HF Mid-Season Organizational Rankings Posted (21-30)

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st_roland

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Just wanted to add my thanks to the HF writers. Great, great job.
 

Vagrant

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Brock said:
The problem is, we don't have enough space to write about all these things. We can't talk about one single player for a few sentences. The write ups were supposed to be short blurbs that covered the jist of the organization on a whole. In terms of Kahnberg, we can't say he's a strength. A single player isn't a strength. We were looking in terms of certain areas, such as positional, size, skill etc.

Well I agree that a single player shouldn't be harped on as a strength, but to not see Trojovsky's name, when he is one of the best defensive prospects we have, was a little confusing to me. Especially when I see the names of players like Jesse Lane mentioned, when he is clearly out of the plans at the moment sort of like R.J. Umberger in Vancouver.

Also, Nordgren not being mentioned as well as Kahnberg being seen as almost an afterthought made me wonder the extent that the Carolina prospects were researched. I know that nobody was paid to do this, but in the name of accuracy it would have been more comforting to see these inclusions.

However, great job. I know it's difficult to come across information on Carolina prospects as well so I can't be all that mad. Thanks for the effort, regardless of how I feel about the finished product.
 

Brock

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Caniacforever said:
Well I agree that a single player shouldn't be harped on as a strength, but to not see Trojovsky's name, when he is one of the best defensive prospects we have, was a little confusing to me. Especially when I see the names of players like Jesse Lane mentioned, when he is clearly out of the plans at the moment sort of like R.J. Umberger in Vancouver.

Also, Nordgren not being mentioned as well as Kahnberg being seen as almost an afterthought made me wonder the extent that the Carolina prospects were researched. I know that nobody was paid to do this, but in the name of accuracy it would have been more comforting to see these inclusions.

However, great job. I know it's difficult to come across information on Carolina prospects as well so I can't be all that mad. Thanks for the effort, regardless of how I feel about the finished product.

I wrote the write up for the Carolina one, and I research my prospects pretty well.

Regardless of what Jesse Lane is doing right now, IMO he still deserves mention. I was a big fan of his play in the QMJHL last year and he was a solid selection. In the longer version of my write up, I had mentioned Lane because of the reason i said the Canes had some good powerpplay defenseman prospects, such as Danny Richmond or Jesse Lane. That's the real reason i mentioned Lane, but the write up was rightfullu edited and shortened.

I had considered naming Trojovsky, but didn't And yes I did read about what he did at training camp. But I still felt that the players I mentioned were better prospects than Trojovsky currently and I stick by that. Everyone has their own opinion.

And in regards of Kahnberg and not really being mentioned and what not, the weaknesses portion of my write up was shortened considerably. Like I said we only have so much room for the write ups and we tried to make them flow as best as possible (with a different writer taking each division). I mentioned Kahnberg and his emergence in the weaknesses part. This is taking from the write up i submitted for shortening....."Mike Zigomanis and Tomas Kurka are looking to be possible longshots at NHL careers. Swedish forward Magnus Kahnberg has really come out of nowhere to develop into an excellent and underrated prospect, but he alone can’t cure what ails them. The Hurricanes also lack a top defensive prospect. While they have good depth, guys like Malec or Richmond aren’t likely to be stud, potential number one defenseman."
 

Winston Wolf

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Thanks, great job! :handclap:

For the Flyers (not complaining about the ranking at all) I would have liked to seen Stefan Ruzicka's name mentioned as I feel he is one of our best prospects on the wing. We also have three decent D prospects in Korovkin, Ruggeri, and Picard (although none will be stars, they are at least decent depth on the blueline.)

Keep up the great work!
 

Vagrant

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Brock said:
I wrote the write up for the Carolina one, and I research my prospects pretty well.

Regardless of what Jesse Lane is doing right now, IMO he still deserves mention. I was a big fan of his play in the QMJHL last year and he was a solid selection. In the longer version of my write up, I had mentioned Lane because of the reason i said the Canes had some good powerpplay defenseman prospects, such as Danny Richmond or Jesse Lane. That's the real reason i mentioned Lane, but the write up was rightfullu edited and shortened.

I had considered naming Trojovsky, but didn't And yes I did read about what he did at training camp. But I still felt that the players I mentioned were better prospects than Trojovsky currently and I stick by that. Everyone has their own opinion.

