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Prospect Info: Caps Prospects General Discussion Thread - 2024-25

Kazer said:
I don't think we're going to agree on this issue. However, my point there was that Wilson had room to grow as a player. It's not like he 'dominated' the OHL that year. He wasn't even the best player on his team. While he was physically ready for the NHL (size/strength), he could have developed his game, particularly his offensive game, by going back to his junior team rather than being rushed to the NHL to play 8 minutes a night, fight a lot (Wilson led the team in PIMs by a wide margin his rookie year), and barely show up on the scoresheet.

A lot of players in Wilson's shoes would have lost confidence in their game in that situation. It's a testament to his hard work and mental fortitude that he did not, but it's not a blueprint for success.

What do I actually believe - GMGM rushed Wilson to the NHL to distract from the disastrous Erat trade (earlier the same year) and our horrendous 3rd/4th line depth entering 13-14 with the excuse of 'protecting Wilson from OHL fighting' as justification.
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But what does this mean to you?

Was he going to go out there dangling guys just to try it? Like... take a year off his game to be a different player? Does that help, or create a guy who doesn't need that habit at NHL speed since he's not amazing at it already? Or was he going to go back with man strength and just... bully people even better than he could last year to get more opportunities? Is that "building offensive potential" or basically the exact same thing that happens to CHL over-agers and gets teams to take draft fliers?

They took a North/South guy with full-grown size and speed and said it'd be better for him to test his physical ability instead of working on his hands in the league he's going to want to play in for the next 10+ years. He hit the league and showed he wasn't just "grown" but strong and you think that's something that makes a young buck lose confidence? If anything I suggest it proved to Wilson he could keep testing and growing his game because he was going to stay a bit of a freak even against NHL players and create space.
 
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I don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of junior hockey but the first 2 guys I think of as far as non first round picks who improved their stock in their +1 year are Lane Hutson and Alexei Protas
 
Silky mitts said:
I don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of junior hockey but the first 2 guys I think of as far as non first round picks who improved their stock in their +1 year are Lane Hutson and Alexei Protas
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So, Protas is an interesting comparable because they do share a similar timeline.

Like... Protas' best season comes after being drafted but what got him drafted was his playoffs just before the draft, 22 points in 23 games was the cherry on top of a season that saw him heat up over time and acclimatize. Wilson had a comparatively less successful season but a similar point per game playoff run that highlighted his potential.

Wilson in his D+1 also more than doubles his point total and pots a cool 20+ goals, has another PPG+ playoffs, and then joins the pro playoff run and shows how valuable he can be as a heat seeking missile and just... doesn't go back. Protas ain't that guy as far as being able to play the same grinding role, so it makes sense why the paths diverge, but they do tell the same story of NHL talents who don't blow the CHL out of the water.
 
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Since we're apparently re-litigating Wilson's development - staying in the OHL was the better move for allowing him to develop his offensive game. It took Wilson a long time to get comfortable playing with the puck on his stick in the NHL, even despite the annual experiments with him on the first line early in his career (which always ended in frustration and coach's venting that the play died on his stick too often). In the OHL he would have been afforded more opportunities to grow that aspect of his game. More opportunities to learn how to establish a cycle. More opportunities to carry the puck into the zone rather than just being a hunter-killer missile on the fore check trying to blow up the opposing puck carrier. He would have been given more time on the powerplay to build his instincts there. And he would have been doing it against top pairing in the OHL, not scrubs. He fought more in the NHL playing against goons than he would have fought in the OHL playing against opposing top lines (although he and Max Domi probably would have gone once or twice). And I don't believe for a second that he would have just overpowered the likes of Aaron Ekblad, Adam Pelech, Darnell Nurse, or Nikita Zadorov - and those are the types of D he would have often been skating against.

Wilson with more time in the OHL hopefully is able to find his offensvie game in the NHL quicker (he took 6 years before he broke 20 goals for the first time, and a feat he's only accomplished 3 times in his 11 year career) and hopefully have spent a lot less time in the penalty box or suspended. He was forced to play a thug role early in his career, and his development suffered for it. He may well be a better offensive player today, or at least one who's more comfortable in terms of establishing the cycle (there's no reason he shouldn't be able to cycle along the boards as well as Joel Ward or Steve Konowalchuk), if he had spent more time in the OHL refining his offensive game.
 
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Hivemind said:
Since we're apparently re-litigating Wilson's development - staying in the OHL was the better move for allowing him to develop his offensive game. It took Wilson a long time to get comfortable playing with the puck on his stick in the NHL, even despite the annual experiments with him on the first line early in his career (which always ended in frustration and coach's venting that the play died on his stick too often). In the OHL he would have been afforded more opportunities to grow that aspect of his game. More opportunities to learn how to establish a cycle. More opportunities to carry the puck into the zone rather than just being a hunter-killer missile on the fore check trying to blow up the opposing puck carrier. He would have been given more time on the powerplay to build his instincts there. And he would have been doing it against top pairing in the OHL, not scrubs. He fought more in the NHL playing against goons than he would have fought in the OHL playing against opposing top lines (although he and Max Domi probably would have gone once or twice). And I don't believe for a second that he would have just overpowered the likes of Aaron Ekblad, Adam Pelech, Darnell Nurse, or Nikita Zadorov - and those are the types of D he would have often been skating against.

