The criteria are pretty simple.
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A skater no longer qualifies as an NHL prospect if he has played 25 games in the NHL in any campaign, regular season and playoffs combined, or 50 games total; or reaches age 27 by Sept. 15.
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Graduating Valimaki and not Yamamoto makes perfect sense, in that Yamamoto is still trying to make the league and Valimaki, if he were healthy, would be "bet your house on it" levels of certainty to make the Flames' opening night roster. Dube is sort of in between those two, but as noted above, you have to draw the line somewhere, and just because there are individual cases where it doesn't work, doesn't mean it's a bad place to establish your threshold.
Also probably worth noting that Yamamoto vs. Dube isn't what's causing the Oilers to be 9th and the Flames to be 31st. Not graduating their first rounder last year and picking in the top 10 this year is what does it.