Pronman: Flames have #31-ranked farm system in NHL

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Bingo

And Valimaki goes over based on the single playoff game adding to the 24 regular season games.

When compiling a ranking like this you have to draw the lines somewhere. But I think this helps to illustrate precisely why ranking “farm systems” or prospect pools is so futile and meaningless in the first place. The ONLY reason the Flames fall where they do on this list is because they have two high-end players right on the cusp of the cutoff. In the end, there is no actual difference between players like Yamamoto and Dube, or Valimaki and Bouchard insofar as when their NHL impact is realized, and that is why these lists are such a farce. I have maintained that it doesn’t really matter that the Flames prospects rank so low this year, because the team is still very young: their most important players will still be high impact contributors when teams ranked in the top this list have graduated their prospects.


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[CorsiHockeyLeague]

The criteria are pretty simple.

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.

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.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

The criteria are pretty simple.



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.

Also trading away Adam Fox

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

The criteria are pretty simple.



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.

He wasn't making that assumption though.

Valimaki and Dube just literally hit the line and therefore were graduated.

There are certainly prospects in Jersey and Manhattan that are sure fire as well but not getting graduated.

You can't blame him, he has a line to place somewhere, but in this case two Calgary prospects hit the exact elimination point on the button.

[Flash Walken]

The media is always picking on the Flames.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

The criteria are pretty simple.



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...

Of course, but I don't think that is the issue. The real issue is that the line will ALWAYS be arbitrary and artificial, and will fail to reflect the true long-term health of any organisation by the hard distinction between "prospect" and "player." The dynamics of development are too fluid for that, thus ranking all 31 teams's "prospects" or "systems" is essentially a meaningless exercise that does not tell us anything of value.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

The media is always picking on the Flames.

Thanks for your huge input again.

Appreciated.

It's August, the line in the sand that he picked has cut two Calgary prospects while maintaining an Edmonton one affecting both team's rankings.

Should I run this past your next time to make sure it's newsworthy enough to discuss?

[Strange Brew]

Given how the financial benefit of having young players is being rapidly eroded by the big money RFA contracts, these types of lists should maybe just treat any player who can still play on an ELC as a prospect, regardless of whether they have played NHL, AHL or anywhere else.

But I get what Pronman is trying to do. Gauging the relative strength of reinforcements yet to come, in theory.

[Geeoff]

Isn't Pronman using the same criteria the NHL does for the Calder? Not that arbitrary

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Geeoff

Isn't Pronman using the same criteria the NHL does for the Calder? Not that arbitrary

It is still completely arbitrary, and mostly because it has to be, but that is not the problem. The problem is that a list like this arbitrarily communicates something misleading about an individual team because the criteria cut-offs are inadequate to show what is actually going on.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Thanks for your huge input again.

Appreciated.

It's August, the line in the sand that he picked has cut two Calgary prospects while maintaining an Edmonton one affecting both team's rankings.

Should I run this past your next time to make sure it's newsworthy enough to discuss?

Maybe Weitz isn't the one who should loosen up for being pissy.

He established a criteria and followed it, which I think is a better example than the Calgarypuck prospect ranking that didn't seem to establish a criteria and went on gut feeling of who should count or not.

Maybe I"m wrong and there was a CP criteria, but I never saw it.

Anyway, as corsi said, graduating a couple of players isn't going to close a 22 spot gap in the rankings.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

Given how the financial benefit of having young players is being rapidly eroded by the big money RFA contracts, these types of lists should maybe just treat any player who can still play on an ELC as a prospect, regardless of whether they have played NHL, AHL or anywhere else.

But I get what Pronman is trying to do. Gauging the relative strength of reinforcements yet to come, in theory.

The financial benefit of paying young players big money is that young players making big money are general good and old players making big money are generally bad.

It's never been a disadvantage to have good players. The best teams have the best players.

[The Cobra]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

The real issue is that the line will ALWAYS be arbitrary and artificial, and will fail to reflect the true long-term health of any organisation by the hard distinction between "prospect" and "player." The dynamics of development are too fluid for that, thus ranking all 31 teams's "prospects" or "systems" is essentially a meaningless exercise that does not tell us anything of value.

The purpose of ranking the current prospects is to rank the current prospects. Nothing more, nothing less.

it's not intended to reflect the long-term health an any organization.

It's not a meaningless exercise.

Calgary does have less skillful prospects than other organizations. That's all it is saying. it's not saying how they got there. It's not saying how many where recently promoted or how many just missed the cut off.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

Maybe Weitz isn't the one who should loosen up for being pissy.

He established a criteria and followed it, which I think is a better example than the Calgarypuck prospect ranking that didn't seem to establish a criteria and went on gut feeling of who should count or not.

False. The hard cutoff was agreed at the outset at 41 NHL games.
https://forum.calgarypuck.com/showthread.php?t=174750

Maybe I"m wrong and there was a CP criteria, but I never saw it.

I don't believe you. You posted in the thread about the criteria, and complained about the criteria. You're just pissy because you didn't believe that Valimaki belonged on the list.

Anyway, as corsi said, graduating a couple of players isn't going to close a 22 spot gap in the rankings.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that the Flames have a top-ten ranked prospect base, but there is certainly a legitimate complaint that the criteria artificially disadvantages their placement because of how closely so many of their players are to the line. There is a legitimate case to be made that the Flames's "farm system" is much healthier in fact than a 31st-place ranking would seem to indicate.

[Rando]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

it.

Anyway, as corsi said, graduating a couple of players isn't going to close a 22 spot gap in the rankings.

Two to three prospects either way can make or break lists like these. Besides the top end (which the Flames don't have anyway) the vast majority of players are the secondary type. Not that it matters anyway, it's just interesting to see some make such a huge issue out of it, like it matters. The Flames were poorly ranked in the exact same list a year ago and time quickly showed it wasn't true.

Agreed that some, on both sides, could use a deep breath or two however. Simply disagreeing isn't an attack.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by The Cobra

The purpose of ranking the current prospects is to rank the current prospects. Nothing more, nothing less.

it's not intended to reflect the long-term health an any organization.

If this is not what the list is intended to communicate, then why would anyone care about such a ranking in the first place?

It's not a meaningless exercise.

If a ranking has no demonstrable bearing on what actually matters for the team—their ability and potential to win a championship—then what does it mean? Please explain to me why this ranking is meaningful.

[Toonage]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

If this is not what the list is intended to communicate, then why would anyone care about such a ranking in the first place?

That's a great question. Why do we care what one guy thinks about any team's prospect pool?

[The Cobra]

Originally Posted by Toonage

That's a great question. Why do we care what one guy thinks about any team's prospect pool?

Posters here certainly do, many have been complaining about it for a while now.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

Maybe Weitz isn't the one who should loosen up for being pissy.

He established a criteria and followed it, which I think is a better example than the Calgarypuck prospect ranking that didn't seem to establish a criteria and went on gut feeling of who should count or not.

Maybe I"m wrong and there was a CP criteria, but I never saw it.

Anyway, as corsi said, graduating a couple of players isn't going to close a 22 spot gap in the rankings.

Nah ...

You have a history of annoying more than just me with single word or line pot shot responses. I think I'm in good stead.

And the CP one isn't comparing the Flames to any other organization so your point falls short. That and I had an open discussion with the site to see where the line would be and took the consensus in having players available.

And I bet the gap closes more than you think.

This is prospect 1 and 2 on Calgary's list.

[Toonage]

Originally Posted by The Cobra

Posters here certainly do, many have been complaining about it for a while now.

Can't post gifs, but that one of Ryan Reynolds in hospital scrubs seems appropriate right about now.