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Calgary4LIfe · 05-13-2014, 11:29 PM

The prospect rankings conducted left a lot of room for individual interpretation on how they should be ranked. The posters who ranked Horak much higher than rest did so because he had more NHL games under his belt and was more 'proven', and thus closer to making the NHL.

I don't think they were wrong for doing so - that was the criteria (which was undefined in the polls) that they used.

Perhaps this year a bit more of an explanation on criteria that posters should consider when voting may be of some benefit. I myself would rank prospects drastically different if we were using 'ceiling' vs 'floor', or potential impact vs closer to NHL ready, for instance. I think I weighed my own criteria as ceiling, then probability of getting there, then floor, then NHL ready (though I didn't see Horak as being a scrub either, and have no idea where I ended up ranking him to be honest).

I remember in those polls some posters calling out Horak as being very underrated because of the fact he had so many NHL games under his belt. They were bang-on according to their criteria. I am assuming the intent was to leave the interpretation open as to what criteria to use, but when people were weighing NHL experience too highly (or being more NHL ready vs another prospect) I do think it can skew the results.

I am too lazy to search and review the results, but it would lead to situations like Bouma or Hanowski being rated higher than Monahan and Gaudreau at the time (not that anyone did - just making a bit of an extreme example to illustrate the point).

What would be interesting to me (and I doubt this would happen as it would leave the forum a bit cluttered) is to have two concurrent polls for "Most NHL ready" and "Most Value"/"Highest Ceiling" or something like that. Would make for some interesting discussion and would be interesting to see where they start to intersect. For instance, I would rank Jankowski easily in the top 4 or 5 in the "ceiling" or "potential impact" poll, but would be much lower on the list of "NHL ready".

I actually quite liked the prospect polls, as it was interesting to see what everyone thought of each prospect and what the rationales behind their voting behaviors were - looking forward to doing that exercise again.

05-13-2014, 11:29 PM	#71
Calgary4LIfe Franchise Player Join Date: Jun 2010 Exp:	The prospect rankings conducted left a lot of room for individual interpretation on how they should be ranked. The posters who ranked Horak much higher than rest did so because he had more NHL games under his belt and was more 'proven', and thus closer to making the NHL. I don't think they were wrong for doing so - that was the criteria (which was undefined in the polls) that they used. Perhaps this year a bit more of an explanation on criteria that posters should consider when voting may be of some benefit. I myself would rank prospects drastically different if we were using 'ceiling' vs 'floor', or potential impact vs closer to NHL ready, for instance. I think I weighed my own criteria as ceiling, then probability of getting there, then floor, then NHL ready (though I didn't see Horak as being a scrub either, and have no idea where I ended up ranking him to be honest). I remember in those polls some posters calling out Horak as being very underrated because of the fact he had so many NHL games under his belt. They were bang-on according to their criteria. I am assuming the intent was to leave the interpretation open as to what criteria to use, but when people were weighing NHL experience too highly (or being more NHL ready vs another prospect) I do think it can skew the results. I am too lazy to search and review the results, but it would lead to situations like Bouma or Hanowski being rated higher than Monahan and Gaudreau at the time (not that anyone did - just making a bit of an extreme example to illustrate the point). What would be interesting to me (and I doubt this would happen as it would leave the forum a bit cluttered) is to have two concurrent polls for "Most NHL ready" and "Most Value"/"Highest Ceiling" or something like that. Would make for some interesting discussion and would be interesting to see where they start to intersect. For instance, I would rank Jankowski easily in the top 4 or 5 in the "ceiling" or "potential impact" poll, but would be much lower on the list of "NHL ready". I actually quite liked the prospect polls, as it was interesting to see what everyone thought of each prospect and what the rationales behind their voting behaviors were - looking forward to doing that exercise again.