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Prospect Info: Blues 2024-2025 Prospect Thread

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MortiestOfMortys said:
www.nytimes.com

St. Louis Blues are No. 14 in 2025 NHL prospect pool rankings

The Blues have one of the deeper pools in the NHL with five legit prospects at the top and good quantity behind them.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

The top two tiers make sense to me. The third one you could put on spin cycle and come out with an equally defensible ranking. Although I am quite a bit more bullish on Stancl and Robertsson than Wheeler is, I think his rankings are fair given the uneven trajectories they’ve taken so far.

Given that he isn’t sold on Stancl, who we all mostly seem to think belongs closer to that second tier, I can see why we’re ranked where we are. If he’s wrong, then we’ll be higher next year when more of these guys graduate and show what they can do at the pro level.
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We drafted guys he wasn’t super high on so he ranks them lower than other organizations that took smaller skilled guys who aren’t as well suited for today’s NHL. You can tell by his comments that he locks in on these guys pre-draft and that is how he pigeonholes them. I’m curious to see the writeups of teams in front is us, but I have a hard time believing there are really 13 teams with better pools than ours.
 
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Stealth JD said:
14th seems fair. There are a lot of middle-six hopefuls at forward and bottom-pair defensemen on the list, but only four guys who have top-6 forward or top-4 D upside…and even those four don’t project as top-line or top-pairing.

A whole lot is going to have to go right, or some significant leveling-up is going to have to take place for the Blues to get results that exceed these expectations.
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I think the unknown factor in a lot of our guys is the time they’ve missed.

Stancl has taken off this year, but missed a fair bit of time in previous seasons due to injury and his father passing away.

Jiricek famously missed pretty much all of last season, and the first half of this one too.

Robertsson and Dean have both missed a big chunk of this season.

Jiricek, Kaskimaki, Dvorsky, Stenberg and Lindstein have all been relegated to rock-bottom minutes in Euro leagues at times, and that isn’t really their fault.

If all of those guys had been steadily healthy, not encountered personal tragedy, and/or played on bottom-feeder pro teams that needed them to play up in the lineup, then I imagine this ranking looks different. It isn’t reasonable to ask for that though.

I think we believe our guys are better than the prospect writers because we’re laser-focused on the big picture. They only have what’s most recently available to them, and there isn’t a lot of room for “yeah but”s or “if only”s in their rankings. But by the same token, I think it’s entirely reasonable to believe that the fans of this team in particular (if we were a coastal or Canadian team it would be a different story) might have a better handle on what the upside of our guys might be.
 
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PocketNines said:
Ah geez, what happened to our prospects overnight? I went to bed and we had talent then some jabroni who cannot accomplish his goal said we were 14th and now this?

Lindstein has been and remains projected as top pair. #2 defenseman is top pair caliber. People don't hear about him much so they assume he's not going to become that. That's a bad reason. He's 19 and holding his own with men in Sweden. Do they put up a lot of points? No, the games are all 3-1 and 2-1.

Stenberg has been continuously compared to Alex Steen. Alex Steen for about two years was the best forward the Blues had. Stenberg's stock dropped because he wasn't able to produce big numbers against men in the 2-1 Swedish league. He flies over here and immediately goes PPG against AHL men. Was Alex Steen not top line talent? I think he was.

Dvorsky is a scoring center. Whether they are 1C or 2C, a scoring center in the NHL is more valuable than even a top pair #2 defenseman. That's a very important piece.

Snuggerud is a scoring line RW. If they put him with Thomas does that make him 1RW? They will probably put him with Thomas.

Stancl I talk about a lot but this one has true mid round breakout potential. He's a 24 minute forward and the best player on his team. They wouldn't win 5 games without him. It is difficult to watch this player and see his all around talent and composure and relentless chance generation and imagine that it won't translate. I know the chuckle he gives when he is asked in interviews about whether he has heard the skating criticisms and if he is doing something about it (the gist of these questions) and that chuckle is a low little self chuckle where you know exactly how much your attention is on something that someone just asked about. I personally believe in him.

