Prospect Info: Rangers Prospect Thread (Player Stats/Info in Post #1; Updated 9.1.19)

[Joey Bones]

Yeah fans think they want it,
but the teams and league arent particularly invented or interested to,
and, as stated above, its a weak experience, no announcers, one center ice camera.

To call it a tournament is to flatter it. It's a series of 4 officiated scrimmages. Value is for coaches to preview players, and to have the kids closer to game ready for camp.

I appreciate Joey B here at HFB, but "MSG would be stupid not to" reflects only fan thinking, it's disconnected from what TC is and why they run it ...

It's actually a great way to get the fans interested after a long summer and two seasons of rebuilding. NY is a big market with fans coming and going depending their outlook. Seeing NYR has primarily the No. 1 prospect pool in the league (with most of those prospects mostly playing in this tournament), it would make sense for MSG to partner with Traverse City to get more views and bring in revenue for the network. As someone who has worked in film and media, you go through whatever plans necessary to make the content happen.

With that said, it can be treated the other way around. If it costs more money to go to Traverse City, set up shop and not meet a specific quota, it'll reflect negatively for the season's production. So ultimately if MSG were to indeed make the move and televise Traverse City, the fans need to watch the tournament.

 

[Unusual Suspect]

If they care to send a couple broadcasters, I'll cover half their bar bill.

It HAS been a challenge to watch with limited camera deployment and angles, zero graphics and no announcers. But if the Rangers have been at all queasy about fan patience with a rebuild in the NYC market, THIS would be the moment to spend a few bucks, double down on publicity and gin up enthusiasm for the best set of prospects perhaps in team history.

 

[Fitzy]

The evidence is not highly in favor of TC being a good predictor of NHL success among prospects.

 

[ColonialsHockey10]

I feel the opposite and argue about it every year.

It does have importance. It's the first time the team has seen these guys since PDC. It helps to make a positive impression as these guys are receiving preliminary evaluations heading into camp. Obviously you want to get off to a positive start. If you were told in PDC to work on something, you want to show you did that. You don't want to come in out of shape. Etc.

The games are much like any short tournament--sloppy and lacking in general team chemistry, as most guys haven't played together before. There are a bunch of invites that probably won't play pro hockey. There are a bunch of guys that are ECHL/AHL tweeners. Then there are your real prospects. The play is uneven as the quality is uneven.

Again though, players obviously want to show well and it may give them a leg up going into camp, or conversely, put them in a tough position going into camp.

But that's just it--camp. Camp and the preseason schedule are where guys really establish their place. In camp and preseason, you're getting reps mainly against other actual NHL players, fringe players, and good prospects. There are some chuds in there, but generally the level of competition is so much higher than Traverse. Like, if you're having a great camp and preseason, that will determine your assignment and your role, even if you had a bad Traverse. And on the flip side, no one will care if you had a great Traverse if you're having a bad camp and can't even work your way into a preseason game.

So I do think Traverse is important, to a degree, but I think it's over-emphasized rather than under-emphasized. People react to player performances in Traverse like they are the single defining factor for the player's upcoming assignment, when really, it's the stuff that comes after that's most important there.

Camp is definitely more important. I certainly would never use a player’s TC performance as the sole metric in evaluating where they will be placed - I hope people aren’t doing that. I also don’t see why we’re comparing it to camp though, one is a prospects tournament and the other has many NHL players. Of course the level of competition in the latter is better!

I don’t think that takes away from the quality of play at all though. All the things you described - sloppy, uneven, disorganized, can be said about any hockey tournament. Did you catch the World Championships? It can even be said about the preseason and training camp.

Every year we expect guys like Ty Ronning to come into TC and tear it up, and they are basically invisible because we underestimate the quality he’s going up against. Those AHL tweeners you mention might not be as skilled, and they’re not making the team, but they’re more developed hockey players than anything Ty Ronning has gone up against. And each year this shows - wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest to see a guy like Matthew Robertson struggle big time this year at TC.

