Prospect Info: Pittsburgh Penguins Prospects Thread: 2023-2024 Edition

[CheckingLineCenter]

Yager is a ‘05. So equivalent to him in NHL last year is a 2004.

7 2004s played 30+ games. All top 10 picks except for Poitras, who was kinda meh and only played 33 games.

It’s so off base to say this kid needs to be in the NHL or that it’s a waste for him to play in the CHL. He had a good year but it wasn’t insane or anything.

Edit: the year before… just four 2003s played 30+ games.

 

[Ryder71]

Yager is a ‘05. So equivalent to him in NHL last year is a 2004.

7 2004s played 30+ games. All top 10 picks except for Poitras, who was kinda meh and only played 33 games.

It’s so off base to say this kid needs to be in the NHL or that it’s a waste for him to play in the CHL. He had a good year but it wasn’t insane or anything.

I'd give him another year in the whl myself.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Yeah I agree. I think the ideal situation for him is likely the AHL. But I don't think that he's an obvious case of not having anything left to learn in juniors. Be the best player on your team... ratchet up that offensive game to downright dominant levels. Gain that extra level of confidence by doing so. There are absolutely still things he can work on at that level.

Yeah looking at how insanely good Moose Jaw was last year made me immediately realize what kind of value Yager could gain from being the "primary" guy on his team.

That Moose Jaw team had 3 mid to high 1st rounders between Yager, Savoie and Mateychuk along with a top performing 2nd rounder in Firkus. They also had a couple of other drafted guys that they acquired. Yager's case was absolutely not "carrying his team and putting up great numbers" or "putting up league dominating numbers", which should be the barometer for whether a player has outgrown juniors IMO.

Yager definitely had a great draft+1 year, especially with how he performed at the WJC. But the kind of performance that suggests "this guy is too good for juniors" is like what Sprong did in juniors in his last year in juniors (32 goals and 59 points in 31 games), and I don't think there is any way that Yager matches that.

 

[deakka]

How bad will they be tho?
It's different being "the guy" with some help and TRYING to be "the guy" but only playing with scrubs so he might develop habits of being selfish (cause no help). And maybe point totals drop and his confidence gets destroyed etc.

 

[Jag68Sid87]

Yager was the No. 1 center on the league champs. Matt Savoie is a hell of a prospect, and a year older than Yager. And it was Savoie who played LW when they loaded up the line of Yager and Firkus.

That is good enough for me.

 

[Turin]

Is there any actual data on playing too long in junior having negative effects on prospects?

 

[chethejet]

Yager actually will benefit from gaining strength and maturity for next year.

 

[Tom Hanks]

Is there any actual data on playing too long in junior having negative effects on prospects?

 

[The Old Master]

Yeah looking at how insanely good Moose Jaw was last year made me immediately realize what kind of value Yager could gain from being the "primary" guy on his team.

not going to happen. between playing in the worlds and being traded he wont be spending much time on his old team. imo

 

[Hockeyville USA]

Is there any actual data on playing too long in junior having negative effects on prospects?

The only one who I can think of who fell off a cliff because they were in junior too long was Michael Dal Colle (but there were a variety of reasons why he failed). You'd rather give Yager the Claude Giroux treatment (back to junior for his 19 year old season) instead of the James Sheppard treatment (force him into the NHL in his 19 year old season because "he's too good for junior" and bury him on the 4th line for 9 minutes a night because Lemaire is a stubborn old f***).

Guess who properly developed into a stud and who busted (relative to draft slot and expectations).

 

[Turin]

The only one who I can think of who fell off a cliff because they were in junior too long was Michael Dal Colle (but there were a variety of reasons why he failed). You'd rather give Yager the Claude Giroux treatment (back to junior for his 19 year old season) instead of the James Sheppard treatment (force him into the NHL in his 19 year old season because "he's too good for junior" and bury him on the 4th line for 9 minutes a night because Lemaire is a stubborn old f***).

Guess who properly developed into a stud and who busted (relative to draft slot and expectations).

Yea it seems to me that rushing them has way more examples of being detrimental than sending them back.

Why did Dal Colle bust anyway? His last junior season was pretty bad but then he played in the AHL for a couple years and wasn't very good there either.

 

[Hockeyville USA]

Yea it seems to me that rushing them has way more examples of being detrimental than sending them back.

Why did Dal Colle bust anyway? His last junior season was pretty bad but then he played in the AHL for a couple years and wasn't very good there either.

Why did Michael Dal Colle Bust?

He had the GTHL pedigree then the OHL, got drafted fifth overall. Based on his Games Played per year, he didn't seem to have any really bad injury. His size and stick-handling made him seem like a very easy second line center at worst with potential to be an Eric Staal/Ryan Getzlaf. How did a...

forums.hfboards.com

I wasn't into hockey that much at the time, but everyone in the linked thread points to the fact that he simply didn't improve his weak points (poor skating, pace, lack of physicality) post draft.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Taking out the discussion of whether he should go back to the WHL (I think he has more to prove), I think I actually came up with an explanation for why that first year wouldn't be considered a full season. Yager did play in 24 of 24 games that year, but Moose Jaw's first game that year was on March 12th in 2021. Yager was already 16 at that point. The reason I don't think the WHL would allow that to be extrapolated to a full season is because Yager wasn't granted exceptional status in that year, meaning he wouldn't have been allowed to play as a 15 year old.

I think Yager's situation is more akin to the 16 year old prospects who get in a couple of games at the end of a season in juniors, which never count as a full season in the WHL. However, since Yager turned 16 in January of that year and games didn't start until March, he was just able to play in all 24 games. If you look at 1st rounders in the WHL, it's fairly common to find guys who got cups of coffee at the end of their junior seasons as a 16 year old. Looking at the 2020 draft, all of Quinn (8 games in 2017-2018), Guhle (8 games in 2017-2018), Jarvis (11 games in 2017-2018) and Neighbors (11 games in 2017-2018) all got these few games as 16 year old players in the CHL. Yager just played in more because the WHL had a bunch of games late in that year due to COVID.