But if you have the total opposite view of Stancl, it's still four players who are going to play in the significant parts of NHL games all due roughly the same time. Subtract the 4th line and bottom pairing and backup goalie that's 14 players. 9-4-1. Those are your main guys. We have 4 of these guys about to hit the 13 skaters portion of that, and hit it well. Honestly you could restrict that further to 6-2-1 and you still have four players expected to take spots in that top 8. Is Dvorsky third line talent? Is Snuggerud a third line RW? Is Stenberg not someone who can play the top two lines, has to remain down on third line? Lindstein's ceiling is middle pair? Absolutely none of that.
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Dvorsky = top-6 center, most likely 2C
Snuggy = top-6 RW, perhaps 1RW
Stenberg = middle-6 C/W, maybe 3C but likely 3LW
Lindstein = top-4 LD. Not seeing top-pair personally. Jiricek the same, but RD.

Those are our likely “can’t miss” prospects. There are a handful of other guys who could be depth players. Teams need bottom-pairing defensemen and bottom-6 forwards, so that’s no slight: Stancl, Fischer, Burns, Kaskimacki. They’ve got a chance to have NHL careers, but they’re likely not core roster players to build around. They’re the guys you fill in around the edges of a core to keep the salary cap manageable.

The rest? Long-shots. Every team has ‘em. And I’m willing to guess the top-13 ranked teams have just as impressive a collection of top-5 prospects as the Blues do…but with higher ceilings.

I’m excited about the guys coming through the pipeline, but I’m not going to let my fandom elevate the upside of these guys and try to claim they’re more than they really are. As much as I want Lindstein to become a better version of Broberg, he’s more likely to become Christian Blackman than Jonis Brodin. Folks grading the Blues as “mid” aren’t hacks (necessarily); they’re just calling a spade a spade and seeing that STL has been unable to grab the premium talent in the drafts, nor have they had anyone surprise and become a top-prospect after being selected from outside of the first round.
 
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PocketNines said:
This guy ... just listed Jakub Stancl 6 spots behind Pekarcik and 5 spots behind Jecho ... that's failure.

Lindstein is a 23 min a night defenseman in the making. It's his poise and decision-making. Saying he's more Backman than Brodin is saying he'll be a bust. Backman sucked and left the NHL because he sucked. Backman was a bust. Saying he's going to be Backman is also not based on his play or on watching him, it's just general pessimism out of lack of watching him.

Stenberg is significantly more than a 3LW. Come on, are you watching him? Sweden must have an entire bag of shit headed toward hockey if Stenberg is the second hyped Swede behind Carlsson and making major impact against peers at the WJC – again – but is headed toward the 3d line. I mean come on.

You're definitely elevating the lack of flashy point production in Sweden over the different showings they make when they are on NA ice against peers and men. You're valuing that more. Both things are in evidence and you value one over the other and believe one is real.

What I want to know is how did Jaden Schwartz and Tarasenko look this good at WJC and manage to become the players they looked like, but we are writing off the new crop when they looked the same? That's pessimism.

I have a theory and it's the Dvorsky theory where let's be honest he absolutely is not ready despite his numbers. When you watch Springfield games, in no way do you think, this player looks ready. He doesn't. He looks less ready than Bolduc, who is taking his sweet time becoming something interesting. So if the other prospects rank lower than him, that perception is dragging the rest down. If Dvorsky looked like an elite prospect right now all of this would change.
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I like Stenberg a LOT. I think he'll be a strong, two-way 50-point winger at the NHL level who could wear a letter. Saying he's a 3rd liner is not an insult. That's just taking into account a team that already has Buchnevich and Holloway on the LW, with Kyrou, Snuggy, Bolduc (and others) making claims to other top-9 winger jobs. Sure, when he's 28 and guys like Schenn and Buchnevich age out, he could be a top-line LW, but he's not a guy like Kyrou or Thomas that are destined to play the majority of their careers in a top-6 scoring role; because fortunately he can contribute in other ways outside of the counting stats. But even in the 2-3 years that Steen was playing the 1LW, he was never considered upper-echelon. He was fine. Responsible. Strong two-way, but far from one of the league's best.

And I remember 25 years ago the hype Backman had after being taken 24th overall. Saying he's a bust is a bit harsh, as he did manage to carve out a 300-game NHL career. Yeah, ultimately he never became the top-4 he was envisioned to become, but he and Jackman were to be the saviors at one point. History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes. I want to see Theo in Springfield before claiming he's going to be a top-pairing NHL defenseman. I'm not saying he's going to suck or be a bust. But the odds of him being a top-pairing stalwart are less than him falling short of the hype thrust upon him. Hence the Brodin/Backman references.

