I think there's a question of whether or not you value a player relative to a guy like Colin Blackwell, Kevin Rooney, or Dryden Hunt, who you can sign for the league minimum, or whether you value them relative to nothing at all. Because for some of the "high floor" / low ceiling guys whose upside is probably similar to Colin Blackwell, Dryden Hunt, or Kevin Rooney, if you compare them to signing one of those guys for the league minimum, they probably don't have much value at all, while the boom / bust guys have some value tied to the possiblity of being worth more, and even if there's a significant chance they end up not even making it, you can just sign the Kevin Rooney type in that case and there's not much downside.
I tend to fall into the camp of comparing players to signing a Colin Blackwell type, which biases me towards the younger, higher upside guys, but it's admittedly more complex than that. All checking line guys aren't created equal and sometimes your GM ends up signing Barclay Goodrow for $20 M. Still, the elite checking guys like Goodrow or Fast who really add value tend to be pretty high scorers below the NHL level. I think it is easy to underestimate how good a player needs to be at the lower levels to turn into one of those guys in the NHL.
I tend to fall into the camp of comparing players to signing a Colin Blackwell type, which biases me towards the younger, higher upside guys, but it's admittedly more complex than that. All checking line guys aren't created equal and sometimes your GM ends up signing Barclay Goodrow for $20 M. Still, the elite checking guys like Goodrow or Fast who really add value tend to be pretty high scorers below the NHL level. I think it is easy to underestimate how good a player needs to be at the lower levels to turn into one of those guys in the NHL.
