What happened to Michael Rasmussen ?

[tfong]

I theorize

Vilardi was the safe pick.
they decided last minute to go for what they thought would be a bigger payoff / bigger bust possibility
which was Rasmussen.

I know many of you think Rasmussen was the "safe" pick because he is big. But the real truth is he is the risky pick.
Maybe Rasmussen only looked good at age 18 because he is so big. I mean we will be able to second guess this alot for the next 5 years... enjoy LOL

Hmm i kinda thought the opposite.

I thought Ras is an extremely safe pick for the factor you pointed out plus a few others. At the very least he can skate and is a big body with faceoff skills. I always question his actual technical and offensive abilities.

 

[Frk It]

It's good production, but let's not lose our heads here or anything. The WHL is a crazy high-scoring league this year. This is not the same as 11 points in 5 games in the NHL. The league leader in points, Heponiemi, has a higher PPG for the entire year than Rasmussen does in those 5 games: 2.45 points per game. The WHL right now is like the QMJHL of old. Scoring a point per game puts you at about 50th in scoring. Even after those excellent 5 games, Rasmussen is still 17th in PPG.

You should only be comparing him with U19 players, FWIW.

He’s having a pretty dominant December so far, have to give credit where it’s due.

 

[Dotter]

I might sound like a broken record, but I really like what Tyler Wright is doing with the scouting. I think things are looking up since Jim Nill left.

Can Rasmussen official nick name be RAM? I'm a huge Dodge Ram fan. I own 3 in my work fleet.

 

[SantosHalper]

If/when they bring him up next season, i hope coaching staff puts him next to Z as winger first. The Captain would be perfect mentor for him and Z likely retires after next season. Then Ras could start as a center in 19-20 season.

Shame that they didn't pick him to play in WJC.

 

[BinCookin]

He's safe because he could make the NHL right now as a bottom 6 player. So if your idea of a successful draft is to get a player into the league and have them play at least 100 game than he's a lock. If by who is more likely to put up big numbers if they both make the NHL?Than yes he's much riskier.

Yup i was referring to the 2nd statement.
As in they are hoping for big numbers from him... if he turns into Sheahan, he is a bust. (bottom 6 NHLer)

 

[Unfriendly Ghost]

You should only be comparing him with U19 players, FWIW.

Heponiemi is the same age as Rasmussen.

But even so, you really think it's inappropriate to expect a top 10 pick to be better than a late round pick 1 year older? Or an undrafted kid two years older who will probably never even make the AHL? To me, that's just the bare minimum. You're absolutely expected to outplay those players. That was essentially the point in taking you in the top 10 in the first place.

 

[raymond23]

Heponiemi is the same age as Rasmussen.

But even so, you really think it's inappropriate to expect a top 10 pick to be better than a late round pick 1 year older? Or an undrafted kid two years older who will probably never even make the AHL? To me, that's just the bare minimum. You're absolutely expected to outplay those players. That was essentially the point in taking you in the top 10 in the first place.

Who would you have picked in the 9 spot instead? That was a realistic option

 

[Reddwit]

Knowing what we know thus far, do you think wings management made the right decision in rasmussen as their selection.
vilardi - back injury, hasn't played this season
tippet - he is on the panthers roster but stats doesn't look good 7 gp /1 goal/ -7
necas - back to czech league 12gp 3g 2a

just curious because i know the board was fairly disappointed with the pick at first.

Too early to tell with those 3 situations. The big thing is Vilardi. His career may never be the same. He’s not supposed to have any lingering issues but his development is...ehh....

 

[Frk It]

Heponiemi is the same age as Rasmussen.

But even so, you really think it's inappropriate to expect a top 10 pick to be better than a late round pick 1 year older? Or an undrafted kid two years older who will probably never even make the AHL? To me, that's just the bare minimum. You're absolutely expected to outplay those players. That was essentially the point in taking you in the top 10 in the first place.

There’s a bunch of 97’s mixed in to that group of 17 guys you list with a better PPG. I could care less what a bunch of 20 year olds are doing in the WHL. Developmentally there’s a huge difference between a 20 year old and 18 year old playing in the CHL.

Compare him with the other guys playing in the WHL taken last year, or other guys taken in the first round last year in their respective league. That’s going to be the best data to use.

 

[Unfriendly Ghost]

But that's not real life. There's no actual counterfactual that makes a comparison to Rasmussen reasonable. Players are too different on the individual level. But what is a good comparison is how they dominate their respective leagues, and Rasmussen is not dominating his.

 

[Frk It]

But that's not real life. There's no actual counterfactual that makes a comparison to Rasmussen reasonable. Players are too different on the individual level. But what is a good comparison is how they dominate their respective leagues, and Rasmussen is not dominating his.

