TheBakester66
Registered User
Grimaldi
Here's my take:
For all of the stat conversion questions about the NAHL and the USHL: Yes, the USHL is a more difficult league to play in, but it's not nearly as drastic as those out here are making it out to be. From each league's inception until 2010, on average, USHL players have projected roughly 13% higher than NAHL players with identical statistics. So, does it make a fairly significant difference when comparing NAHL players to USHL players, absolutely. Does it make up for the difference between Grimaldi and Kane? No. Not even close. However, if you do compare teammates, they do at this point seem to favor Kane. Again, i don't think that accounts for the difference between the two. Ultimately, if you're going to compare the two in US Juniors when Kane was 16/17 and Grimaldi was 17/18 based on the raw numbers (which can be hard to find correctly split), you would say that Kane was roughly twice as valuable in the NAHL as Grimaldi was in the USHL after removing the difference between the two leagues. In their non-USHL/NAHL U-18 schedules, Kane comes out about 15% ahead of Grimaldi. Add it all up and Kane comes out about 60% ahead of Grimaldi. But in the end, we should be using Grimaldi's 2009-10 numbers and comparing those to Kane's 2005-06 numbers, not using Grimaldi's 2010-11 numbers. If you use Grimaldi's 2009-10 (U-18 USDP and USHL only) numbers, Kane comes out about 155% ahead of Grimaldi at the same age.
In other words, the two really aren't comparable talents, and if they were, Grimaldi would (like samsonov) most likely been a top 10 pick regardless of his height. As it is, his value is fairly strong for a 17 year old hockey player, just not Patrick Kane strong. To Grimaldi's credit, if you factored out the difference in teammates, that gap between the two would probably shrink fairly significantly, but not more than 20 or 30 percent.
So i think the difference in value is a big reason why teams could not justify the risks involved with Grimaldi. While i am still scratching my head with some of the selections in the 2011 entry draft, I do understand the GMs on this one. The odds of success are not great, and when it came down to it, i dont think any of the GMs wanted to be the guy that drafted the 5'6" player that busted in the first round. It doesn't mean that Grimaldi has 32nd overall talent, but it does mean that he has the 32nd best balance between talent and likelyhood of success.
Here's my take:
For all of the stat conversion questions about the NAHL and the USHL: Yes, the USHL is a more difficult league to play in, but it's not nearly as drastic as those out here are making it out to be. From each league's inception until 2010, on average, USHL players have projected roughly 13% higher than NAHL players with identical statistics. So, does it make a fairly significant difference when comparing NAHL players to USHL players, absolutely. Does it make up for the difference between Grimaldi and Kane? No. Not even close. However, if you do compare teammates, they do at this point seem to favor Kane. Again, i don't think that accounts for the difference between the two. Ultimately, if you're going to compare the two in US Juniors when Kane was 16/17 and Grimaldi was 17/18 based on the raw numbers (which can be hard to find correctly split), you would say that Kane was roughly twice as valuable in the NAHL as Grimaldi was in the USHL after removing the difference between the two leagues. In their non-USHL/NAHL U-18 schedules, Kane comes out about 15% ahead of Grimaldi. Add it all up and Kane comes out about 60% ahead of Grimaldi. But in the end, we should be using Grimaldi's 2009-10 numbers and comparing those to Kane's 2005-06 numbers, not using Grimaldi's 2010-11 numbers. If you use Grimaldi's 2009-10 (U-18 USDP and USHL only) numbers, Kane comes out about 155% ahead of Grimaldi at the same age.
In other words, the two really aren't comparable talents, and if they were, Grimaldi would (like samsonov) most likely been a top 10 pick regardless of his height. As it is, his value is fairly strong for a 17 year old hockey player, just not Patrick Kane strong. To Grimaldi's credit, if you factored out the difference in teammates, that gap between the two would probably shrink fairly significantly, but not more than 20 or 30 percent.
So i think the difference in value is a big reason why teams could not justify the risks involved with Grimaldi. While i am still scratching my head with some of the selections in the 2011 entry draft, I do understand the GMs on this one. The odds of success are not great, and when it came down to it, i dont think any of the GMs wanted to be the guy that drafted the 5'6" player that busted in the first round. It doesn't mean that Grimaldi has 32nd overall talent, but it does mean that he has the 32nd best balance between talent and likelyhood of success.
