but other than that what does he offer?” and rate him as barely likely to play 4th line minutes. Happens all the time. Or in the description they’ll talk about a lethal wrister / one-timer and then rank their shot as below-average.

Let’s say Stancl is our 5th best prospect. Maybe he’s higher, maybe he’s lower. How many other team’s 5th best prospect is as good as Stancl? I doubt there are 16. That to me says we at least have a top-half prospect pool, even absent of a five-star show pony.

 

[TheOrganist]

Oh man, Pronman is getting just absolutely torched everywhere. Lotta Habs fans mad about Hutson which is gonna tip the scales, but the consensus on this seems like a resounding “no.” Gotta be a tough day in the Pronman house.

That said, nobody has ever liked the Blues prospects. Name an outlet, and at best they’ve only ever had us at middling. Wheeler and Pronman love to do the thing where they go “this player has size speed skill and hockey sense, scores a bunch, and was captain of his squad, but other than that what does he offer?” and rate him as barely likely to play 4th line minutes. Happens all the time. Or in the description they’ll talk about a lethal wrister / one-timer and then rank their shot as below-average.

Let’s say Stancl is our 5th best prospect. Maybe he’s higher, maybe he’s lower. How many other team’s 5th best prospect is as good as Stancl? I doubt there are 16. That to me says we at least have a top-half prospect pool, even absent of a five-star show pony.

I agree and it's weird. Let's say these handful of prospect "gurus" can't even remotely watch anything close to the top 100 drafted & undrafted prospects playing all over the world in all these different leagues, which is the consensus (unlike say Todd McShay, who while he is scouting a lot of prospects, they all play in one centralized league against their peers). How could you not then apply some level of bias to the organizations that continually churn out quality young players like the Blues have...their drafting & developing has been outstanding for 15 years, doing so w/ much limited draft capital compared to other teams before 2023. Since the research these guys do is not remotely close to a deep dive it's very odd to me how the blues continually get slighted.

 

[BadgersandBlues]

Wow that list sure was something. Jecho above Stenberg, Lindstein, and Stancel is a.....choice to be sure.

If you can't even get the individual team's prospect/U23 rankings correct, wtf are you doing league wide.

He absolutely deserves to get roasted based solely on his Hutson ranking. The dude is tearing up the league and playing like 23-25 minutes a night.

 

[PocketNines]

IMO they set themselves up for failure out of desire to be the Main Guy. It is really difficult to do all leagues. You are setting yourself up for failure. If these guys could keep it to a single league, the way Brock Otten used to do with the OHL, they would have real depth of knowledge and be reliable.

Personally I have plenty of ideas about lots of movies/films. But it's proto-, classic and neo-noir I know in great depth. I could come up with my own list of overall best movies but it's not reliably and thoroughly considered the way the noir-only list would be. Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) would be on it though

 

[Memento]

I continue to be baffled by the love for Jecho and the indifference towards Stenberg. Otto seems like a heart and soul type player who should be a strong two-way player capable of putting up 50 points per year. Jecho, if he makes the NHL is probably as a 4th liner, with upside of 35-40 points. Pronman is a size-queen.

I love Adam Jecho's potential as a big and fluid skater with more offense than you'd expect. I think he could be another key piece of our forward group. But there's simply no way I rate him above Stenberg or Lindstein, and I'd probably rate Stancl above him as well since he's further along in development than Jecho.

It seems that Leo Loof is forgotten by this forum. Earlier this year, it was reported that he was called up by the Blues. But it never happened.he

Looked not viewed a an offensive threat, but he can defend.

In no way have I forgotten Leo Loof. He's a throwback, a brilliant defender with snarl. I'd actually compare him to Barrett Jackman a bit. But do I have him above Broberg, Lindstein, Fischer, Jiricek, Ralph, or even someone like Buchinger? I don't know. I really don't.

I think Loof's definitely an NHL player. I just don't know if it's with us.

