Blues 2024-2025 Prospect Thread

I see a lot of people saying Dvorsky doesn’t look close to ready for the NHL. There’s few kids who can join the NHL and not have a rocky transition.

When Schwartz joined the team, it looked like he was going to get killed every time he got hit.

Snuggerud has some of the same. When he gets hit he goes down fairly easily.

Tarasenko is the only young forward prospect I can think of who really fit in right away. He already had the strength and athleticism . It probably helped him out playing in the KHL against men.

Snuggerud is almost 21 (June 1), while Dvorsky will be 20 on June 15. Dvorsky looks stronger on his skates than Snugg so far.

Every organization has to decide if playing in the NHL is what’s best for the player. Can the player grow his game more in the NHL than the AHL, or other league.

The one player I was absolutely proved wrong about was Tage Thompson. I legitimately didn’t think he would survive in the NHL. I’m normally on the side of giving young players plenty of rope or time to get acclimated, but to me he looked beyond horrible. His skating was extremely clumsy and he looked lost. Kudos to him for figuring it out.

Dvorsky’s confidence, patience, and control of the puck is what impresses me. This will probably be his best attributes in the NHL. It’s similar to Thomas, and Pietrangelo. He’s never going to skate like Thomas and I don’t think that’s a big deal.

I would bet on Dvorsky being a full time Blue next year.
In your defense, Tage proved everyone wrong. From 2018-2021, he was scoring 0.91 p/60 at 5v5, which was 445th in the league for players over 1000 minutes in that span. Then from 2021-2024, he scored 2.56 p/60, which was 16th in the league for that group. Words you might use to describe that kind of jump include "extraordinary," "unpredictable," and "freakish."

For comparison, Brett Howden (taken one pick after Tage in 2016) scored 1.2 p/60 from 2018-2021 (336th league-wide), and 1.38 p/60 from 2021-2024 (318th). Some of that comes down to differences in opportunity in VGK vs. BUF. But there is very, very little evidence to suggest that anybody's "breakout" should happen on the scale of what Tage did. And it took Tage 145 games to get there.

Now, w/r/t Dvorsky, the positive sign in comparison to Tage (fair comparison or not) is that he's off to a better start in the AHL. He turned in a .75 P/G season as a 19 year old, whereas Tage scored a career 0.59 P/G record in that league. DD's results in the NHL so far have been frankly abysmal, but there is a long way to go, and very little reason to toss out a pretty substantial pile of evidence suggesting he'll stick at some point. Especially not based on <18 minutes of ice time.
 
I can't remember a time when a prospect has been so quickly given up on by a fanbase as Jiricek with us? Yes he has injury concerns but we are looking at D+3 or D+4 before he arrives in the NHL. I think there is still plenty of time for him to reach his potential.
I can only speak for myself but I haven’t given up on Jiricek. I’m simply voicing concerns with his development to date and expressing that I think this upcoming offseason and the 2025-26 season will be paramount to his development.
 
One take from the OHL boards

Jiricek being the prime example - he has offensive upside be he is abysmal in his own end.
 
I see a lot of people saying Dvorsky doesn’t look close to ready for the NHL. There’s few kids who can join the NHL and not have a rocky transition.
...
Tarasenko is the only young forward prospect I can think of who really fit in right away. He already had the strength and athleticism . It probably helped him out playing in the KHL against men.
I think the lockout probably helped his transition too. He spent his D+1 and D+2 seasons in the KHL leading up to 2012/13. Then the lockout happened and it meant that he played another 31 KHL games in a year where a few dozen NHL players joined KHL rosters. Pretty much all the top teams added 1-2 NHL players and there was some real star power included (Ovi, Backstrom, Malkin, Kovalchuk, Chara, Datsyuk, and Pavelski to name some). That was the peak level of competition in the KHL and I think it was pretty clearly the best league in the world for those few months. That is pretty much the ideal prep to jump into NHL hockey, especially because the NHL hockey he jumped into that year came against a lot of vets whose routines were completely destroyed (and/or had spent the time off in lesser leagues than the one Tarasenko was in).

That lockout was timed perfectly for Tarasenko (and Schwartz, who got experience in a slightly beefed-up AHL). Whether it made a long-term impact on his development, it is undeniable that the jump in league quality for Tarasenko was less than the jump for the vast majority of guys entering the NHL.
 
BTW college hockey is about to get super competitive. Foreign born players are going to start coming over and going to college to get NIL money
Foreign born players are locked out of the large majority of NIL money because it would violate the conditions of their student visas. They can still get sponsorship deals in their native countries, but I don't think that there will be Swedish, Finnish, etc countries lining up to give money to kids who bail on European leagues to play NCAA hockey. The 'our booster club has an $X package for you if you play at our school' type of NIL money is not something that foreign-born players are getting.

I'd wager that any foreign-born player who can earn any type of NIL money would be able to earn substantially more money by signing a pro contract in their home country and seeking endorsements there.
and gain leverage over the team that drafts them.
They don't gain leverage over the team that drafts them. The NHL team drafting them would retain their rights for 4 years whether they play NCAA or stay in Europe.

I think the NCAA is a great path and is about to become an even better path. I'm really excited about the next few years of NCAA hockey and agree that it is about to get super competitive. I expect more foreign-born players to explore the NCAA path because the quality of play is going to increase and it is a great place for an 18/19/20 year old European prospect to make the jump to North American ice. But the NIL money and contractual leverage isn't going to impact many foreign players.
 
His KHL contract goes through May 31, 2027. Two years seems like a long time, but it might end up being right on schedule for this team’s window.
Two years is fine. I love seeing what he’s doing in the K and am 100% fine with letting him grow his game in Russia. If he comes over and makes the team and does well, then I’ll considered the Blues to finally be “blessed” by the late-rounds gods.
 
Foreign born players are locked out of the large majority of NIL money because it would violate the conditions of their student visas. They can still get sponsorship deals in their native countries, but I don't think that there will be Swedish, Finnish, etc countries lining up to give money to kids who bail on European leagues to play NCAA hockey. The 'our booster club has an $X package for you if you play at our school' type of NIL money is not something that foreign-born players are getting.

I'd wager that any foreign-born player who can earn any type of NIL money would be able to earn substantially more money by signing a pro contract in their home country and seeking endorsements there.

They don't gain leverage over the team that drafts them. The NHL team drafting them would retain their rights for 4 years whether they play NCAA or stay in Europe.

I think the NCAA is a great path and is about to become an even better path. I'm really excited about the next few years of NCAA hockey and agree that it is about to get super competitive. I expect more foreign-born players to explore the NCAA path because the quality of play is going to increase and it is a great place for an 18/19/20 year old European prospect to make the jump to North American ice. But the NIL money and contractual leverage isn't going to impact many foreign players.
Yes, a little bit of protectionist policy is good for the NA players.
 
Nasty work from Stenberg. Did they move Dean up with Stenberg? Or did they just happen to be on the ice together?
 

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