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Rangers Prospect Poll (Summer 2018): #30 Prospect

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#30 Prospect

  • Total voters
    56
  • Poll closed .
What Door said:
It's all about how you value a player's upside versus floor.

To me, the chance of O'Gara playing meaningful minutes for the team, even as a 7th D, puts him ahead of the long-term potential of Gropp.

Some posters rank purely on potential and being "right" about a player in the long run. I tend to rank long-term prospects lower and let them creep up these rankings as they prove more.

To me, Gropp didn't prove much last season. With that being said, he could easily move up if he shows significant improvement this season. I tend to look for progression in a prospect. Gropp's numbers had been progressing in the WHL. Some of that needs to be tempered by the fact that he was getting older and stronger in relation to his competition. If he does significantly better this season, he'll definitely jump up in my rankings.

It's part of the reason why Fogarty completely dropped off the board for me. He was progressing every season in college, and I had him in the low teens on our board. I always felt he played a very pro-style game and that if he could keep making incremental progress, he would be a good fit on the 4th line. But, he utterly stagnated last season. At 25, his development is pretty much done and he's still not a NHLer.

O'Gara, on the other hand, had not looked out of place after a rough couple games adjusting to our moronic man D system. He's never going to be more than a bottom pairing guy, but those guys do still have value. I don't think ranking him 30th is too high.

Edit: And honestly, I think pretty much every player with NHL minutes should probably be ranked a little higher than they are. Pretty sure I have Nieves, Gilmour, and O'Gara higher than this poll is going to indicate. Another player who I think is ranked way too low is Bigras. But that is just my personal opinion.
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I agree with this in general, but I think that upside / floor should be valued relative to NHL replacement value, instead of just making the NHL.

For example, @NYR Viper cited Kampfer as an example of O'Gara's upside, but we picked up Kampfer after he went on waivers and every single team in the NHL passed on him. What's the value in a guy like O'Gara if the best case outcome for him is that he's the same as some guy we can pick up off of waivers for nothing? Similarly, how much higher is Nieves's upside than guys like Dom Moore, Matt Stajan, or Derek Grant who are still free agents? We could sign any of those guys for the league minimum without giving up a thing. I just don't see value in prospects whose upside isn't higher than league replacement value. If we didn't have that player, we could just pick up whoever is on the scrap heap at the time and we would be just as good.

When I think about it that way, it seems to me like upside and floor really only matter to the extent they are above NHL replacement value. So that's why I end up preferring guys like Sjalin or Gropp, who have upside above NHL replacement value, over guys like Nieves and O'Gara, who are much more likely to play in the NHL but far less likely to improve your team relative to the guys on the scrap heap.
 
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nyr2k2 said:
A lot of it is regarding playing with Barzal. There were times where he played away from Barzal and did okay. Then there were other times where he played away from Barzal and was completely invisible. IIRC, Gropp's final WHL season, Barzal got hurt in the winter, and for close to a month Gropp was worthless. Then Barzal came back and they played together primarily, and Gropp's season went from terrible to respectable as he caught fire.

Then there's the fact that a lot of people here wanted guys like Sprong, Rasmus Andersson and Bracco before the draft and definitely at that pick. Now, none of those guys have established themselves as NHL players, but they've all done more to impress than Gropp so far (maybe not Bracco, I think he's pretty meh). But, as we know, when the board latches onto a guy or guys and they're not picked, if the guy we did pick isn't as good the pitchforks come out--as if the team has never made a better pick than what the board wanted, but whatever.

I think the idea persists that he'll only be able to score with a really good center. That might be true. It might not; he could develop a better game away from the puck and turn into something more. I just think that regardless of all those other things, he still has the skills to warrant a spot here. And, he's still young. 22 for the season. He could spend another couple years developing and then make it at 24 and it would be pretty normal.
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Personally, I think the Barzal thing is a bit misleading and was even commented on by a poster or two who focuse on Seattle.

