Quote:
Originally Posted by kehatch
What publication, web site, or other hockey analysis forum disagrees with that? Comparatively across the NHL the Flames still have a pretty shallow prospect pool. Losing Erixon was a big loss and could account for the drop. Yes we got Baertschi, but other teams improved as well.
We have Baertschi. Other teams have RNH, Huberdeau, Schenn .... We have Brodie other teams have Erixon, Larsson, Hamilton .... We have Irving. Other teams have Bernier, Schneider, Markstrom .... We have Backlund, other teams have Hall, Seguin, Duchene ....
And those are our impact players ready to make a splash now.
Our AHL players like Nemisz, Howse, Byron, etc aren't raising too many eyebrows. The NHL ready graduates and prospects like Horak, Backlund, Bouma aren't making an immediate splash and may never.
Its fun watching our junior projects like Ferland, Reinhart, Gaudreau, Granlund, etc. But the reality is they are all long shots to be impact players in the NHL.
Not to put too much of a damper on the happiest thread on the site. Some of our prospects are showing potential to be impact NHLer's. Gaudreau is incredibly exciting. Ramage and Leach could both outplay their projections. We are definitely moving in the right direction. But we are recovering from a decade of bad drafting and limited focus on prospect development. It is going to take more then 1-season to turn this around.
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If the Flames prospect pool has dropped in rankings its because some of their higher ranked players are a year old, and younger ones are either long shots or not highly rated. Nemisz will almost certainly have dropped in the overall rankings, and Brodie is likely to no longer be considered a prospect after having played in the NHL for most of the year. Howse is likely considered a bust and will likely have fallen out of our top 10 list of prospects even though he's starting to score at the AHL level now. In addition, we don't have a lot of prospects in the AHL or CHL right now, so while we may have better quality than last year, the lower quantity is almost certain to reduce the prospect base rankings as well. Our prospect list will probably look something like this
1.Baertchi
2.Gadreau
3.Nemisz
4.Irving
5. Reinhart
6. Granlund
7. Arnold
8. Ferland
9. Ramage
10. Leach
Horak and Byron will be somewhere among those players, but beyond these 12, or 13 if you add in Horak, there really aren't a lot of prospects in the Flames system.