 

[Unfriendly Ghost]

Do you dispute that? That's actually the way the Wings claim to evaluate their prospects and determine whether they're ready for the next level: how dominant they are in their league. In the pros, you don't just play against the best people exactly your age.

Like who would be Rasmussen's counterfactual, anyway? We want to know what Rasmussen would do if he had been drafted somewhere else, or played on some other team. So what player would work for that? That's ridiculously tough to establish in hockey. Leagues especially are way, way different.

But anyway, excuse me for the imposition. I didn't realize expecting one of the highest drafted players in the WHL to be one of the better players in the WHL was such a ridiculous request.

 

[Pavels Dog]

Heponiemi is the same age as Rasmussen.

But even so, you really think it's inappropriate to expect a top 10 pick to be better than a late round pick 1 year older? Or an undrafted kid two years older who will probably never even make the AHL? To me, that's just the bare minimum. You're absolutely expected to outplay those players. That was essentially the point in taking you in the top 10 in the first place.

Can’t really speak for a guy like Heponiemi specifically, but there’s always these small, skillful forwards tearing up junior leagues. Very few turn into Gaudreau, some into Nyquist, many into Pulkkinen. Ras may not be the most skillful guy in the world but his tools and the way he plays is likely to translate well. A lot of these smaller guys hit walls at higher levels because they can no longer dipsy-doodle through D-men or they start getting outmuscled. Rasmussen isn’t that far off the scoring pace of a guy like Getzlaf’s d+1 season. That is good enough to me. If he was strictly a scoring winger it would be less than great, but for a defensively responsible two-way C it’s good numbers.

 

[BinCookin]

Do you dispute that? That's actually the way the Wings claim to evaluate their prospects and determine whether they're ready for the next level: how dominant they are in their league. In the pros, you don't just play against the best people exactly your age.

Like who would be Rasmussen's counterfactual, anyway? We want to know what Rasmussen would do if he had been drafted somewhere else, or played on some other team. So what player would work for that? That's ridiculously tough to establish in hockey. Leagues especially are way, way different.

But anyway, excuse me for the imposition. I didn't realize expecting one of the highest drafted players in the WHL to be one of the better players in the WHL was such a ridiculous request.

I think it should be noticed that Rasmussen has played 22GP vs his competition 33-35GP.

Rasmussen has 31 pts in 22 GP.

At 33 GP, that is 46.5 Pts. Placing him around 15th in league scoring.

Also the top 3/4 scorers in the league are on the same team. Could be a factor that apparently they have created a Stamkos/kucherov/namestnikov style line in the AHL...

Which one of those guys in the namestnikov though???

Rasmussen is not dominating... but he is "near the top"

So realize we are splitting some hairs here.

WHL Network

 

[Unfriendly Ghost]

I think it should be noticed that Rasmussen has played 22GP vs his competition 33-35GP.

Rasmussen has 31 pts in 22 GP.

At 33 GP, that is 46.5 Pts. Placing him around 15th in league scoring.

Also the top 3/4 scorers in the league are on the same team. Could be a factor that apparently they have created a Stamkos/kucherov/namestnikov style line in the AHL...

Which one of those guys in the namestnikov though???

Rasmussen is not dominating... but he is "near the top"

So realize we are splitting some hairs here.

WHL Network

But that's actually worse, because we would expect anybody's PPG to go down over enough time. They'd regress to the mean.

 

[Number1RedWingsFan52]

In 22 games played Michael Rasmussen has 16 goals and 15 assists for 31 points has miss a few games due to his finger injury not bad numbers at all.

 

[ChadS]

But that's actually worse, because we would expect anybody's PPG to go down over enough time. They'd regress to the mean.

Actually he might just as well be underperforming in a small sample size, the correct term being reversion to the mean (up or down).

 

[Frk It]

Do you dispute that? That's actually the way the Wings claim to evaluate their prospects and determine whether they're ready for the next level: how dominant they are in their league. In the pros, you don't just play against the best people exactly your age.

Like who would be Rasmussen's counterfactual, anyway? We want to know what Rasmussen would do if he had been drafted somewhere else, or played on some other team. So what player would work for that? That's ridiculously tough to establish in hockey. Leagues especially are way, way different.

But anyway, excuse me for the imposition. I didn't realize expecting one of the highest drafted players in the WHL to be one of the better players in the WHL was such a ridiculous request.

I literally have no idea what you were trying to say with that post, and I still don’t for the most part.

As for why the pros are different, well 99% of pros are fully developed. It’s not a developmental league, like the CHL is. That’s why age matters more in the CHL. That’s why we talk about +1 vs +2 vs +3 seasons for prospects, and why they split the WJC into U20 and U18 teams. A year or two makes a huge difference at those ages, I mean it’s just been proven and accepted, so I don’t know why I would have to dispute anything.