And in regards of Kahnberg and not really being mentioned and what not, the weaknesses portion of my write up was shortened considerably. Like I said we only have so much room for the write ups and we tried to make them flow as best as possible (with a different writer taking each division). I mentioned Kahnberg and his emergence in the weaknesses part. This is taking from the write up i submitted for shortening....."Mike Zigomanis and Tomas Kurka are looking to be possible longshots at NHL careers. Swedish forward Magnus Kahnberg has really come out of nowhere to develop into an excellent and underrated prospect, but he alone can’t cure what ails them. The Hurricanes also lack a top defensive prospect. While they have good depth, guys like Malec or Richmond aren’t likely to be stud, potential number one defenseman."

Well, I apologize with my assertation that the prospects weren't researched to the proper extent. It seems my beef is more with the editor of the list than the writer. I honestly didn't mean to question your ability to determine the prospects that were worth mentioning and the ones that weren't. I just found it kind of indicative of the state of the Hurricanes that nobody seemed to mention our best prospects in depth. But now that is cleared up, and there is a reason you were writing and I was reading it. ;)

As I said earlier, Thanks for the time spent researching these guys. We'll take any publicity we can get.
 

Brock

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Caniacforever said:
Well, I apologize with my assertation that the prospects weren't researched to the proper extent. It seems my beef is more with the editor of the list than the writer. I honestly didn't mean to question your ability to determine the prospects that were worth mentioning and the ones that weren't. I just found it kind of indicative of the state of the Hurricanes that nobody seemed to mention our best prospects in depth. But now that is cleared up, and there is a reason you were writing and I was reading it. ;)

As I said earlier, Thanks for the time spent researching these guys. We'll take any publicity we can get.

Well the editor did a very good job too IMO. He had a hard task in trying to please all of us who wrote the articles. It's just tough to pleas everyone. Some of the write ups ended up being longer than others, and well flow is important for the way we completed this project. So we couldn't have articles for some teams twice as long as some others. So some teams saw some material clipped and others saw some added. It was a necessary two way street really.

We just try to please you guys as much as possible :D
 

Winston Wolf

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One other thing, I really don't agree with this statement regarding the Flyers:

Clearly Philadelphia relies on their ability to fill the holes in the organization by taking advantage of the free agent market rather than building through the draft.

The only recent major FA signings by the Flyers were Roenick and Hackett (you could probably also count Amonte, as he was pretty much a salary dump.) The rest of the players were either drafted by the Flyers, or were acquired by trading players/picks/prospects. Clarke's good drafting and his stockpiling of picks allowed him to make these trades, it certainly hasn't been mainly through the FA route. The Flyers are clearly guilty of overpaying their players, but I think a lot of people equate overpaying players with buying a team, (NYR) when they really are two seperate issues.
 

DR. Holiday

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Brock said:
Well the editor did a very good job too IMO. He had a hard task in trying to please all of us who wrote the articles. It's just tough to pleas everyone. Some of the write ups ended up being longer than others, and well flow is important for the way we completed this project. So we couldn't have articles for some teams twice as long as some others. So some teams saw some material clipped and others saw some added. It was a necessary two way street really.

We just try to please you guys as much as possible :D

Caniacforever MADE some great points but it is clear that you don't want to hear it. As you say you can't please everyone but his points on Lane are very valid and it would have been a benifit to the article if you had of mentioned a "top" prospect going off the rails like he did.
 

Coffey77

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Hockeycrazed07 said:
Very much agreed. You're probably one of few that thinks his team is pretty high.

~Crazed.

Yeah, when I first saw the thread, I for sure thought Detroit would be one of the teams ranked 21-30. It will be interesting to see what kind of write up the prospects get. If they are ranked in the next article (like number 20), then I don't think they were incredibly over-rated. I'll be shocked if I don't see them in next week's article.

Didn't think Philadelphia would be ranked where they are, I thought they would have been better.
 

Herby

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degroat said:
When the Blues' best two forward prospects weren't even mentioned in the evaluation of the organization (Sejna, Zakharov) it makes it really hard for me to put much into the rankings...

When one of your top 2 forward prospects is a 24 year old player wirh 4 goals in 28 games in the AHL you know your in trouble.

Sejna has been a massive bust, both in St. Louis and Worcester, what he did for CC last year or how many teams wanted to sign him means nothing. And as the other poster said, he isn't a kid, he is a 24 year old.
 

Pantokrator

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Well, HF might as well drop Philly to 30 overall, as Clarke will surely trade either Richards or Carter to get a goalie such as Burke who will come in and do nothing to help the Flyers now or in the long term. Too bad, cause both of these guys would help out long term.
 

