In trade threads we argue who is blue Chip, who is an A level propsect and who is a B level etc.
In My Mind a prospect ranked league wide
1-15 is blue Chip
15-40 is A
40-100 is b
So this breaks down to on average half the teams in the league have a blue chipper, if distribution was perfect almost every team would have a grade A prospect and on average every team has about 2 b prospects. Beyond that prospects don't hold a ton of value.
I also think it varies on when you rank. Mid-year there are less blue chips in teams system, as a lot of the blue-chips are quickly graduated. For example, look at how you would have ranked players entering the 2016/17 season (Matthews, Laine, Puljujarvi, Marner, Strome, Nylander, etc).
I'll use the draft as a cut-off point, because values can dramatically change after a full season and I'll just use top 5 picks I'm familiar with and there value around the time of the draft.
I'd consider A+ or blue-chip guys players that are almost locks to be impact NHLers or very close. See McDavid, Crosby, Matthews, Eichel, Tavares, Stamkos, Eichel, Malkin, Hedman, Dahlin and Ovechkin for guys who have entered the league since the full-season lockout. Those would be the only guys I would give that grade 100% to. Maybe in interest sake they should be A++ as they aren't in every draft
Then below that, there is the High-end prospects who have risk but are still likely to be impact NHLers such as Kane, Doughty, Bogosian, Hall, Seguin, Laine, Puljujarvi, J. Staal, Duchene, Toews, Backstrom, Kessel, Marner, Mackinnon, Barkov, Jones, Drouin, Ekblad, D. Strome, and Hanifin. These would be A+, and guys capable of competing for 1 in a year without an A++ guy.
Then you got slightly below that which is made up of Yakupov, Galchenyuk, Hischier, Patrick, Pietrangelo, Monahan, Bennett, Reinhart, R. Strome, Huberdeau, PLD, Tkachuk, E. Lindholm, Draisaitl, RNH, Landeskog, R. Murray, B. Schenn, RyJo, E. Kane, JVR, Turris, Bobby Ryan, Jack Johnson, and Larsson. These would be the A's.
Bottom grouping would probably consist of Rielly (injury ruined season and didn't have a D-1 to the extent of Galy), L. Schenn (very limited offensive upside), G. Reinhart (very boom bust), Gudbranson (similar concerns as Schenn), Heiskanen, Makar, Pettersson, Dal Colle, Niedereiter, Hickey (he'd probably be lower as he was a big reach), Pouliot, and Alzner etc. These would be the A- or B+'s.
Some guys will exceed these expectations, for example Rielly has been better than a fair amount of defenders a tier above him, Doughty, Seguin, Toews, Backstrom, and even Laine are probably tier one guys in retrospect. Barkov and Mackinnon are damn close. Its obviously a very grey cut-off point between superstar players and star players, which is basically the distinction between the two groupings. Hischier currently looks to have more value than quite a few guys a tier above him (notably Strome, and Drouin of recently drafted guys). Pettersson has clearly moved up in a fair amount of peoples minds. With his strongest supported probably saying he belongs with the A+ guys (I'm not there yet).
Overall, I don't think they can be sorted by a pre-determined numbers. Someone either is or isn't in your opinion. Its like NHL teams generally only think there are 100 or so guys worth drafting and ranking. Past that its pointless. They just rank the guys they have enough viewings of (20 or so) and once they run out of guys who.
Using the Leafs right now, I'd say we have three B to B+ guys in Liljegren, Dermott and Kapanen, when you factor in risk, upside and how ready they are. That probably the equivlant value for a 10 to 20th overall pick. I can see the argument for all of them being B- which is probably a 15 to 30th overall pick. C+ I'd consider guys worth 30 to 45th or so, C is probably would something like 46 to 75, and C- is a 76 to 120 or so in regards to draft pick value.
I'd probably prefer to use the 20-80 grading scale used by MLB scouts over the letter grade one's though.