The teams involved clearly don’t intend for this to be a big event. It’s at a small rink that’s not conducive to filming, and they don’t invest in advertising, announcers, etc. I don’t think that has any impact on the level of play that takes place though. I feel some people (not necessarily you) mix these two things up and they get interpreted as the same thing.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

IIRC the setup and infrastructure of the arena make it difficult to stream or broadcast. When it was shown previously I don't recall it being particularly fun to view.

Agreed, it was terribly difficult to see who is who unless you zero in on a player and try not to lose track of him while he's on the ice.

 

[nyr2k2]

Camp is definitely more important. I certainly would never use a player’s TC performance as the sole metric in evaluating where they will be placed - I hope people aren’t doing that. I also don’t see why we’re comparing it to camp though, one is a prospects tournament and the other has many NHL players. Of course the level of competition in the latter is better!

I don’t think that takes away from the quality of play at all though. All the things you described - sloppy, uneven, disorganized, can be said about any hockey tournament. Did you catch the World Championships? It can even be said about the preseason and training camp.

Every year we expect guys like Ty Ronning to come into TC and tear it up, and they are basically invisible because we underestimate the quality he’s going up against. Those AHL tweeners you mention might not be as skilled, and they’re not making the team, but they’re more developed hockey players than anything Ty Ronning has gone up against. And each year this shows - wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest to see a guy like Matthew Robertson struggle big time this year at TC.

The teams involved clearly don’t intend for this to be a big event. It’s at a small rink that’s not conducive to filming, and they don’t invest in advertising, announcers, etc. I don’t think that has any impact on the level of play that takes place though. I feel some people (not necessarily you) mix these two things up and they get interpreted as the same thing.

Yeah I mean all short tournaments are pretty sloppy. I just think it's more so here, given the level of the players playing (obviously some are very skilled professionals, though many others are not). And that's fine--as long as people are aware that it's tough to coalesce as a team in such a short time, and not read too much into things.

 

[egelband]

Camp is definitely more important. I certainly would never use a player’s TC performance as the sole metric in evaluating where they will be placed - I hope people aren’t doing that. I also don’t see why we’re comparing it to camp though, one is a prospects tournament and the other has many NHL players. Of course the level of competition in the latter is better!

I don’t think that takes away from the quality of play at all though. All the things you described - sloppy, uneven, disorganized, can be said about any hockey tournament. Did you catch the World Championships? It can even be said about the preseason and training camp.

Every year we expect guys like Ty Ronning to come into TC and tear it up, and they are basically invisible because we underestimate the quality he’s going up against. Those AHL tweeners you mention might not be as skilled, and they’re not making the team, but they’re more developed hockey players than anything Ty Ronning has gone up against. And each year this shows - wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest to see a guy like Matthew Robertson struggle big time this year at TC.

The teams involved clearly don’t intend for this to be a big event. It’s at a small rink that’s not conducive to filming, and they don’t invest in advertising, announcers, etc. I don’t think that has any impact on the level of play that takes place though. I feel some people (not necessarily you) mix these two things up and they get interpreted as the same thing.

This sounds right to me. I'd add that maybe part of the venue choice is that the teams don't *want* lots of attention and pressure on the young players.

 

[RangerBoy]

 

[Amazing Kreiderman]

Lundkvist ahead of Fox and Miller there

 

[HatTrick Swayze]

Every time I want to get super into analytics I see something like a top-20/40 prospect list that unironically doesn't have Jack Hughes and just go...nah

 

[AntNYR]

Every time I want to get super into analytics I see something like a top-20/40 prospect list that unironically doesn't have Jack Hughes and just go...nah

I've got masters in statistics but I just can't fully dive into hockey analytics. There are definately some smart folks out there trying to push the science, but majority of the discussions seem to be by idiots who have, at best, taken stat101 and now think they're experts on statistical analysis. There's more to statistics than a low p-value or a high R2 people.

