Calgarypuck Prospect Ranking 2025 - Round 14

[Bingo]

Welcome to the annual Calgarypuck Prospect Poll!

As per usual ...

1. Rank the prospects as you like. Upside, chances, or trade value
2. I will try and do one a day which should get us to mid to late August
3. Graduates and/or runoffs will be determined in each case
4. Please don't complain that the polls are going to deep. We go until all the prospects are ranked, so don't vote if you don't want to.

Previous Prospect Rankings
2013 - 2013 Rankings
2014 - 2014 Rankings
2015 - 2015 Rankings
2016 - 2016 Rankings
2017 - 2017 Rankings
2018 - 2018 Rankings
2019 - 2019 Rankings
2020 - 2020 Rankings
2021 - 2021 Rankings
2022 - 2022 Rankings
2023 - 2023 Rankings
2024 - 2024 Rankings

2025 Rankings:
1. Parekh - 99.2% (0)
2. Reschny - 57.1% n/a
3. Brzustewicz - 46.7% (+1)
4. Gridin - 45.3% (+3)
5. Potter - 54.5% n/a
6. Honzek - 39.9% (-1)
7. Basha - 34.8% (+1)
8. Mews - Run Off (+8)
9. Morin - Run Off (0)
10. Battaglia - 47.9% (+5)
11. Suniev - 67.9% (+3)
12. Misa - 35.6% (+4)
13. Stockselius - Run Off n/a

[Enoch Root]

Stromgren for me

trying to stick with the S's

[Funkhouser]

Sergeev for me.
Goalies are voodoo, but he has good pedigree and progression. Looking forward to see how he does in the AHL.

Next group for me are: Jamieson, Kerrins, Kuznetsov, Soloyov, Stromgren, and King

[My2Cents]

Sergeev… or until Taco convinced me otherwise.

[gvitaly]

Still Kerins, I think he could become Monahan lite in terms of getting lost in coverage and just converting chances at a very high clip.

[VilleN]

I'm going Stromgren, and then Sergeev... It is crazy that we still have intriguing prospects at this point, with a decent amount left that are high probability to see NHL games.

[Robbob]

Goalies are such a crapshoot that I don't think I can pick one yet. Stromgren here for now.

[Vinny01]

Stromgren again. I think he is going to surprise a few people

[Gaudreau is a Ninja]

I done doubting on Kerins, something I’m sure he’s been dealing with his whole hockey life. With that said Kerins vs Stromgren is a battle that is going to be very interesting to watch this upcoming season.

P.S. I’ve been watching the Flames since 1986 and I haven’t seen the Flames prospect list look this good in a long time. And to think they are going to potentially add another two 1st rounders again next year to the list. I can’t wait to take my son to his 1st Flames game in a couple of years when the new arena is open

[Calgary4LIfe]

I went with Sergeev, but somehow missed Stromgren.. but this is pretty close. I think both have great potential to become NHLers.

[keenan87]

Why didn't Kerins automatically get 14th after the run-off? It was quite close.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by keenan87

Why didn't Kerins automatically get 14th after the run-off? It was quite close.

Not sure I'd call it close.

30 votes and almost 12% different.

And Stockselius won the round 13 that I sent to a run off (probably shouldn't have).

Add that in to the premise that Kerins wouldn't beat Stromgren (which might be happening)

[Jiri Hrdina]

Seems like Kerins might be the most polarizing prospect, where you've got a group that believes in him. And you've got another group that doesn't, and has therefore been voting for alternatives for a couple of rounds.

I'm more in the latter group, but if he loses this round, I would probably vote for him at 15.

[NewFan]

Solovyov for me. I hope two of Solovyov, Grushnikov, Kuznetsov and Poirier become solid 2nd and 3rd pairing D for us this season. Otherwise their time is running out and we need decide who is who.

[Wolven]

Originally Posted by NewFan

Solovyov for me. I hope two of Solovyov, Grushnikov, Kuznetsov and Poirier become solid 2nd and 3rd pairing D for us this season. Otherwise their time is running out and we need decide who is who.

Agreed on the D group but I think Kuznetsov has the higher ceiling. He might not be an offensive D but he seems to be doing the right things on the ice and hopefully it translates to the NHL when he finally gets his shot.

It looks like I'll be voting for Kuznetsov for a while...

[kehatch]

We are getting to the rounds where the remaining group were late draft picks and/or drafted awhile ago. Ceiling means less then likelihood to make the NHL at this stage in my opinion. I went Kerins, but Kuznetsov is another safe pick I think. Morton, Stromgren, Poirier, and a few others are still intriguing from an upside potential though.

