Mark "Fricken" Jankowski (aka The Big Jankowski)

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

If we didn't pick the BPA at the time, second round picks would be worth as much as 1st round picks, etc. That things change is a given but it's the best we have, and has a track record. As for your reference all it shows is some anomalies.

You've shown nothing.

Are you sure these are "anomalies"? Based on what? This is why I have asked you to prove it.

Originally Posted by Vulcan

Some things are just self evident but I'll play, what would you base your pick upon? You like the cut of their jib?

Because I am not a scout or a professional observer who watches these players for hours every day, all I have to go on is the word of those who do. So here's the rub: because I am not making these decisions, I can happily concede that my own feelings about who is the better pick are likely to be quite often wrong or poorly informed. The Flames extensively scouted Jankowski and determined through multiple viewings and by virtue of a number of important contributing factors that he was the player with the highest long-term potential in the draft. That sounds to me like the right way to go about this, and I don't believe we should expect from them anything different.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by kehatch

Why is Jankowski so unique? Because he played in high school?

Absolutely. That, coupled with the fact that he was the youngest person in the 2012 draft, and with the fact that he made a bigger jump than everyone else from prep school to college.

Originally Posted by kehatch

He was unique when we drafted him. Now he is a second year college student now. He should be judged against other second year college student's.

I disagree. He is still among the youngest players in the NCAA, and more importantly, the big jump that he made straight from prep school to college will likely affect his development track pretty dramatically, even beyond last year and this season.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by kehatch

Now he is a second year college student now. He should be judged against other second year college student's. .

The initial plan was for him to spend his first year at a prep school before making the jump right to College. If he did that, which is normal, this would have been his first season.

The ages and experience of 2nd year college students is all over the map.

[Caged Great]

Originally Posted by fotze

So with Jankowski you just can't evaluate the pick for 4 years? Just ignore everything for 4 years. Can you guys let us know what day we can start evaluating it?

In his first season, he was okay for someone making that much of a jump. He has improved his skating, physicality, offensive results, showing the ability to make high end plays and create offense by himself. Additionally, he is also getting bigger both in height and weight (he's 6-4 now, not 6-3).

With a prospect like this, all you can look at is for him to make positive steps forward and not stagnate or regress. Over the past year and a half, he has improved overall along the way and is getting better.

If you consider Monahan's skills as a 9/10, Jankowski was a 7.5-8 at the development camp. Not quite as good, but not bad in his own right, especially considering that they are only a month apart age wise. Janko still has to improve, quite a bit actually, but it is feasible that he could do that over the next two years. Just have to wait and see.

If he hits his potential, you have a 6-4 center that'll play at around 220 lbs that can be a good all round C. That's a very good piece to have if it works out properly.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Alberta_Beef

The goal at the draft is not to improve your team now, so it doesn't matter if Feaster wanted to be competitive the next day or 10 years from then.

When you are drafting you draft the BPA according to your teams list. This does not mean drafting the quickest guy to the NHL, it means drafting the player who's you feel will have the greatest impact at the NHL level. It's not the greatest impact in 2 years, or the greatest impact in 5 years. It would be the greatest impact though the players entire career.

This is all true, but to justify this pick you have to assume that Jankowski is somehow on a different progression than 99% of players. Very rarely does a guy who isn't a top player at 18-20 become a top player at 24-26. It's not impossible, but it's very rare and not something I'd bet on being able to project.

[badger89]

Who is a good comparison in terms of playing style? There were comparisons to Nieuwendyk early on, but I haven't heard that lately. He's big but not overly physical, so would Joe Thornton be a good comparison? Either way, hope he can have half the success that they've had.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[Day Tripper]

Originally Posted by badger89

Who is a good comparison in terms of playing style? There were comparisons to Nieuwendyk early on, but I haven't heard that lately. He's big but not overly physical, so would Joe Thornton be a good comparison? Either way, hope he can have half the success that they've had.

Joe Colborne.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

This is all true, but to justify this pick you have to assume that Jankowski is somehow on a different progression than 99% of players. Very rarely does a guy who isn't a top player at 18-20 become a top player at 24-26. It's not impossible, but it's very rare and not something I'd bet on being able to project.