That's why the Wright situation isn't applicable to Yager, Wright was granted exceptional status and was eligible to accrue that full year at age 15. If Yager was born in December instead of January, he would have been viewed as 16 in that first WHL year (since age seems to be determined based on age on December 31st) so he would have accrued a full season for that year.

 

[Turin]

Why did Michael Dal Colle Bust?

He had the GTHL pedigree then the OHL, got drafted fifth overall. Based on his Games Played per year, he didn't seem to have any really bad injury. His size and stick-handling made him seem like a very easy second line center at worst with potential to be an Eric Staal/Ryan Getzlaf. How did a...

forums.hfboards.com

I wasn't into hockey that much at the time, but everyone in the linked thread points to the fact that he simply didn't improve his weak points (poor skating, pace, lack of physicality) post draft.

Thanks for the link.

Damn the 2014 draft class turned out to be really good, besides him.

 

[Gurglesons]

Also the Islanders have been pretty awful at prospect development.

 

[Darren McCord]

Thanks for the link.

Damn the 2014 draft class turned out to be really good, besides him.

Meh seems kinda mid besides drai, pasta, Willy, point and Reinhart

Defensemen were awful in the draft. Pets might be in the top 5

 

[Turin]

Meh seems kinda mid besides drai, pasta, Willy, point and Reinhart

Defensemen were awful in the draft. Pets might be in the top 5

Weak on defense for sure but not fwds: Draisaitl, Pastrnak, Nylander, Point, Larkin, Ehlers, Reinhart, Bennett, Fiala, Tuch, McCann, Kempe, Barbashev, Arvidsson, Bunting, Kase then some players like Heinen, Dvorak, Lafferty, Kapanen etc.

Goalies: Sheshterkin, Sorokin, Demko, Nedjelkovic, Husso

Dmen: Ekblad, Montour, Forsling (lol Florida), Pettersson, Walman

 

[CheckingLineCenter]

It’s crazy Sam Bennett doesn’t even have 300 points. What a waste of his talent in Calgary

 

[Turin]

It’s crazy Sam Bennett doesn’t even have 300 points. What a waste of his talent in Calgary

Aint no franchise fumble the bag as hard as Calgary.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

What’s hilarious is Colby was pretty chubby post career (until recently)

Chubby is being nice. Colby is a fat ass.

The only one who I can think of who fell off a cliff because they were in junior too long was Michael Dal Colle (but there were a variety of reasons why he failed). You'd rather give Yager the Claude Giroux treatment (back to junior for his 19 year old season) instead of the James Sheppard treatment (force him into the NHL in his 19 year old season because "he's too good for junior" and bury him on the 4th line for 9 minutes a night because Lemaire is a stubborn old f***).

Guess who properly developed into a stud and who busted (relative to draft slot and expectations).

Wow Sheppard. Now there's a failed prospect.

 

[MeinerEiner]

Interesting, so apparently they aren't going to ask about the AHL and the CHL seasons exemption?

Wonder if that's why he hasn't been signed yet? Save that year on the ELC. If he's truly going, I'd still rather him great a game or two in the NHL. Even if it's just pre-season.

I think they haven’t signed him yet because they’re at 49 contracts right now and don’t want to close the door on another Hayes kinda trade.

 

[cygnus47]

It’s crazy Sam Bennett doesn’t even have 300 points. What a waste of his talent in Calgary

I was surprised to see, but his top season was 28 goals and 49 points. He's a little bit better in the playoffs but he's a heart and soul guy, not a lone threat. I thought he had a massive season along the way there somewhere...

 

[DrDangles]

I'm assuming Yager needs to sign an ELC to be eligible to stay on the roster for 9 games before going back to MJ?

 

[cygnus47]

Pens still have about 3 too many bottom 6ers under contract earning well over minimum. The way Sully assesses guys, we're looking at no Poulin or St Ivany to start and Puustinen getting waived.

Maybe we can get some assets around the deadline, but that's a long time to hold on to 3-4M in wasted space while holding back chances for young guys to make an impact.

Conversely, WBS may have a pretty exciting year with a couple actual prospects on the roster.

 

[Randy Butternubs]

Alright, I've updated my spreadsheet. There are 32 (or 33 if you include Hallander... 34 if you want to include St. Ivany) Penguins prospects as defined by my rules. Starting at the bottom of the list:

[table deleted]

I will post more rankings and info throughout the month.

edit:

I had a goof on Lucius's rating. Updated ratings for 32 to 21:

[TABLE=collapse]
[TR]
[TD]

32​

[/TD]

[TD]frasca j[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]

31​

[/TD]

[TD]kangas k[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]

30​

[/TD]

[TD]laatsch d[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]

29​

[/TD]

[TD]devlin l[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]

28​

[/TD]

[TD]yoder c[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]

27​

[/TD]

[TD]ansons r[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]

26​

[/TD]

[TD]harding f[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]

25​

[/TD]

[TD]pietila c[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]

24​

[/TD]

[TD]vaisanen j[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]

23​

[/TD]

[TD]foster c[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]

22​

[/TD]

[TD]lucius c[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]

21​

[/TD]

[TD]belliveau i[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

Quoting my previous post on rankings since I messed up and had to update it.

Annnnd here is 20 to 11:

20​	tankov k
19​	broz t
18​	ludvig j
17​	brunicke h
16​	kral f
15​	gruden j
14​	jarventie e
13​	plante z
12​	swanson m
11​	gauthier t