Over a four year span, Barzal played in 202 out of a possible 288 games with Seattle. Some of it was because of injuries, some of it was international play, etc. etc. But the fact remains that Seattle played roughly 30 percent of their games without him, or roughly the equivalent of a shade under 1.25 seasons.

That's a lot of hockey.

Unfortunately, without Barzal, Seattle's depth, particularly at center, was pretty thin.

Aside from the misconception that Barzal and Gropp were joined at the hip when Barzal was in the lineup (they weren't), I don't know if the board has ever fully understood what Gropp did (or didn't) have to work with in that lineup. Not that any of that changes what he needed to work on, but I never quite felt there was a levity there.

Factor in the board preferences that you mentioned, and the fact that he was included in a trade that didn't work out for the Rangers and saw a pretty popular player traded, and there's definitely a recipe for a scenario in which everything this kid's done, or hasn't done, is magnified.

None of that takes away from his disappointing rookie season, but I don't know if it was quite as bad as it's been made out to be either. And that's probably the bigger issue with Gropp --- there's always a bit of an undercurrent of borderline rooting against his success. Unfortunately, that's not exactly unheard of around here.
 
IDK about Gross. There are literally dozens of guys in each draft that were "once considered" first round talents that end up slipping to later rounds because they're not actually that good. I'm not saying Gross isn't actually a good player--he could be. I just feel like sometimes people place too much emphasis on old scouting reports. I guess 30 is reasonable for him, though, considering where he was just picked.
 
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nyr2k2 said:
IDK about Gross. There are literally dozens of guys in each draft that were "once considered" first round talents that end up slipping to later rounds because they're not actually that good. I'm not saying Gross isn't actually a good player--he could be. I just feel like sometimes people place too much emphasis on old scouting reports. I guess 30 is reasonable for him, though, considering where he was just picked.
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I think that's part of what I try to keep in mind, when we get to the 21-30 slots, you're going to have a lot more questions than you do answers.

Gross is an excellent skater, and there are flashes of more, but the end result is often a whole lot of nothing --- especially against tougher competition.

Frankly, he just hasn't impressed in extending viewings against non-Swiss competition.
 
nyr2k2 said:
IDK about Gross. There are literally dozens of guys in each draft that were "once considered" first round talents that end up slipping to later rounds because they're not actually that good. I'm not saying Gross isn't actually a good player--he could be. I just feel like sometimes people place too much emphasis on old scouting reports. I guess 30 is reasonable for him, though, considering where he was just picked.
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Yeah, the thing that is weird to me about Gross is that his OHL season was so bad. If he was a legitimate NHL prospect who was adjusting to a new country and a smaller rink, I would understand some growing pains, but I would still expect him to have enough talent to at least perform decently against junior players. The fact that his advanced stats and scoring rate place him well below-average in a junior league is tough for me to reconcile with the idea that he is a legitimate NHL prospect. I hope I'm missing something, but that pick doesn't make sense to me. Personally, I would have Hughes above Gross out of this year's draft picks.
 
It's like when Bernhardt sucked up and down the Swedish leagues and came over to London or wherever. I remember it vivdly. He had three assists his first game then basically did dick. That showed me he wasn't a prospect. Even with the adjustment period factored in his production was garbage for his age and experience.
 
O'Gara is a big guy but he skates very well. He is not physical and he's not going to put up or create much as far as offense. He's just that softie kind of stay at home D the Rangers have always been kind of fond of who FWIW grew up an Islanders fan. That said---after a really, really rocky start after the deadline with us he did get better--he did settle in. There's a chance--though I think it's a long shot that he'll start the season with the Rangers. So I can absolutely see him as a 30th best prospect and the issue here I think with him more than any other thing is the bad first impression he made. I can kind of hold the Islanders fandom thing against him but apart from that there's no big reason to hate on him. He's definitely not part of any going forward solution but he might be good enough for our next step back to respectability.

I wouldn't mind us making his dream come true and trade him to the Islanders but if that happens I'd want a 3rd or 4th back for him.
 
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