Since Jankowski was:
· the youngest player in the 2012 draft
· had never played Juniour A prior to the draft
· the only player in the 2012 to have been drafted out of prep school
· the youngest player in the NCAA last year
· the only player in the NCAA to make the leap from prep school as a 17-year-old

and since Jankowski is
· one of the youngest players in the NCAA
· playing only his second year of elite level Juniour hockey
· still growing into a frame that he acquired very quickly

... then I would suggest that it is safe to conclude that he is as likely a candidate as any to follow a different progression than 99% of players.

[moon]

Originally Posted by GGG

Also even if Jankowski busts and never plays another game in the NHL doesnt mean he was the wrong pick. He was always a high risk high reward pick. So if the players around him cap out at bottom 6, bottom pairing defensemen and Janko never plays an NHL game then he was likely the right pick.

This is such BS.

He is no more high reward than anyone else picked around him. His ceiling isn't any higher than the guys chosen just before him or just after him.

For some reason for guys who are not as good as others but different it has become normal to say they have a high ceiling which is absolute garbage.

And Jankowski being a highchool player at the time of his draft may make him unique but what it also makes him is a poor hockey player. It shouldn't be used as a positive or some sort of garbage 'but he has so much room to grow' argument it shows how poor his skills are and why he isn't doing well at the NCAA level.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Since Jankowski was:
· the youngest player in the 2012 draft
· had never played Juniour A prior to the draft
· the only player in the 2012 to have been drafted out of prep school
· the youngest player in the NCAA last year
· the only player in the NCAA to make the leap from prep school as a 17-year-old

and since Jankowski is
· one of the youngest players in the NCAA
· playing only his second year of elite level Juniour hockey
· still growing into a frame that he acquired very quickly

... then I would suggest that it is safe to conclude that he is as likely a candidate as any to follow a different progression than 99% of players.

I can agree with all of that... and the leaves him with what.... a 5-10% chance?

[HighLifeMan]

I still maintain hope that Mark Jankowski will follow the path of Blake Wheeler, who in my opinion is his direct comparable in terms of size, skillset, and developmental curve. Wheeler never managed to hit anywhere near a PPG pace in his three collegiate seasons, and yet has still managed to carve out at a career as a productive top six NHL player, and Olympic participant.

Some players take more time and attention than others. I am not completely sold on the notion that Mark will have the same success, but it is still far to early to be making any sort of conclusions about his future in the organization.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Are you sure these are "anomalies"? Based on what? This is why I have asked you to prove it.


Because I am not a scout or a professional observer who watches these players for hours every day, all I have to go on is the word of those who do. So here's the rub: because I am not making these decisions, I can happily concede that my own feelings about who is the better pick are likely to be quite often wrong or poorly informed. The Flames extensively scouted Jankowski and determined through multiple viewings and by virtue of a number of important contributing factors that he was the player with the highest long-term potential in the draft. That sounds to me like the right way to go about this, and I don't believe we should expect from them anything different.

You're ridiculous, you're asking me to prove that higher ranked players are better than lower players or is it NHL players are better than minor league players? Sure there are some anomalies and failures from year to year and things change but I'll put my money on the NHL player and after that, the higher ranked or drafted player.

You're not a scout and I'm not a scout but I take an interest, have played team sports and coached, and form opinions and over the years have collected some history on how teams function and how players turn out. As for trusting in Feaster's management to guide the Flames, he didn't have a better handle on grading players than you have, that's why he delegated the duties. Still as GM he was the one to set the guidelines for the scouts. They would work within the framework that he and his Asst. set. That framework was leading us on a downward path and the whole team became too small and so were his draft picks. As Burke said, it was one of the reasons he got fired, so I wouldn't put my faith in the Flames when they picked Janko. To hear the snowstorm story told, Weisbrod had already decided to take Janko after he first saw him so, having other scouts look at him became a case of confirmation bias. As far as I'm concerned the Janko pick was another case of Feaster and friend trying to show how smart they were.

As GM, delegating the hockey duties may be fine if Feaster excelled at the business side but this is where his biggest failure was. It was freakin amateur hour while Feaster was in charge and I don't have any trust in what he did.

