I think that is for 2 reasons:
1. The goalies in the system are fairly strong, but none of them have elite potential. Pickard and Aitto have solid starting goalie potential and the others are NHL backup/AHL starter potential. I leave Martin out of that currently as he needs to hold his job for the full season.
2. The other prospects in the system are just better. The only argument that I see out of the players voted ahead is Hishon, and that is simply because of his injury history. If he is 100% healthy, he is the best prospect in the system not named MacKinnon.
Exactly. Well said, and I'd add a 3. To me a young goalie's prospect value is realistically lower for the same reason goalie's value drops in a draft. Because even at this point, they still need a lot of development, and it is still very hard to know where they are going to be in a few more years. So much can happen that might set them back, and as time goes on we may see that they are not on path to be as good as we hoped they might.
One of the 5 or so goalies in the system may likely end up a solid NHLer, but it is most likely that most of them will not. And if we rate 1 of them higher, and the rest lower, it is very possible we picked the wrong one anyway. Their lower value is due to the fact they are still too early in their development curve to know what they will become. Young goalies are a bit of a crapshoot.
I know some people like to rank on only potential ceiling, but I mentioned once that my ranking is based upon what order I would predict they would be picked now by the Avalanche, if they were all available in their current status. I think the list as it is so far is very close to the order they would be chosen, and in fact the list so far is exactly how my list goes, not that that means much of anything.