And Stancl? It's cool he's producing against literal children as a 6'3", 200lb man-child. I mean, it's obviously better than the alternative and him just being 'a guy' out there. And it's encouraging that he had a nice WJC tourney. He's got some nice tools to work with; his shot is heavier than his feet nowadays and he makes good decisions with the puck. Does that mean evaluators who see AHL-scorer instead of NHL-scorer should be immediately discredited? Yeah, Kelowna is terrible but for a guy in his D+2 season who you'd expect to become a NHL-caliber forward, you'd like to see a points-per-game ranking greater than 33rd in the league. But regardless, he's earned the right to play in the AHL and get an invite to NHL camp, and has performed about as well as you could hope for a fourth round pick. I don't think that automatically makes him the 6th or 7th best prospect in the pipeline. I could see why the physical tools of Pekarcik or Jecho have them ranked higher than Stancl, but ultimately all of those guys are in the same tier, so I wouldn't read too much into one guy getting ranked 8th and another ranked 14th; they're all on equal footing and need to capitalize on their chances as they move up through the system. There's not room for 15 guys at the NHL level and most will lose value before they can be traded for anything of substance.
 
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The rankings are always stupid. Pronman doesn't actually update any of his analysis year over year. Take Snuggy for example:

Last year:

1737920790788.png


This year:

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Snuggy is a year older, and therefore potentially more developed (Or not, which is also important), and Pronman adds nothing. I get there are a lot of prospects, and doing a new write up every year is impossible, but when you're talking about a team's top 3-5 prospects, you should be way more locked in and focused on how that year of development has grown or regressed a player in your eyes.

Our prospect pool is easily top 10 imo, I think Brian39 did a write up awhile ago about how many of the prospect pools ahead of us last year graduated their top guy, if not multiple top 3-5 prospects. We lost our 4th best prospect in Bolduc and replaced him with our now (According to Pronman) 3rd best prospect. That's before taking into account the fact that Stancel had himself a WJC to remember. Yet our ranking remains unchanged.
 
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BadgersandBlues said:
The rankings are always stupid. Pronman doesn't actually update any of his analysis year over year. Take Snuggy for example:

Last year:

View attachment 967595

This year:

View attachment 967596

Snuggy is a year older, and therefore potentially more developed (Or not, which is also important), and Pronman adds nothing. I get there are a lot of prospects, and doing a new write up every year is impossible, but when you're talking about a team's top 3-5 prospects, you should be way more locked in and focused on how that year of development has grown or regressed a player in your eyes.

Our prospect pool is easily top 10 imo, I think Brian39 did a write up awhile ago about how many of the prospect pools ahead of us last year graduated their top guy, if not multiple top 3-5 prospects. We lost our 4th best prospect in Bolduc and replaced him with our now (According to Pronman) 3rd best prospect. That's before taking into account the fact that Stancel had himself a WJC to remember. Yet our ranking remains unchanged.
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It’s actually Scott Wheeler
 
Majorityof1 said:
You, by virtue of being a Blues fan, seem a fair bit biased to me. National pundits don't have our prospect rated anywhere near as highly as Blues fans do.
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Many Blues fans here have a better sense of Blues prospects than guy like Wheeler. I can watch a handful of our prospects regularly and get a sense of where they stand. Wheeler has hundreds and hundreds he is evaluating. How many detailed viewings you think he gives each of our guys? He watches wjc, but otherwise he mostly stay watches post draft and relies on his draft rankings. Pronman and the rest too. So while we may all have our biases, the appeal to authority here falls flat.
 
Bye Bye Blueston said:
Many Blues fans here have a better sense of Blues prospects than guy like Wheeler. I can watch a handful of our prospects regularly and get a sense of where they stand. Wheeler has hundreds and hundreds he is evaluating. How many detailed viewings you think he gives each of our guys? He watches wjc, but otherwise he mostly stay watches post draft and relies on his draft rankings. Pronman and the rest too. So while we may all have our biases, the appeal to authority here falls flat.
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Yes, and you hyper focus on those prospects whearas Wheeler has to spread his attention wider. Hence he is less attached to our prospects and also has a better knowledge of other pools that we are comparing ours too.