As for that twitter chart, it can be difficult to build a good model and clearly there's something wrong with this one. Maybe it put's too much weight on playing against adults, since it doesn't seem to have many junior players with high avg ratings.

 

[UnSandvich]

Every time I want to get super into analytics I see something like a top-20/40 prospect list that unironically doesn't have Jack Hughes and just go...nah

That was answered later on. Per Tierney, it included an adjustor for League Strength, and the model is not high on the US NTDP.

 

[UnSandvich]

As a follow up:

 

[JohnC]

Traverse City always seemed like nothing more than a dick measuring competition to me.

 

[GeorgeKaplan]

Every time I want to get super into analytics I see something like a top-20/40 prospect list that unironically doesn't have Jack Hughes and just go...nah

I have a hard time with a decent amount of advanced stats dealing with prospects because advanced stats deal in the 'right now' and when you're looking at prospects you really need to factor in projections for the future

 

[Ola]

Traverse City always seemed like nothing more than a dick measuring competition to me.

I think it’s a great place to get to watch the kids, but the problem is that so many get caught up in the competitive side of it.

Like it’s as simple as that you need X to do well as a hockey team and enable the top guys to produce, Ds to play well and so forth; and there is no guarantee that a group of prospects thrown together will provide X whether they are good prospects or not.

 

[Kovalev27]

Every time I want to get super into analytics I see something like a top-20/40 prospect list that unironically doesn't have Jack Hughes and just go...nah

That also has lundkvist ahead of fox and Miller. Miller should be one of the top guys on any list. If he’s not you didn’t do a good job.

Or Kravtsov behind an emil Bemstrom or Fil Hallander among others.

This is lousy.

 

[apoptygma]

Traverse is in the best position to get overanalyzed as we all are so starved for any hockey or meaningful hockey news at that time of the year.

 

[Kovalev27]

Traverse is a very good indication of who’s ready and who can skate at the next level.

It was painfully obvious Lias Andersson was nowhere near ready for the nhl when we saw him at traverse city. Brett Howden on the other hand looked tremendous and sure enough he won a spot out of camp when almost no one had him doing so.

A guy like bereglazov very clearly could not skate with the traverse prospects. He was awful and sure enough that translated.

Make no mistake traverse city is a very solid barometer that gets downplayed on this forum because the Rangers usually suck at it since we’ve had lousy prospects. But when we had good ones like Dubinsky Stepan Callahan anisimov you knew it during that’s tournament that those kids were going to be good. My guess is we’ll see it this summer as well. Kravtsov Kakko Fox Rykov shesterkin hopefully should all have big tourneys

 

[RangerBoy]

Now it’s official. They didn’t post it yet on Twitter. Took a screenshot from their website.

 

[haveandare]

People don't want to see TC because of it's production quality or because it's highly predictive of NHL success.

It's the first time of the new season people even vaguely united by the team play together and people are hungry for hockey. I'll watch it even if it's a crappy stream, just something fun to watch and get primed for the real stuff.

 

[Hunter Gathers]

Lundkvist ahead of Fox and Miller there

He places way too high of an emphasis on strength of competition. It's a really poor system that clearly needs to be re-evaluated.

 

[Hunter Gathers]

That was answered later on. Per Tierney, it included an adjustor for League Strength, and the model is not high on the US NTDP.

Seems to be more of an "I don't know how to quantify this league" type issue for Tierney.

 

[Raspewtin]

He places way too high of an emphasis on strength of competition. It's a really poor system that clearly needs to be re-evaluated.

Sean doesn't do it. He takes data from Emmanuel Perry who, as he's admitted multiple times, is really hard on some developmental leagues (mostly the USHL and College).

Seems to be more of an "I don't know how to quantify this league" type issue for Tierney.

How do you propose he do it?

 

[ecemleafs]

That was answered later on. Per Tierney, it included an adjustor for League Strength, and the model is not high on the US NTDP.

If the model is not high on a development program that produces some of the best players in the world consistently year after year, than what is the point of the model?