[moon]

Originally Posted by Caged Great

I'm mostly pessimistic with my evaluations, but you take it to new heights, basically writing off everyone except the top two or three guys as being ones that have little to no hope of making the NHL. I don't know why you are so very pessimistic though.

That's not true at all. I think that Baertschi and Monahan are the only two guys with a better than 50% chance of being top 6/top 4 guys but see other guys that will make the NHL just in limited roles. I would think that in terms of guys having 5+ year NHL careers (i.e not spot duty sub 40 game seasons) I expect that guys like Reinhart, Wotherspoon, Horak, Bouma will all easily do that in a bottom 6/bottom pairing role.

I think that Gaudreau, Klimchuk, Poirier all have the talent to possibly make it in a top 6 role just think that the chances aren't better than 50% or likely at this point that they reach that level.

I don't think I am very pessimistic I just look at traditionally what most prospects around the league turn into and factor in the fact that the Flames have some of the dumbest/worst hockey people working for them and it seems unlikely that the Flames are going not only do great but way, way better than most or any team has in the past 15 years.

There is always a chance that a player falls on his face once he makes it to the NHL, but both Klimchuk and Knight have enough all round skills and make up to be in the NHL. Knight is going to be on the Flames to start the year guaranteed unless he is injured. He's better than a lot of the 3rd and 4th liners that I've watched play for the Flames the past few years. So it's not a stretch to say that he's a lock to be a 3rd line C (especially with the Flames awesome C depth).

I think Knight is going to play all year whether he deserves it or not I just don;t have much belief that he will be a legit 3rd liner and certainly a quality 2nd liner seems a big step up for him. The use of lock seems very strong for him.

Klimchuk has a dynamite shot and good offensive instincts but plays like Nystrom or any of the Sutters. If he didn't have the offensive skill, the other parts of his game would likely make him an NHLer (he's in the same ballpark defensively as Reinhart, who will likely start on the 4th line this year)

I like Klimchuk a lot but he was picked 28th for a reason and still has a lot of questions before saying he will likely be an NHLer.