In their draft years I had Smith behind Michkov, Leonard and Reinbacher, what has Smith done to surpass these ? In my eyes he is still the same player. Mind you, is 13 that low ? Everyone above him was picked in the same range he was.
If I was I would've ranked Michael Hage and Owen Beck much higher, they both didn't make my top 50, they both would be very arguable top 50 prospects.
Last year Brock Faber was 41st.
The year before Sanderson was 3rd above guys like Slafkovsky, Cooley, MacTavish and Johnston.
In 2021 Stutzle was 3rd and Lafreniere 1st. Jason Robertson and Kaiden Guhle were ranked outside the top 60. Behind Ryan Merkley and Liam Foudy.
In 2020, Cale Makar was ranked behind Kappo Kaako, Cole Caufield was 23rd, behind Ty Smith, Frost, Brannstrom and Podkolzin. Nick Suzuki was 34th. Jaosn Robertson was 48th.
Want me to keep going ?
Who would you have him over ? He has a case, thats for sure. A lot of other prospects also have a case, Eiserman, Cowan, Hage, Danielson, Dvorsky, Yager, Nadeau, Beck
To me it mostly came down to Willander or him, it's tough to argue Willander has a lesser path to the NHL than ASP does, no ?
I absolutely love Geekie. He's still a project, he's a wild player and he has a lot more skills thant he other two, who to me, are incredibly flawed players. But has no dynamic skills, handles the puck in a sub-par manner and his shooting is just ... ugh. Simashev is better, he skates well and handles the puck well. His offensive zone ability isn't that of a great player though. Then there's the POs where he didn't play, you'd hope eh would be handling at least a small role.
I still believe in Geekies potential, last year he didn't look good at all, he looked timid and didn't try his wild plays he did in his draft year. This year he's been back to his regular shenanigans making high skill plays and pushign the pace. I know he's risky and he may end up a dud that never makes it, but I see an actual skilled top line C in him.
Yakemchuk was ranked right above Helenius in my draft rankings, they way over shot with him and I actually laughed pretty hard because if there was one player that needed to be carefully developped, its him, I think he busts now, but there we go, no bad faith Ill still have him there.
Where would you have him ?
Disagree on Simashev, read the answer two quotes up. Cowan I already answered too in a previous post. There's players that will be left off the list. Who would you have them over ?
Thanks for the support.
Yager projects better in a way where his game could end up being simple and low-event. Kind of like say, Carl Hagelin. Firkus's game, if it translates, has one outcome, star player. (I think Yager could end up being somethign like prime Max Pacioretty too, but for that to happen he'd have to progress his game beyond just up and down hockey. We will know more next year once he's out of the Dub, a league that actually emphasizes rush offense. )
What is the relation between Stankoven and Wright ? Yes Stankoven outproduced him in the AHL, with that said I don't think Stankoven has a greater potential. I think a lot of people get lost in production and don't actually take the time to consider things such as skillsets. I think Stankoven will struggle to play his game at the next level and he may end up being a 2nd line tweener that is, certainly very useful to a team, kind of like Ondrej Palat or Yanni Gourde, meanwhile Wright still flashes that high end potential and he certainly did so in this years playoffs.
He impressed in a league that is not the NHL. He impressed about the same as Runblad did. Of course , Im not saying he's Rundblad 2.0, I think he's a player, but just like with Stankoven, there's a time where skillset has to take over for production or lower league success. ASP needs to produce to be an effective D in the NHL, has he shown that he can be a top 20ish producer ? Mind you, I don't think he got PP time in the SHL, but he probably won't get PP time in the NHL either. Beyond the title he got, which I think is... weird ? What is his real potential ?
Why do you believe Mico should be ranked behind those ? I find he has a better skillset than Yurov. Of course theyre both better than him at the moment, but Im not sure they have a better future.
Same reason as Nadeau, Cowan, Simashev, etc. Theres a lot of good prospects out there. Brindley lacks top end potential and he certainly does not have the offensive potential of Nazar.
Nazars been injured for a whole season, one would think it's normal he took a step back. Brindley also played like 1 game away from McGro and Nazar, while Nazar got a bit of the Draisaitl treatment and played a bunch of games on the 2nd line. I'll also put forward that Brindleys game is a lot tougher to translate as a very small body than Nazars.
I do agree Brindley is a player, I like him a lot.
See up.
Stars are probably the best team at drafting.
Thats harsh on the Kraken, especially as they picked twice in the top 6 in the past two seasons.
Roy was the Habs 3rd best forward the moment he hit the ice for us, I know it's hard to believe we actually have a good one in a sea of terrible forwards we've had in the past 6 decades, but this one is good, his skating deficiencies are way overstated.
That's true, but they have been shipping out talent at an astronomical rate and their scouting mainly sucked at finding forwards. They blew a tire with the Zegras selection when Boldy was right there.
Nadeau was good and I debated him a long while over Perrault. I don't agree that Nazar shouldn't be over Perrault, there's a whole lot more translatable game in Nazar than Perrault, even if I recognize that Nazar hasn't been the best in the NCAA.
If I was such a homer, surely I would've found a way to fit in a guy picked in the 20s this year and two guys picked in the late first two years ago in the top 50, no ?
Sounds stupid, but the pro games he played alleviated a lot of the worries I had. Just seeing him outskate players, duck over much bigger ones and seeing him absolutely dominate the offensive zone for two games let me breathe a little. I also have seen Hutson's skating sky-rocket in term of speed, pivot and balance from D year to D+2. I was watching him this year in the NCAA and I kept telling myself :"Did he just get really fast or is that me dreaming?" Seeing him do it in the NHL put out a whole different perspective.
Anyway, it's mostly about the skating, it would be pretty disingenuous to act like Hutson is the exact same player because his stats didn't move.
If I was such a homer, why didn't I include Hage, Beck, Engstrom, Mailloux and Mesar ? Surely I could've found a way to argue it.
Roy went up and never looked back. He only slowed down because of injuries. Also, Roy was over a PPG for 25+ games before they completely decimated the roster by calling up Armia, Stephens, Condotta, Xhekaj, Struble and with injuries to Andersson, Simoneau, Heineman, etc. The roster was completely diminished and they spent the year mostly defending. He came up with the Habs anyway and was instantly the 3rd best forward behind Slaf and Nick, and he produced at a very good rate despite not getting PP time and playing with Anderson, Armia and Newhook (Whos good). His PP time consisted of plying with Gallagher, RHP, Ylonen, Armia and Anderson. His 2nd assists, PDO, shooting % were all below average too, which indicates it was not lead by luck.
From the games Ive seen, Coronato has spent most of his time with Kadri, Backlund and Coleman. Why did Roy severely outproduce him ?
You can laugh at the Habs and how bad they were, and probably still will be, but it's not all bad every where.
