Pronman's top 100 prospects entering the 18-19 season

[sureLoss]

https://theathletic.com/508797/2018/...018-19-season/

Flames:
76. Kylington
80. Valimaki
91. Mangiapane

Honorable Mentions:
Andersson


He also has Gillies at 15 on his goalie list.

[Monahammer]

Originally Posted by sureLoss

https://theathletic.com/508797/2018/...018-19-season/

Flames:
76. Kylington
80. Valimaki
91. Mangiapane

Honorable Mentions:
Andersson


He also has Gillies at 15 on his goalie list.

First source I've seen put kylington st the top of our d pool. Hes much lower on Andersson than others are.
Surprised to see no dube as well... he seems low on all of our prospects

[dash_pinched]

A little surprised that Parsons didn't warrant a mention under goalies...

[bubbsy]

I might get blasted for this, but after watching parsons for a few games now, he just seems too "busy" in his goaltending style. It's great that he's athletic and clearly a guy who battles, but goalies who don't have a strong, calm stance when facing a shooter makes me nervous.

[bubbsy]

I might get blasted for this, but after watching parsons for a few games now, he just seems too "busy" in his goaltending style. It's great that he's athletic and clearly a guy who battles, but goalies who don't have a strong, calm stance when facing a shooter makes me nervous.

[burnitdown]

Fox #64...interesting that from Pronman's perspective, we attached our best prospect to Dougie and Ferland in the CAR trade.

[Saqe]

Having Kotkaniemi at #8 is a joke. He's nowhere near elite and certainly not a top ten prospect.

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by burnitdown

Fox #64...interesting that from Pronman's perspective, we attached our best prospect to Dougie and Ferland in the CAR trade.

But IIRC he had Fox at #30 last year.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Worth hearing how he ranks players:

"My preference is for highly skilled players with upside. I look for prospects with speed, skill and intelligence. Skating is a little more important to me in forwards than defenders, and physicality is more important to me in defenders than forwards. I prefer forwards to defensemen, and centers to wingers. My ranking philosophy is the No. 1 goal of drafting and development is to find stars, and even a minor chance of becoming a star has significant value."

Explains some of why his list always looks a little odd.
It would be interesting to look back at some of his prior lists (from say 2015 and 2016) to evaluate how good he actually is at projecting talent.

[David Struch]

I'd say Dillon Dubé is Calgary's best prospect... *cough* Zach Parise *cough*

[redmile04]

Originally Posted by dash_pinched

A little surprised that Parsons didn't warrant a mention under goalies...

After a injury filled season with meh ECHL(!) stats & poor limited AHL stats... hard to add him. I can see that changing this year though.

[Monahammer]

Originally Posted by David Struch

I'd say Dillon Dubé is Calgary's best prospect... *cough* Zach Parise *cough*

I've wanted to give tkachuk-lindholm-bennett a try for a bit but dube would also be interesting on rw

[David Struch]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

I've wanted to give tkachuk-lindholm-bennett a try for a bit but dube would also be interesting on rw

Sounds good, each of 'em taking draws on their strong side.

Gaudreau - Monahan - Neal
Tkachuk - Dubé - Lindholm
Frolik - Backlund - Ryan
Bennett - Jankowski - Czarnik

[Savvy27]

I think Dube is strange omission considering some of the players on this list. Could be homerism I guess, but I think he's got a bright future in the NHL. Loads of skill and great work ethic.

[SuperMatt18]

This is just my personal opinion but I do feel like Flames prospects are a bit underrated on Pronman's lists. I think he painted himself into a corner by always being adamant that Kylington is our best prospect...but it's tough to have him close to the top 50 - so then at that point all the other Flames prospects have to be below the Kylington ceiling.

Other wise it makes no sense that Lilegren is at 32 while Valimaki is at 80.

Both were taken with consecutive picks in the 2017 draft.

Lilegren put up 1 goal, 21 points in 64 AHL games including playoffs (NHLe of 13 points). He also put up 2 points in 7 games at the WJC.

Valimaki put up 18 goals, 62 points in 55 WHL games including playoffs (NHLe of 27 points). He also put up 4 points in 5 games at the WJC.

So somehow Valimaki appears to be just as good offensively, while actually being better touted defensively but ranks 50 places lower due to Pronman questioning his offensive upside.

It doesn't make sense even when you look at his player skill rankings:

32. Timothy Liljegren, D, Toronto

Skating: 55
Puck Skills: 60
Physical Game: 45
Hockey sense: 60
Total: 220

80. Juuso Valimaki, D, Calgary

Skating: 55
Puck Skills: 50
Physical Game: 55
Hockey sense: 60
Total: 220

They both total 220 total, and I feel like Valimaki's offensive game and puck skills are being underrated. It's the same d-man that did this:

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

Worth hearing how he ranks players:

"My preference is for highly skilled players with upside. I look for prospects with speed, skill and intelligence. Skating is a little more important to me in forwards than defenders, and physicality is more important to me in defenders than forwards. I prefer forwards to defensemen, and centers to wingers. My ranking philosophy is the No. 1 goal of drafting and development is to find stars, and even a minor chance of becoming a star has significant value."

See, he says this, and in some cases based on the rankings it appears true (Hughes at 7th despite his slight frame seems pretty high, and I think Hughes is likely to be very good). But then you look at other players' rankings, and scratch your head. A quick search indicates that just in this ranking, words like "size", "weight" and "bulk" are used about 40 times. His rankings also seem to favour more recently drafted players. Obviously basically all of these rankings are heavily based on in-person viewing, which both advantages players in North America and creates serious potential for errors based on "seen him good" in a particular sample of games.

I dunno, I think Pronman has some biases that make these rankings pretty hard to put a ton of stock in. Of course, that's true of literally anyone's published rankings, and his have more "meat" to the explanations for them than most others'. I just think there are a number of places where you can only go so far outside the consensus and the statistical evidence in your thinking about a prospect before your view no longer appears reasonable. He seems to do that about 15% of the time. I guess that does generate buzz and discussion, and at the end of the day, that's what his job is.

[redmile04]

Valimaki has only played WHL.

[Flames Draft Watcher]

Not much value to Pronman’s rankings due to his biases which lead to massive flaws in his rankings. His stated preference of forward over dman flies in the face of real actual NHL value where top pairing defenders are around as valuable as franchise centres and much more valuable than wingers.

He has Valimaki far too low

[Geeoff]

I'd have the Flames D prospects in the exact opposite order.

Andersson is basically a lock to be an NHLer and is a safe bet to become an solid top 4 D.

Valimaki is more well-rounded than Kylington with similar offensive potential but less bust potential.

Also, I'm surprised how high he is on Mangiapane

[JTech780]

I think Pronman is one of the worst talent evaluators as far as media side goes. I don't even take his opinions with a grain of salt because I am sure the grain of salt can evaluate talent better than he can.