As for Janko, yeah he's on track for what was expected of him, it's just that what is expected of him isn't as good as others drafted near him, so IMO he wasn't worth our first round pick. Now if we would have gotten him in the second round, he'd probably be a fine pick. I sincerely hope he makes it but he's on a long track developmental curve and the longer the track the more potential for derailment.

[kehatch]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Since Jankowski was:
· the youngest player in the 2012 draft
· had never played Juniour A prior to the draft
· the only player in the 2012 to have been drafted out of prep school
· the youngest player in the NCAA last year
· the only player in the NCAA to make the leap from prep school as a 17-year-old

and since Jankowski is
· one of the youngest players in the NCAA
· playing only his second year of elite level Juniour hockey
· still growing into a frame that he acquired very quickly

... then I would suggest that it is safe to conclude that he is as likely a candidate as any to follow a different progression than 99% of players.

If he was drafted in 2013 he would have been the same age with similar experience to that draft class. Where would he have went in that draft class?

The fact that he was young and inexperienced when we drafted him is irrelevant now.

Burke would almost certainly trade him for any of the guys the Flames passed on. The other teams almost certainly wouldn't accept that trade.

Time to stop thinking of him as a special case. He was. He isn't now. And at this point in time drafting him appears to be a big mistake.

Originally Posted by moon

This is such BS.

He is no more high reward than anyone else picked around him. His ceiling isn't any higher than the guys chosen just before him or just after him.

For some reason for guys who are not as good as others but different it has become normal to say they have a high ceiling which is absolute garbage.

And Jankowski being a highchool player at the time of his draft may make him unique but what it also makes him is a poor hockey player. It shouldn't be used as a positive or some sort of garbage 'but he has so much room to grow' argument it shows how poor his skills are and why he isn't doing well at the NCAA level.

Exactly. All of these guys claim on one hand they didn't drink the Feaster Kool-Aid than claim on the other that Jankowski some how has a higher ceiling than the rest of the draft class.

Two years from now people will be hiding in the bush whispering '' any time now'' waiting for him to reach this hypothetical ceiling to be the '' best player in the draft'' (sip, sip, gulp, gulp)

Jankowski might be an NHLer. But so might Teravainan. Many of his draft class already are. It was an unnecessary gamble at a time the Flames couldn't afford to gamble and so far it looks like it isn't going to break even let alone payoff.

[JiriHrdina]

Originally Posted by kehatch

If he was drafted in 2013 he would have been the same age with similar experience to that draft class. Where would he have went in that draft class?

The fact that he was young and inexperienced when we drafted him is irrelevant now.

Burke would almost certainly trade him for any of the guys the Flames passed on. The other teams almost certainly wouldn't accept that trade.

Time to stop thinking of him as a special case. He was. He isn't now. And at this point in time drafting him appears to be a big mistake.



Exactly. All of these guys claim on one hand they didn't drink the Feaster Kool-Aid than claim on the other that Jankowski some how has a higher ceiling than the rest of the draft class.

Two years from now people will be hiding in the bush whispering '' any time now'' waiting for him to reach this hypothetical ceiling to be the '' best player in the draft'' (sip, sip, gulp, gulp)

Jankowski might be an NHLer. But so might Teravainan. Many of his draft class already are. It was an unnecessary gamble at a time the Flames couldn't afford to gamble and so far it looks like it isn't going to break even let alone payoff.

Why are you speaking in certainties on matters we don't know about.

We have no idea if Burke would trade him or not for one of the players they passed on.

More importantly just because someone has a different opinion then yours doesn't mean you need to dismiss it as "drinking the koolaid". We have far more intelligent posters on the site - they don't just take one comment from a GM and base all their future posts on that one comment.

I think there are valid points to both sides of this argument so I don't know why people have to take such extreme view points.

It is pretty clear by your post you aren't taking much of an effort to read or understand what others are saying.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

...you're asking me to prove that higher ranked players are better than lower players or is it NHL players are better than minor league players?

I am asking you to prove by a significant measure that players who make the NHL by the year after their draft are clearly the best players available where they were drafted, compared to their peers who did not play in the NHL until two-or-more years after their draft year.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

I am asking you to prove by a significant measure that players who make the NHL by the year after their draft are clearly the best players available where they were drafted, compared to their peers who did not play in the NHL until two-or-more years after their draft year.

Really?

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

Really?