Brodeur

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flyers guy said:
One other thing, I really don't agree with this statement regarding the Flyers:

Clearly Philadelphia relies on their ability to fill the holes in the organization by taking advantage of the free agent market rather than building through the draft.

The only recent major FA signings by the Flyers were Roenick and Hackett (you could probably also count Amonte, as he was pretty much a salary dump.) The rest of the players were either drafted by the Flyers, or were acquired by trading players/picks/prospects. Clarke's good drafting and his stockpiling of picks allowed him to make these trades, it certainly hasn't been mainly through the FA route. The Flyers are clearly guilty of overpaying their players, but I think a lot of people equate overpaying players with buying a team, (NYR) when they really are two seperate issues.

I was about to make the same comment. Sans Roenick/Weinrich/Hackett, everybody on the roster was either drafted or traded for by Clarke.

Comrie (Woywitka/pick), Primeau (Brind'Amour/Pelletier/pick), Handzus (Boucher), Sharp (draft), Roenick (FA)

Gagne (draft), Brashear (Hlavac->Lindros), Leclair (Recchi), Somik (draft)

Amonte (Lefebvre/picks), Recchi (Zubrus), Kapanen (Brendl->Lindros->draft)

Johnsson (Lindros), Markov (Williams), Pitkanen (draft), Ragnarsson (McGillis->Niinimaa), Therien (draft), Weinrich (FA)

Esche (Boucher), Hackett (FA)
 

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I must say, while the list is a bit shocking at first until you realize that certain players were left off the list as they have already graduated..

I am still shocked with the low placement of the Florida Panthers. Even without Hornton, this is still a top 15 team in my eyes. Guys like Gregory Campbell I think have been overlooked the most. What he did last year in the Memorial Cup playoffs was nothing short of excellent! Too quickly does Krajicek get brushed off, as he is still one of the top defensive prospects around. And yes, I am not a massive Stewart fan, but too little was made of Globke.

My personal opinion mind you. I'll see the other 20 before I really tear into you guys ;)

But hey, that's part of the fun.
 

degroat*

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Vlad The Impaler said:
And I don't think a guy currently struggling in *the AHL* would change that.

For clarification purposes, Sejna is not struggling in the AHL... he struggled when he was first sent down but has been very good as of late.

Herby said:
When one of your top 2 forward prospects is a 24 year old player wirh 4 goals in 28 games in the AHL you know your in trouble. Sejna has been a massive bust, both in St. Louis and Worcester, what he did for CC last year or how many teams wanted to sign him means nothing. And as the other poster said, he isn't a kid, he is a 24 year old.

It's really unfortunate that people such as yourself try to present yourself as an expert on players that you know nothing about. In the future, I recommend that you start looking at more than a statsheet when you evaluate a player and to start with, I'd suggest an article that you'd find on the Blues section of HF by the resident Worcester expert....

210 said:
When Peter Sejna arrived in Worcester after 18 games with the St. Louis Blues, the rookie appeared totally shell-shocked and lacking confidence. If Sejna’s progress continues along its present path what they'll get back in St. Louis will be a bona-fide NHL left wing. In just the last three weeks Sejna has made huge strides in his game. He is now skating with the confidence he showed in his NHL debut last season when he beat the Avalanche's Patrick Roy to score his first NHL goal.

That was published at the beginning of January. Since then his play has only escaladed.

That said, as I have already said once in this thread, my complaint isn't the ranking. The Blues are actually much higher than I expected them to be because I know how much hype weighs into these sorts of things. My issue is that a) Sejna wasn't even included in their conclusions despite the fact that he fits into HF's criteria and b) the fact that Zakharov was completely ignored.
 
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balddog66

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My quick thoughts on the rankings so far.

Philadelphia, I agree Ruzicka has been amazing in Owen Sound this year (Philly Jr. as they are becoming known with Strothers and Ryan ties). I believe he's still first in rookie scoring in the OHL, course he is 19, but he's a clutch player.

Colorado, would have been helped out if Brad Richardson had not had shoulder surgery, he was on pace for atleast a point per game again and plays in all positions, no secret why Owen Sound dropped from being one of Canada's top 10 to hardly an OHL top 10 after he went out with the season ending injury.

Toronto, nice to see Wellwood finally get some recognition, just wasn't sure why Tellqvist still isn't considered a prospect, is it age? He hasn't played 10 NHL games yet...?
 

