Pre-Traverse City Top Prospect Rankings

[Joey Bones]

Leslie, no Morisson? Definitely think he's an underrated prospect. Crafty kid.

 

[Beacon]

Leslie, no Morisson? Definitely think he's an underrated prospect. Crafty kid.

A small guy who can't score isn't going to make the NHL. Needs to get stronger, better before we even start talking about him.

 

[eco's bones]

Paliotta played on a Calder Cup championship team as a rookie pro last year. 23 points isn't fantastic but it was 2nd among defensemen on his team. He led his college team in scoring in his senior season. To me he's our third best D prospect right now.

Gropp's season wasn't bad but was a bit underwhelming for me. Tambellini's season wasn't bad but he needs to develop quite a bit more. Day is a really good project. I was encouraged by Nieves at the end of the season in Hartford after a so so college career. Huska and Zborovskiy both had excellent years and showed a lot of improvement.

On Morrison I don't think I'd have him in my top 20 either but I still think he's a worthwhile intriguing prospect going into his second season after his draft year. Ronning is pretty much in the same place for me as Morrison.

 

[cwede]

adding Gilmour and Paliotta as FA's is almost more than we could've hoped for,
seem to have greater upside potential than the likes of Chapie, Donnay, Hughes, Nicholls, Lindblad, Kantor

and given system depth in young pros, at F vs D,
the signings are maybe even more important than signing Vesey
(NOT saying that either is sure to have better career than Vesey,
just that they fit a real need, with no blue-chip D after Skjei/Graves



RE Morrison and Ronning, until we see impact at pro level,
its 'Meet the new Smurfs, same as the old Smurfs"
(Ryan Bourque, Christian Thomas, St. Croix, McColgan ... )
But maybe they do become Gerbe-like,
there has been a recent trend of small young guys establishing in NHL
(Johnny Hockey, 5'9" 157#, anyone ... )

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

A small guy who can't score isn't going to make the NHL. Needs to get stronger, better before we even start talking about him.

Scouting the stat line.

Morrison is a really good skater, stick handler, and he has really good hands. His problem is that he tries to stick handle the puck into the net after doing a few circles around the net, and holding onto the puck for a minute.

If he tried to simplify his game, he could have a role in the NHL, likely as a middle 6 winger. He has some skills that play in the NHL, but plays too much of a junior hockey game.

 

[Gardner McKay]

Respect the list. Yeah, Graves over Skjei is bold but Graves is a good prospect.

 

[eco's bones]

Chapie was kind of an out of the blue signing. The Rangers must have had a reason and we're still waiting to see what he can do--to me it's not like he's a bad player or a bad signing---it's just that we have 0 to go on with him. It's possible that he translates his college game into a 4th line energy kind of player like Jooris. Someone like Donnay--we saw his last years in the CHL and an entire season in the ECHL that kind of tells me he's not going anywhere. So there's a big difference in how I look at Chapie and how I look at Donnay. It may be that Chapie will suck though too--time will tell.

Hughes is an AHL quality defensemen--not an NHL quality defenseman. I'm not entirely sure why we re-signed him but he's not necessarily a terrible signing.

 

[Joey Bones]

Scouting the stat line.

Morrison is a really good skater, stick handler, and he has really good hands. His problem is that he tries to stick handle the puck into the net after doing a few circles around the net, and holding onto the puck for a minute.

If he tried to simplify his game, he could have a role in the NHL, likely as a middle 6 winger. He has some skills that play in the NHL, but plays too much of a junior hockey game.

^ This.

 

[Leslie Treff]

As far as Paliotta goes, as of this moment, in my mind, he is not the third best D in the organization. Until some things get sorted out for me, he does not get a top 10 slot.

Here is what is bothering me. Paliotta came to Columbus from Chicago as part of the Saad trade. Jarmo Kekalainen (who is now working with John Davidson in his second city) had interest in him; a decent D, with some offensive upside. A year later, Paliotta did not get a qualifying offer (despite a decent AHL season) on that same team that could afford him and had the contracts available. So, Paliotta signs with the Rangers for only $600,000 (about $300,000 less than he got in his ELC), the first day of free agency.

Now, I know Kekalainen, who is an extremely good hockey guy (maybe one of the best in the biz), and is not the type of GM that would just let a player go for nothing, if he thought that player had value. So I have my eyebrow raised that there may be more to this story that I do not know yet. Maybe not. But I want to withhold judgment until I really find out what happened.

 

[cwede]

... Here is what is bothering me. Paliotta came to Columbus from Chicago as part of the Saad trade. Jarmo Kekalainen ... had interest in him; a decent D, with some offensive upside. A year later, Paliotta did not get a qualifying offer (despite a decent AHL season) on that same team that could afford him and had the contracts available.