[Ped]

Will Kerins be the first guy to get two run-off vote chances?

[Tacoman]

OK. The great news for all of us is that the Flames now have a huge number of guys with top six/top pairing potential. The rest of the guys on the list are either ones with bottom six potential or are ones that have significant development left to become something else. I would argue that the person left that has the best chance of developing into a bottom six contributor is Carter King. Yes. Full disclosure...I like the kid!

Offense:

Ranking the top twelve Flames forward prospects by NHLe from last year brings the following list:

Kerins 39
Reschny 37
King 35
Battaglia 35
Suniev 35
Misa 34
Gridin 33
Stockselius 32
Stromgren 28
Morton 26 (24 in his 5th college year)
Potter 23

Looking at the NCHC statistics for last year, King is top twenty in every single category other than PIM's in a division that averages 12 NHL drafted players per team. He finished 14th in the nation in goals (more than Coronato ever had in college) and 17th in points. Also hard to argue that he did this because of his linemates as he put up similar numbers in his junior year while centering the defensive shut down line.

Defense:

The offensive numbers are nice and shows that there is enough talent and IQ there to play at the next level but Carter's bread and butter is his defensive game. He is the back-to-back finalist for NCHC defensive forward of the year. His game is built on angles , positioning and stick detail which takes away spaces and lanes without really looking like he's doing that much. He's second in Denver's 75 year history in short handed goals. It also starts with his talent with faceoffs. As we all know, puck posession is vital in today's game. Carter was second in the nation in faceoff wins - more than 50 wins more than the next best center in the NCHC where he was going up against future NHL'ers every single weekend.

The last thing I'll say about his defense as a cool anecdote is that in the games that mattered the most, against the top players in the country, he shut things down. In NCAA tournament play and the three Frozen Fours he played in over the last four years, he directly matched up against Kent Johnson, Matty Beniers, Luke Hughes, Owen Power, Ryan Leonard and Gabe Perrault (x2), James Hagens, Macklin Celebrini and Lane Hudson. Those players combined for a total of zero points in four games. Obviously that's not attributable to one guy but the center on the line that faced them the most does get a lot of that responsibility.

Intangibles:

One of the big things the Flames wanted in signing Carter is to bring in winners. Carter has won his whole life and will do anything possible to do so. He won cities or provincials in every year in Bantam and Midget, leading his Buffaloes team to the National Championships in his final year. His BCHL had just won their playoff round after being last place the year before until the playoffs were cancelled due to COVID. On that note, his coach in Surrey was very confident that Carter would be one of the top players in the league in his second junior season but he ended up missing the whole year due to the pandemic. That caused him not to be drafted and put him behind a lot of kids his age in the US that got to play.

His graduating class at DU (just three of them) are the winningest class in DU history, winning 30+ games all four years, winning two national championships and losing in double overtime this year. He was assistant captain in his junior year and captain this year on a team with 15 NHL draft picks.

The Knocks:

The first thing that people bring up is that for a shutdown, fourth line center that he's undersized. At 5"11", he is shorter than the prototypical fourth line center. That said, he is just under 200 lbs - he essentially the exact same size as Blake Coleman and Sydney Crosby. If you look at the Flames forward lines from last year, he'd be essentially tied with Coleman and Huberdeau as the third heaviest forward on the team behind Klapka and Backlund. His strength is what allows him to get to the hard areas in front of the net to score his goals and also allows him to win faceoffs and board battles.

He's a good skater but not elite. He can also overthink his game which costs him pace at times. That problem goes away once he feels completely comfortable in the system he's playing so I'd expect him to need a good chunk of this year to gain that comfort and confidence.

All together, he has become the forward that every coach he's ever played for has trusted the most. His junior coach put his reputation on the line to tell Denver to sign him. David Carle at Denver said the same thing to Conroy. He's not flashy, he's not going to be toe dragging around the ice but he'll be the guy that get's tapped when a team needs to protect a lead, kill a penalty or win a faceoff. That's a guy I want on my team.

[HighLifeMan]

Stromgren has better projectability at the NHL level than Kerins does in my opinion due to the size, skating and hands.

[TheIronMaiden]

My bias is always to vote for players with the highest floor.
Solovyov should be in the NHL rotation next season.
With Andersson out the door, and Bean/Miromanov teetering on the ledge Solovyov has a good chance at landing 5/6 D man duty for the future.