CoolburnIsGone

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I can't complain too much about the list...I mean you look at the players that were in some of these organizations before the season started. Horton for FL, Pitkanen for Philly, Staal for Carolina, Hunter for NYI, just to mention a few players that are having an impact in the NHL right now. I'd rather have those players contributing to the NHL teams than worry about the prospect depth at midseason point...teams will restock at the draft like always and then the ranking will balance back out. There are some prospects for teams that have played about 30 games in the NHL so they should eclipse the 41 games for one season thing soon enough and be ineligible for the rankings. I don't put much weight into the midseason rankings because of graduating players...I'd rather see the rankings post-draft and that seems more important to me.
 

Jori

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Even as a Colorado fan I can't argue with them being last. Some depth players maybe, but no studs outside of Ballard. Johansson, Nedorost and Vrbata all traded within less than a year. Potential top six forwards are all small skilled players (and injury prone). The Avs have traded away alot of good talent, but two Stanley Cups are worth it. Good report overall.
 

SmokeyClause

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Just a quick question. Is the reason FLA dropped because certain players graduated/devalued over the course of a half season? Is that the biggest difference between preseason and now or is it a thorough reevaluation.
 

Kevin Forbes

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SmokeyClause said:
Just a quick question. Is the reason FLA dropped because certain players graduated/devalued over the course of a half season? Is that the biggest difference between preseason and now or is it a thorough reevaluation.

the last time an org ranking was done was last year, January 31st, 2003 (http://www.hockeysfuture.com/orgrankings.php) all changes are because of re-evaluation of prospects and the moves made by teams
 

Brock

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DR. Holiday said:
Caniacforever MADE some great points but it is clear that you don't want to hear it. As you say you can't please everyone but his points on Lane are very valid and it would have been a benifit to the article if you had of mentioned a "top" prospect going off the rails like he did.

Like I said, It's meant to be a short blurb on the directions of the organization. Committing half the little blurb to saying how Jesse Lane decided to break off with the QMJHL and join the USHL, wouldn't fit.

And It is clear that I did hear his points, otherwise I would have ignored them completely and not responded.
 

Debrincat93

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awesome! detroit doesnt make the 21-30 list... glad to see we are finally getting recognized for some good scouting..

although i dont see us past 15th
 

Starsdude

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zetterberg40 said:
awesome! detroit doesnt make the 21-30 list... glad to see we are finally getting recognized for some good scouting..

although i dont see us past 15th

Even as a starsdude you have to admire Datysuk, Zetterberg, Hudler(can't believe stars passed on him) Kronwell Grigorenko in last 4 years awesome work
 

PanthersRule96

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What BS! How is FLA #23???????????

Stewart is a top 10-15 prospect. Krajicek is a top 15-20 prospect ( in a lot of people's opinions including mine as he's been great in the NHL with like 5 points in like 9 games or something like that). Globke ( super sniper with crazy speed who could've gone in the first round, very underrated) is like a top 60 prospect. Taticek was/maybe still is a top 50 prospect (48 on one of the lists). Novak is a top 60 prospect ( one of the most underrated, was on the AHL allstar team as a rookie). Campbell is a solid prospect.( memorial cup MVP) Swanson is solid ( nearly made Team Canada), Jaakola is solid(on same top pairing as Pitkanen) as is McNeil, Tuma, Lojek and Roussin ( still produced without Crosby and Pouliot) may be the steal of the 03 draft as he's 2nd in the Q in scoring and has size.
 

Guy Flaming

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RichPanther said:
I can't complain too much about the list...I mean you look at the players that were in some of these organizations before the season started. Horton for FL, Pitkanen for Philly, Staal for Carolina, Hunter for NYI, just to mention a few players that are having an impact in the NHL right now.


I can't stress these points enough.

You have to keep in mind that these are MID-SEASON rankings, and NOT based on preseason rosters. Names like Pitkanen, Staal, Fleury, Horton, were omitted from consideration because they are no longer prospects (according to HF criteria).

Also, this project was started in very early 2004 and so a few select players (Like Peter Sejna) we omitted because we projected him to play his way onto the graduated list... hindsight may prove some of those projections off a bit but it's not an exact scienece. The postseason and preseason rankings will not have to deal with those issues so maybe those of you who are disappointed that some players were left out that you thought should have been included, you might like the other times of the year rankings better.

We worked pretty hard on this ranking though and I think it should be noted that it came from a committee and not from just one or two people. And like Brock mentioned, some of the write ups were much longer originally and some were extremely short so edits had to be done to make the overall piece smoother.

We know that not everyone will be happy with where their favourite team is slotted but we obviously invite you to express you opinions. Please keep things civil though OK?
 
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