 

[BlueMed]

Pronman at the Athletic has a new list out ranking NHL prospects under 23. Here is where the Blues prospects ranked:

Tier 1 (1-3) Elite NHL Player
Tier 2 (4-11) NHL All Star
Tier 3 (12-37) Bubble NHL All Star Top of the Lineup Player
Tier 4 (26-38) Top of the Lineup Player
Tier 5 (39-77) Bubble Top and Middle of the Lineup Player
Tier 6 (78-139) Middle of the Lineup Player

Blues prospects ranked:
Adam Jiricek 54
Dvorsky 62
Snuggarud 71
Neighbours 117
Adam Jecho 133
Stenberg, Stancl, Lindstein not ranked

Other notable prospects ranked:
Nate Danielson 36
Calum Richie 48
David Edstron 50
Stian Solberg 53
Denton Matteychuck 64
David Jiricek 65
Jiri Kulich 79
Simon Nemec 81
Zach Benson 83
Konsta Helenius 85
Easton Cowan 99
Jett Luchanko 110
Gabe Perrault 126

I find it interesting that he is so high on Danielson. Dvorsky out performed him last year and this year so far. I also found it interesting that David Jiricek and Mateychuck both ranked below Adam Jiricek. Also, how does Jecho make this list ahead of Stenberg, Stancl, and Lindstein? I also was surprised that Kulich, Benson, Helenius, and Perrault were all rated below Dvorsky and Snuggarud.

The mistake you made was giving buying into the unearned credibility that was given to these writers.

 

[Brian39]

Oh man, Pronman is getting just absolutely torched everywhere. Lotta Habs fans mad about Hutson which is gonna tip the scales, but the consensus on this seems like a resounding “no.” Gotta be a tough day in the Pronman house.

That said, nobody has ever liked the Blues prospects. Name an outlet, and at best they’ve only ever had us at middling. Wheeler and Pronman love to do the thing where they go “this player has size speed skill and hockey sense, scores a bunch, and was captain of his squad, but other than that what does he offer?” and rate him as barely likely to play 4th line minutes. Happens all the time. Or in the description they’ll talk about a lethal wrister / one-timer and then rank their shot as below-average.

Let’s say Stancl is our 5th best prospect. Maybe he’s higher, maybe he’s lower. How many other team’s 5th best prospect is as good as Stancl? I doubt there are 16. That to me says we at least have a top-half prospect pool, even absent of a five-star show pony.

FWIW, this exact article doesn't exactly cast the Blues as middling.

He is extremely high on Jiricek. Jiricek is 54th on the list and by my count 34 of the guys ahead of him are NHL regulars. That has him as the 20th best "outside the NHL" prospect according to this list. He has him ranked ahead of all these guys who were picked ahead of him: Lindstrom (4th overall), Iginla (6th overall), Luchanko (13th overall), Helenius (14th overall), and Brandsegg-Nygard (15th overall).

Dvorsky is 62nd and by my count that makes him his 24th best "outside the NHL" prospect. Snuggy is the 30th.

I could be off by a couple guys who are bouncing between NHL/AHL, but that's 3 guys inside the top 32 'outside of the NHL' prospects. So 3 guys who would be more than a few team's best 'outside the NHL' prospect. There are about 20 guys on the list ahead of Snuggy who have multiple NHL seasons and have graduated from damn near every 'prospect' conversation, but are included because this is just a U-23 ranking with no regard to NHL experience. Which suggests that if this was a prospect conversation, he'd have us with 3 top 50 prospects. That's more than middling.

Not defending this list. I think it is awful. I very strongly disagree with just about everything he has regarding our prospects. But our pool did well here in as a whole. This list is about guys drafted 2020 through 2024. That's 5 draft classes, so 75 total top 15 picks, 75 total 16-30 picks, and then hundreds of other picks. Having 3 guys in the top 75 with just a single top 15 pick is pretty complimentary. Again, I have major issues in how he got there, but this is a fairly favorable view of our pool.

 

[ChicagoBlues]

Cynically, this will probably never happen, but it would be cool if all of these prospect rankings guys would come to a consensus to split up prospect categories among them. A couple guys can take prospects playing in NA and a couple guys can take players outside NA and another focus on just Euro prospects etc.

And then convene for a final ranking.

 

[MortiestOfMortys]

Cynically, this will probably never happen, but it would be cool if all of these prospect rankings guys would come to a consensus to split up prospect categories among them. A couple guys can take prospects playing in NA and a couple guys can take players outside NA and another focus on just Euro prospects etc.

And then convene for a final ranking.

AFAIK, McKeen’s, FCHockey, and Dobber probably are about as close to what you’re describing though. EliteProspects does some of that I think, but I won’t pay for their crappy ad-filled site so I’ll never know