Wilson with more time in the OHL hopefully is able to find his offensvie game in the NHL quicker (he took 6 years before he broke 20 goals for the first time, and a feat he's only accomplished 3 times in his 11 year career) and hopefully have spent a lot less time in the penalty box or suspended. He was forced to play a thug role early in his career, and his development suffered for it. He may well be a better offensive player today, or at least one who's more comfortable in terms of establishing the cycle (there's no reason he shouldn't be able to cycle along the boards as well as Joel Ward or Steve Konowalchuk), if he had spent more time in the OHL refining his offensive game.
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This is such an EA Sports way of seeing things, as I addressed above. It's not as simple as collapsing a player's potential window because it's about how the individual handles the development.

Who's to say he doesn't have to un-learn habits he picks up in the OHL to be productive in the NHL? Like... taking an extra touch too often, maybe an extra hitch in his shot to focus on picking corners, these are things you can do and get used to against lesser competition that come back to bite you in the end. I don't think there's an amount of development that was going to turn Wilson into a zone entry wizard, so why bother? Hands and skills clearly improved anyway, and you might as well get them against NHL timing.

I also think cherry picking some NHL names and saying Wilson would be not only line-matched but essentially shadowed by them to the point that he's never abusing weaker players is a little ridiculous when also posting about learning to establish a cycle (i.e. learning to identify and attack weak points in coverage, force defensive switches, etc). First, that's just not how hockey works and we know that. Second, there are other teams on other nights, it's just not always going to draw down that way.

I don't think anybody's saying that the route was the most optimized, I think this whole discussion centers around the fact that he should have been able to test the AHL earlier. But since we don't have crystal ball statistics I'm not pressed about what they did.

Like I said before, there's something to be said for coming up and showing to be pretty damn tough as a young pup for a confidence builder, and he built a good game out of "well I can push them around, so how do I use the space?"
 
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Kazer said:
It's not like he 'dominated' the OHL that year. He wasn't even the best player on his team.
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You and Hive are focusing on offensive output, and that makes plenty of sense. But the natural, physical aspect of his game had outgrown the OHL. No, he wasn't their best offensive player, but "a man among boys" doesn't even begin to describe his physical presence in that league. He was a bowling ball and everyone else was a pin. That wasn't going to be good for his development.

So yes, I agree that another year in the OHL might have balanced his game more, but he also needed to be tested physically. He's one of the rare unicorns that was really hampered by the age/league rules. The Caps clearly coveted his snarl. They were a top-heavy offensive team that lost when it mattered largely because they lacked that gear in their own end, between the blues, and on the forecheck. And Ovi being their go-to tone-setter was a potential disaster if the Russian Machine finally broke.

At that moment, the OHL and NHL were both potentially bad for Wilson's development, but the team favored the player he already was and hoped the rest of his game would mature in time. Given only two bad options, they chose the one that helped them more. Some time in the AHL would have been very fitting for him, but whatchagonnado?
 
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Kazer said:
What do I actually believe - GMGM rushed Wilson to the NHL to distract from the disastrous Erat trade (earlier the same year) and our horrendous 3rd/4th line depth entering 13-14 with the excuse of 'protecting Wilson from OHL fighting' as justification.
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Im not gonna get involved in the larger debate here, but I do wanna say this is one of those things I have no direct evidence for but that I will always believe to be true. “See, the other RW we took after Forsberg is already in the NHL! We just have so much depth at RW, and you all know how Oates is about guys playing on their strong sides, we had no room for Forsberg! Pay no attention to the fact that the Predators already brought him up for NHL games at the end of last season and Erat was an immediate bust!”
 
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Jags said:
The Caps clearly coveted his snarl.
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They coveted it for all of 7:50 a game.

I don't think there's any question that Wilson should have spent another year in the OHL. He was basically a better version of Rempe his first 4 years and may have been able to come along earlier if he'd actually been allowed to be the guy on a team. It's not like the 14 and 15 teams really needed Wilson.
 
