tom_servo said:
I don't see how any pool of prospects are better off than any others in this lockout. They're all in the same boat, it appears.
I don't think that's true, take good/fringe prospects for example a lot of them will have lost their spots in their country's top league to NHLers. That means they go and develop in a lesser league for a full year.
On the other hand those few prospects that manage to stay in the top league are suddenly surrounded by NHL talent to help them along. To use 4 Sens prospects as an example, Lyamin was relegated to CSKA-2 because of a slow start, Karlsson was bumped out of a spot in the SEL and is now in Div III while Kajgorodov was promoted to first line centre in the RSL and seems to have Elias and Sykora as linemates according to one russian poster on the Sens board. He now leads the league in scoring. Having Spezza in the AHL certainly can't hurt Bochenski's development either. Not all prospects are in the same boat.
As for teams, the uncertainty regarding unsigned prospects affects all teams differently, if Philadelphia were to lose Carter it would be a big blow while Ottawa has no one of note to sign.
Teams who would have used this year to rebuild may be stuck with the same draft position as last year and still the need to rebuild. Maybe St-Louis and Boston are in that situation, this could be bad for them.
I'd say teams with veteran lineups are benefitting most from the lockout followed by teams with many prospects and coming in last are teams with young NHLers.
Losing a year off a 37-year old player's career while giving time for that team's prospects to develop isn't as bad as losing a year off a player's prime.
Teams like Calgary and Ottawa lose a year off of cheap contracts and a year of a player's peak productivity. Teams like Pittsburgh have players who can develop just as much in the AHL as the NHL (Beech, Fleury...), they lose a year off of a cheap contract too but it's not a peak productivity year for those players.