[TheDebaser]

Well for starters, I think Edmonton's set of forewards, while not exactly elite, will be pretty good eventually. That's not a popular thing to say here, but Eberle, Hall, Nugent-Hopkins, Yakupov and Draisaitl make up a pretty good top 5. I think they're far from a dynasty but I really just think that they have some legitimately good young pieces.

The Flames do kick their ass on depth. The problem is that it's not your bottom six squad that gets you through the playoffs. Edmonton does have a better pool of top 6 nhlers than us. (They had better, it's only taken them a decade of sucking to get it.)

On the other hand, one of our "depth prospects" might end up being one of our better players in a few years. Look at Gio for example. The Flames depth definitely puts them in a good position to get lucky with a developing prospect.

The Oilers current blueline is pretty awful, but Fayne was a good pickup, Marincin is actually a good player and Nurse is a very solid prospect. They don't have anyone that compares to Gio but I don't think it's fair to say that our prospects clean the floor with them when our best defensive prospects in Sieloff/Wotherspoon project to be bottom four players.

Brodie is a stud though. He'll be a top pairing defender into his 30s.

Goaltending is bit of a crapshoot, but as it stands the Flames are miles ahead in that department. The thing is that Edmonton only needs one good goalie to get that part of their roster under control and that could be addressed through the UFA market or through a prospect improving rapidly. (Like how the Flames signed Hiller or how Ortio proved his value last season.

Overall I think the Flames do edge out the Oilers by a little bit, but not by orders of magnitude. That's OK though, we don't like to admit it here, but the Oilers do have one of the leagues best pool of young talent. (And so do we.)

My real problem with Calgary's prospect pool though is that I'm not sure how Calgary's talent stands up against real competition. The Ducks, for example, have an arguably better prospect pool than we do, and they have a lot more value in assets on their NHL squad already. The Stars iced one hell of an AHL team last year, and their NHL team is already full of young talent. Buffalo's prospect pool could end up blowing ours out of the water, especially if they tank again this year to grab McDavid or Eichel (And they'll have the Islanders first round pick next year as well.) The Red Wings also have some stellar prospects along with some aging elite talent and some promising young NHLers.

Tampa's group of young players will be pretty hard to beat in their prime too. Our top end players just won't be as good as their top end players and their depth players are already finding success in the league. Their goaltending is Vezina quality already (and Vasilevskiy will join Bishop soon.) Their defense is anchored by Hedman and they just drafted DeAngelo. They will be able to throw their draft pick around to bolster their defense in the coming years too. Yzerman has really turned the Lightning into a stellar organization.

Essentially I just have doubts that our talent at this point will be enough to make us a real contender in this league, even if we do manage to edge out Edmonton by a little bit. I really just don't think our prospect pool is something to parade around quite yet. It's getting there though.