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Hivemind said:
Since we're apparently re-litigating Wilson's development - staying in the OHL was the better move for allowing him to develop his offensive game. It took Wilson a long time to get comfortable playing with the puck on his stick in the NHL, even despite the annual experiments with him on the first line early in his career (which always ended in frustration and coach's venting that the play died on his stick too often). In the OHL he would have been afforded more opportunities to grow that aspect of his game. More opportunities to learn how to establish a cycle. More opportunities to carry the puck into the zone rather than just being a hunter-killer missile on the fore check trying to blow up the opposing puck carrier. He would have been given more time on the powerplay to build his instincts there. And he would have been doing it against top pairing in the OHL, not scrubs. He fought more in the NHL playing against goons than he would have fought in the OHL playing against opposing top lines (although he and Max Domi probably would have gone once or twice). And I don't believe for a second that he would have just overpowered the likes of Aaron Ekblad, Adam Pelech, Darnell Nurse, or Nikita Zadorov - and those are the types of D he would have often been skating against.

Wilson with more time in the OHL hopefully is able to find his offensvie game in the NHL quicker (he took 6 years before he broke 20 goals for the first time, and a feat he's only accomplished 3 times in his 11 year career) and hopefully have spent a lot less time in the penalty box or suspended. He was forced to play a thug role early in his career, and his development suffered for it. He may well be a better offensive player today, or at least one who's more comfortable in terms of establishing the cycle (there's no reason he shouldn't be able to cycle along the boards as well as Joel Ward or Steve Konowalchuk), if he had spent more time in the OHL refining his offensive game.
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I think Wilson and last year with Miro if you’re confident you’re helping the team achieve a short term goal such as a Cup or sneaking into the playoffs it’s crazy to talk about development paths or arbitration coming a year earlier. .
 
Marshall said:
The Caps seemed to have really wanted Muggli - Looks like his ELC is $940k aav. As a 2nd round pick (52oa) that strikes me as fairly high.
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I know there is generally little room in the ELCs but I've never seen any one layout when it was on the higher range.
 
https://x.com/i/web/status/1813261265059336560

Cristall but no Parascak, which is somewhat to be expected. Not much room in the top six. Even Cristall is probably not a lock. Parascak could still put himself on the map for the WJC with a strong first half and at least earn a selection camp invite. But unless there are a few shock losses to the NHL there aren't many spots up for grabs. Center looks strong. There are a lot of depth forward invites that suggest it's more the fringes that's less resolved. Either way a good showcase event for Cristall to build his case and compete.

The summer showcase between Canada, the US, Sweden and Finland starts the Sunday after next. Hutson and Kempf will join Leonard on the US squad.
 
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Colby Barlow also on the roster. But there's also McKenna potentially and perhaps Misa in the running in the fall. Hage could also work his way into the mix. I don't think it's obvious Cristall makes it. He'll have to earn it. A strong, productive camp with solid chemistry could go a long way making a statement that he's ready to be a key piece. He needs to show that IMO or else there will be alternatives.

Outside of McKenna it's Heidt and Catton that are the closest like-for-like competitors in terms of playmaking PP top six fits. He needs to beat those guys out probably because there may only be so many spots up for grabs depending on how the fourth line and extra spots are geared. Bigger, more versatile two-way forwards at least offer the capacity to play in a variety of roles. Whereas for more of a one-dimensional skilled guy there only may be a spot for one or two.

There's a lot of filler in that forward group that probably won't work their way in and are depth options at best. But there's still enough competition where I think it's pretty far from a lock. Some key losses to the NHL could change things a bit but it always tends to be tough to crack.
 
Caps have 5 players in Scott Wheeler's top 100 drafted prospects, with a 6th, Cole Huston, in the named 'final cuts'.

21: Leonard
75: Cristall
89: LaPierre
97: Miro
98: Parascak

To be eligible for inclusion, a skater must be under 23 years old and not established as a full-time NHL player with their club. The latter qualifier is the arbitrary section of the criteria. There, I trust my judgment for whether or not a rostered NHL player could still play games outside the NHL more than I trust any predetermined games-played cutoff. Preference for inclusion as an NHL prospect is more likely to be given to teenagers than 22-year-olds.
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Random schmoe said:
Caps have 5 players in Scott Wheeler's top 100 drafted prospects, with a 6th, Cole Huston, in the named 'final cuts'.

21: Leonard
75: Cristall
89: LaPierre
97: Miro
98: Parascak



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I generally never like the current draft year weighting so much higher. Perreault at 13 versus Leonard at 21? Was a really big fan of Perreault his draft year and watched 80% of the BC games this seasons (conservatively) and I would not rank him over Leonard.
 
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usiel said:
I generally never like the current draft year weighting so much higher. Perreault at 13 versus Leonard at 21? Was a really big fan of Perreault his draft year and watched 80% of the BC games this seasons (conservatively) and I would not rank him over Leonard.
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Yeah, Wheeler always ranks Leonard low and gets defensive about it, saying he loves his game when anybody questions it.
 
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I think too it's always worth keeping in mind that prospect analysts are in many ways no different than fans, they each have their own preferences for what will make "the best NHL players". Elite at one aspect vs good all around. Some think the former is better, some think the latter is.

Also, drink for 'model'.
 
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