That's the premise that I have been taking issue with in this entire discussion: That Jankowski is a bad pick because there are players from his draft class who are playing in the NHL while he does not look close. My counter argument this entire time has been that it is too early to say, because he is such a long term project, and his early returns are quite likely not very indicative of his potential down the road.

I like Jankowski, but I'm not waiting with bated breath for him to break out and become the Flames next top-line centre. However, given his skill-set and size, I do think that the potential MIGHT be there, and am happy to simply wait and see for a couple more years.

[kehatch]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

Why are you speaking in certainties on matters we don't know about.

We have no idea if Burke would trade him or not for one of the players they passed on.

More importantly just because someone has a different opinion then yours doesn't mean you need to dismiss it as "drinking the koolaid". We have far more intelligent posters on the site - they don't just take one comment from a GM and base all their future posts on that one comment.

I think there are valid points to both sides of this argument so I don't know why people have to take such extreme view points.

It is pretty clear by your post you aren't taking much of an effort to read or understand what others are saying.

It is a fair assumption that Burke would trade Jankowski for one of those players. Not only are many of these players much better prospects at this point in time, but Burke listed the draft record as part of the reason that Feaster was let go and it isn't much of a leap to get to Jankowski being the biggest mistake.

As for the Kool-Aid, arguing that Jankowski is a legitimate prospect at a position of need is a valid argument. Suggesting that having a big C with top 6 potential in the system is a valid argument. Suggesting there weren't any C's that fit that bill at the time that we drafted him is a valid argument. Suggesting that it was a shallow draft so drafting a project that fits a long term organizational need is a valid argument. Some posters have argued these things and, though I don't agree with all of them, they are all valid arguments.

But suggesting that we shouldn't be evaluating the Jankowski pick because he was a young high school kid when we drafted him 18 months ago, or suggesting that Jankowski somehow has a higher ceiling than the other first rounders, is silly. The only reason to think these things is because Feaster told us to.

I liked Jankowski at camp. I am hoping he turns into a great NHL player. I haven't written him off. But I think it is very clear he isn't doing as well as other players drafted around him and I don't think we should be ignoring that fact because of some stigma that Jankowski is special.

[kehatch]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

That's the premise that I have been taking issue with in this entire discussion: That Jankowski is a bad pick because there are players from his draft class who are playing in the NHL while he does not look close. My counter argument this entire time has been that it is too early to say, because he is such a long term project, and his early returns are quite likely not very indicative of his potential down the road.

I like Jankowski, but I'm not waiting with bated breath for him to break out and become the Flames next top-line centre. However, given his skill-set and size, I do think that the potential MIGHT be there, and am happy to simply wait and see for a couple more years.

The counter argument to that is that it was a bad pick BECAUSE he isn't close to the NHL. There was no need to take a long term gamble on a player given the other players that were available.

The only way this pick is a win is if Jankowski makes the NHL AND is better than the players that the Flames passed on. Otherwise what was the point to the wait and the gamble?

I also take issue with the assumption that "his early returns are quite likely not very indicative of his potential down the road". Which is really the root of the argument. One camp feels that Jankowski is 'special' and we should accept that he will progress slower than most other prospects. I have yet to hear a compelling reason why he is special. Even if you consider this season as his draft +1 instead of +2 season because of his age and high school development path. This is still an underwhelming draft+1 season for a first rounder.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

That's the premise that I have been taking issue with in this entire discussion: That Jankowski is a bad pick because there are players from his draft class who are playing in the NHL while he does not look close. My counter argument this entire time has been that it is too early to say, because he is such a long term project, and his early returns are quite likely not very indicative of his potential down the road.

I like Jankowski, but I'm not waiting with bated breath for him to break out and become the Flames next top-line centre. However, given his skill-set and size, I do think that the potential MIGHT be there, and am happy to simply wait and see for a couple more years.

For a player who "might be there", it isn't worth a 1st round pick IMO.
IMO he isn't even our best prospect from his draft class.
IMO he isn't even our best prospect from his college team.
IMO his progress is on track for what's to be expected but
IMO if the Flames brass estimated his future progress they should have known where he now is and that isn't worth a 1st rounder.
IMO he's about our 7th best prospect behind, Monahan, Baertschi, Gaudreau, Gillies, Poirier, and Klimchuk.