I don't either, I said did say some Blues fans. Thomas is a legit prospect, someone I was hoping would fall to 25 for the Habs at that draft.
On the topic of prospect value, now that I'm older I just assume most fans who overrate or over-expect on their favorite teams prospects, for lack of a better term, are just young, and have hardly lived through a few prospect cycles of seeing players not materialize and bust. Hell, when I was younger I was thinking Hainsey, Komisarek and Markov would be the Habs new "Big 3", that's so ridiculous. So I do take fans' value on here with a grain of salt, but it is still fun to discuss and speculate.
And I appreciate your scouting reports here too!
Other teams fan base throw ours under the bus on these boards. It's a trend. A lot of people just want to made a trade where they are the winners outright and don't work at trying to stay respectful and engaging at trying to meet each others needs.
Blues fans ignored Patch's value and didn't acknowledge that we respected they had Thomas as a keeper. They further went at trolling attempts saying we would not get Thomas value and therefore, we should trade Patch for cheap. Ridiculous trade negotiation strategy. It's counter productive but it's HF boards and part of the culture.
No doubt about it... fans jump on board with hope in prospects reaching their ceiling. We all fall in this trap from time to time. My focus in the last 2 or 3 years was evaluating probability of hitting with elite level or top of the line-up talent and how this is tied to where you pick and the quantity of picks you have. My homework told me Probability was working in our favor and I got attacked for it. The group of prospects in 2012 are not the same as what we have today. Yeah, we will have busts but the quantity of prospects and quality of prospects we have is top of the league. We have both working in our favor and in 2012, we lacked quantity. Bergevin miscalculated this IMO and I think he has learned from it. Takes time.
Evaluating prospects:
1) Look at their draft plus development years prior to turning pro (NHL/AHL). Are they world junior candidates? Did they perform well when the faced the best 18 and 19 year olds in the world. This is a great measuring stick. How is their play on the ice look in the leagues they plan in and how are they gaining momentum? Take Beaulieu for example, he did not look good in the world juniors if you ask me and he played on a stacked Saint John team. The strengths to this game was not being reliable but he had the tools. McCarron for example had a decent CHL career but lacked foot speed where the US didn't even consider him for their U20 roster. That was a concern of mine back when but I ignored it. I turned to hope and that usually don't work out well.
2) Look at how their game translate once they turn pro and the depth around them. This reveals a lot. Less time and space and a more physical game affects many prospects by a wide margin. And if the depth around them is not great, this might hold them back from showing their true potential. If the depth around them is poor and they still perform... you got a potential elite level talent. Take Kotkaniemi for example, I bet his stats are much better if he played with better wingers who know how to score and make plays with him. It's impressive he is showing ability to play a trusted 200' game by our coach so early at age 18. Lets see how hungry he is to keep improving and who his wingers end up being.