...Kekalainen, ... is not the type of GM that would just let a player go for nothing, if he thought that player had value. .. there may be more to this story that I do not know yet. Maybe not. But I want to withhold judgment until I really find out what happened.

FWIW, the internet scuttlebutt was that CBJ couldn't (wouldn't) afford his QA, which would have had to be north of $1M.
They do have some ugly contracts ( DSavard $4.25M til '21, NFoligno $5.5M til '21, ... Clarkson...)

 

[Off Sides]

They also had Jones, Jenner, Murray, Karlsson, Prout all needing new deals, they ended up buying out Boll and Tyutin.

I don't think they knew exactly what is was going to take for Jones, or Jenner specifically (if they went long term on both) so having an extra 1.017M by not qualifying Paliotta likely made sense.

 

[Leslie Treff]

FWIW, the internet scuttlebutt was that CBJ couldn't (wouldn't) afford his QA, which would have had to be north of $1M.
They do have some ugly contracts ( DSavard $4.25M til '21, NFoligno $5.5M til '21, ... Clarkson...)

I think that it would have been just under a million, but before I rank him, I would like to get some confirmation. I am hoping that I will get something in TC.

 

[Beacon]

Scouting the stat line.

Morrison is a really good skater, stick handler, and he has really good hands. His problem is that he tries to stick handle the puck into the net after doing a few circles around the net, and holding onto the puck for a minute.

If he tried to simplify his game, he could have a role in the NHL, likely as a middle 6 winger. He has some skills that play in the NHL, but plays too much of a junior hockey game.

The Juniors are massively below the NHL. In fact, massively below the AHL. How far down? St. Croix had not one, but two 100-point seasons and couldn't make it in the AHL. He got literally zero points in the AHL in his 3 pro seasons.

A 100-point Junior offense-first player is significantly more likely to play in the minors than in the NHL. The odds of making the NHL for someone who has no size, who's predominantly an offensive player who gets half of that in terms of points are extraordinarily slim. If you review all the similar players, there's maybe 1% of them who make it.

As for his game outside of stats, Morrison's game is incredibly unsuited for the NHL. This is not a Callahan situation where he didn't run up a lot of Junior points, but he was smart, hard working, very coachable. And even Callahan failed to get a contract at the age of 20, had to return to the Juniors and only after getting over 50 goals did he get an NHL contract.

Instead, Morrison plays dumb hockey that will result in nothing but concussions at the pro level. I'd bet money he'll wind up in the ECHL for most of his career.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

The Juniors are massively below the NHL. In fact, massively below the AHL. How far down? St. Croix had not one, but two 100-point seasons and couldn't make it in the AHL. He got literally zero points in the AHL in his 3 pro seasons.

A 100-point Junior offense-first player is significantly more likely to play in the minors than in the NHL. The odds of making the NHL for someone who has no size, who's predominantly an offensive player who gets half of that in terms of points are extraordinarily slim. If you review all the similar players, there's maybe 1% of them who make it.

As for his game outside of stats, Morrison's game is incredibly unsuited for the NHL. This is not a Callahan situation where he didn't run up a lot of Junior points, but he was smart, hard working, very coachable. And even Callahan failed to get a contract at the age of 20, had to return to the Juniors and only after getting over 50 goals did he get an NHL contract.

Instead, Morrison plays dumb hockey that will result in nothing but concussions at the pro level. I'd bet money he'll wind up in the ECHL for most of his career.

I said nothing about his stats. Not good, I know. The point on Morrison is that he has the offensive talent that could play in an NHL lineup, if he learns to play more of a team style game offensively, bulks up and starts to play defense.

I'm not saying it will happen, but there have been plenty of forwards who didn't put up 1PPG in junior, but made it to the NHL, and now play in NHL top 9's. Morrison has certain individual offensive skills that can carry him beyond that of players with better stats in junior hockey, but he obviously needs to work on the other parts of his game to get to the NHL.

I agree in most cases about your stats oriented approach to scouting Rangers prospects, but in a case like this, its evident watching Morrison that if he made some changes to his game, he has the talent to be an NHL top 9 forward.

 

[NewLife]

I think Ronning was such a great pick by Clark/Gorton. I think he's going to go up the prospect rankings fast.

What makes him to end up in a different stage than the St Croixs of the world? Not being a dick or anything maybe just in a grumpy mood and want to know a prospect of ours I know zip bout a bit better.

 

[darko]

What makes him to end up in a different stage than the St Croixs of the world? Not being a dick or anything maybe just in a grumpy mood and want to know a prospect of ours I know zip bout a bit better.

Speed. Ronning is a speedy winger while St Croix skated in the mud.