Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
So, this begs the question about what posters see behind the purpose of the poll.
In my mind, a "prospect ranking" has everything to do with how respondents feel about potential. Because this is a measure of potential, then matters about who is "NHL ready" should not really factor into it, unless the situation involves a close tie-breaker between two very, very similarly rated prospects. I just don't think that Baertschi by any measure has even as remotely close a potential ceiling as Bennett, regardless of his presently longer track of development. Even if one plays in the NHL next year and the other in Juniour, it is highly probable that the latter will be a better player and a more valuable component to this team's success going forward.
|
There has to be some balance between perceived potential and actual results. Just because player X was drafted early does not mean he retains that high potential. Player Y may be drafted after player X but vault past him because of actual development. For example, Nail Yakupov was drafted 1st overall. He has huge potential. Teuvo Teravainen was drafted 17 picks later, so should have lesser potential. I would say the better prospect is Teravainen because he has shown some excellent development while Yakupov has fallen on his face.
I personally don't like including just drafted players in these polls because they haven't been given an opportunity to display if the investment has potential to payoff. I can see Bennett getting the nod because of his top five draft status, but he will naturally have a lot to do to maintain his ranking. Other players have been given that opportunity to prove themselves and show a positive growth curve, so they should be considered better prospects. Players that don't prove to be improving should see their potential and ranking diminish, no? If a guy steps up and proves to be dominant at one level, and then does it again at the next, does his potential not increase? Conversely when a player struggles to find consistency at that next level and either plateaus or goes retrograde, should that player's potential decrease? To me that is how you judge how a prospect is doing and how they should be ranked. Or is that nonsense too?