I don't mean it to be a slight against you as I know you watch a lot of prospects. You aren't like the one poster who never mentioned Stancl before the WJC and suddenly is willing to duel to the death with anyone who doesn't worship at Stancl's alter after 7 games.

But still, bias is inherent when you focus heavily on one set of prospects. I am just pointing out that when all the national pundits are less high on our prospects than we as Blues fans are, then maybe we have some bias as opposed to EVERY national pundit being an idiot. That's not an appeal to authority. I am not saying they are right. I am saying you may be wrong for a very specific reason why.
 
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Majorityof1 said:
Yes, and you hyper focus on those prospects whearas Wheeler has to spread his attention wider. Hence he is less attached to our prospects and also has a better knowledge of other pools that we are comparing ours too.

I don't mean it to be a slight against you as I know you watch a lot of prospects. You aren't like the one poster who never mentioned Stancl before the WJC and suddenly is willing to duel to the death with anyone who doesn't worship at Stancl's alter after 7 games.

But still, bias is inherent when you focus heavily on one set of prospects. I am just pointing out that when all the national pundits are less high on our prospects than we as Blues fans are, then maybe we have some bias as opposed to EVERY national pundit being an idiot. That's not an appeal to authority. I am not saying they are right. I am saying you may be wrong for a very specific reason why.
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I don't even think that it's they are idiots. I just don't think that it's reasonable to expect someone like Wheeler to be an expert on every team's prospects while also being an expert on every potential draft pick. I have a lot of respect for many of these guys. There have been numerous folks on here (the draft board and Blues team board) over the years that have had a better insight on many prospects than the national guys. And while likely none of us have the breadth of prospect knowledge as guys like Wheeler, for a specific subset of prospects we often do. I sure as heck don't claim to be an expert on Jets or Wild or most other team's prospects aside from some of the recent 1st rounders, but I and a handful of others here watch a helluva lot of prospect hockey and I trust their opinions often as much or more than guys like Wheeler or Pronman.
 
What a bunch of stupid bullshit that I never mentioned Stancl before the WJC. In fact I have multiple posts about him in the first half of the season this year.

Typical horseshit from someone who absolutely isn't watching the prospects but does have an opinion about one poster.
 
PocketNines said:
Watched Jecho and Stancl last night.

Stancl is the big body who posts up down low on the Kelowna PP. Andrew Cristall and Tij Iginla make that unit go and Stancl is a complementary piece. I was hoping to see Mrtka on the opposite side for Seattle supposed to be one of the top D available and 6'6" but he was out. Cootes is going to go in the first round for Seattle, he's quite a playmaker. Kelowna came back in the third with four goals to win 5-3 and Stancl had the final 2 goals. The GWG the goalie wants back, it squeaked through on a shot coming down the left side. His second goal Cristall found him alone in front and he roofed it.

Still, Jecho is the more involved player. The camera finds #43, he gets a lot of ice. Both guys are big but Jecho's ranginess feels like it comes into play more. He carries the puck plenty, he is a dangerous high man on the PK with his speed. He got an assist last night. I was looking at the Edmonton defenseman Fiddler. Big strong kid, trying to get involved. Making plays, sometimes getting caught and racing back.
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What's the date on this, is it Nov 14? Do I have a post on him several pages earlier Oct 31? I do?

And also on the Cristall thread in November? No kidding, I must have been watching him all season.

Ah well that just mean that other guy is lying!
 
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To be fair, nobody could watch all prospects for all teams by themselves. A lot of these writers probably have teams of evaluators just to watch former and future 1st rounders. So outside of that the rest are based on where the player was drafted. They aren't going to spend a lot of time following those players around and adjusting their opinions.

To be honest this year I have had way more fun following our prospects than our current team. I am way more excited by our future than our current.
 
I watched Jecho play last night. He was really good. He made a lot of plays broke up A lot of plays forechecking and just being in the right lane. Again, I have to say, that fiddler did not have a good outing. He was totally outshined by a defenseman named Chadwick on the other team. That dude is really gonna be a player. Breaking stuff up making connecting passes. He has a bright future.
 
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Wheeler has Calgary 13. I don’t see their pool as better than ours. Lots of offensive defensemen who don’t seem like anything special after Parekh; I’d take our defensive pool over theirs and our forwards are far better.
 
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