If you want to look at the guys in the WHL taken last year with better numbers, go ahead.

 

[Unfriendly Ghost]

Actually he might just as well be underperforming in a small sample size, the correct term being reversion to the mean (up or down).

Terminological debates are silly, but I do believe regression is the proper term. Ex: Regression toward the mean - Wikipedia

Although in stats, they do sometimes shy away from using "regression" in this context due to the possibility of confusing it with an OLS-style regression or something, so you've got me there.

 

[Unfriendly Ghost]

I literally have no idea what you were trying to say with that post, and I still don’t for the most part.

As for why the pros are different, well 99% of pros are fully developed. It’s not a developmental league, like the CHL is. That’s why age matters more in the CHL. That’s why we talk about +1 vs +2 vs +3 seasons for prospects, and why they split the WJC into U20 and U18 teams. A year or two makes a huge difference at those ages, I mean it’s just been proven and accepted, so I don’t know why I would have to dispute anything.

If you want to look at the guys in the WHL taken last year with better numbers, go ahead.

Okay, let me try to explain more clearly. We want to know how Rasmussen is doing. But we know that there are effects obscuring what his "pure hockey" contribution is. For example, the WHL likely has a strong league effect going on where scoring for players in the WHL is higher, and Tri-City might have a team effect where players on that team score lower because of coaching or whatever. Every player is subject to a ton of those effects, and it can make it hard to compare players apples to apples. Other players likely start in different places and are subject to different trends (league, team, personal) through the season, making them quite different from Rasmussen in the ways we care about.

But what might be more illuminating is to compare players based on their production's distance from their respective league's mean (this is a Z score, for those following at home). True, it does compare them to some extent to players in other age ranges, but I think that's fair in the first place. Every player always plays against a certain mix of players, and every time we look at a player's point production in a junior league, we're seeing the effect of a mix of different-aged competition. If anything, isolating them by age puts them in a weird context that's hard to interpret, given that they would never actually be in that situation in the hockey world.

Now to bring it back around, Rasmussen is doing pretty well by that measure (distance from the mean), but not crazy well. As the sample size increases (games played), we're going to have a better idea of the actual distribution, for sure. But 22 games isn't nothing, either.

 

[BinCookin]

I stand by my original assessment and admit to the obvious "extrapolation error" possibility.

All this other league to league or average for the league is meaningless and not at all related to my point.

 

[ChadS]

Terminological debates are silly, but I do believe regression is the proper term. Ex: Regression toward the mean - Wikipedia

Although in stats, they do sometimes shy away from using "regression" in this context due to the possibility of confusing it with an OLS-style regression or something, so you've got me there.

I agree the term doesn't matter. What I'm saying is that "regression" assumes that he's overperforming, but the small sample size could also be causing him to underperform. Lots of players underperform short-term and then over time revert back to their (higher) mean.

 

[Unfriendly Ghost]

I agree the term doesn't matter. What I'm saying is that "regression" assumes that he's overperforming, but the small sample size could also be causing him to underperform. Lots of players underperform short-term and then over time revert back to their (higher) mean.

Oh, gotcha. I was taking regression to mean in either direction. I didn't mean for it to be purely negative.

 

[newfy]

Heponiemi is the same age as Rasmussen.

But even so, you really think it's inappropriate to expect a top 10 pick to be better than a late round pick 1 year older? Or an undrafted kid two years older who will probably never even make the AHL? To me, that's just the bare minimum. You're absolutely expected to outplay those players. That was essentially the point in taking you in the top 10 in the first place.

Yeah its inappropriate because at the junior level, guys one year older and one year more spent in that league where most guys only play 3-4 years makes a huge developmental difference. I've spent way too long watching guys like Justin Azevedo, Rob Schremp, Charlie Sarault or even Pete Sarno light up the league when theyre older/smaller skilled guys but dont have it at the next level because they dont have those advantages. If you dont know the difference between watching a 4th year or overage CHLer light up a league vs a 17 or 18 year old, you really dont have much of a grasp on how those leagues work because quite often its the overagers who lead the leagues in scoring, not daft+1 year players. Those overagers basically never make the NHL but are productive junior guys because theyve spen so long in the league.

You realy should figure out how CHL leagues work if youre going to sit here and be that critical of a prospect you've probably barely watched. At the very least if youre going to judge by production figure ut how those leagues work and build teams. 3 of the top 5 scorers in the WHL this year are 97s alone

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

I might sound like a broken record, but I really like what Tyler Wright is doing with the scouting. I think things are looking up since Jim Nill left.

Can Rasmussen official nick name be RAM? I'm a huge Dodge Ram fan. I own 3 in my work fleet.

I'll never be able to call him anything but Razzy. I had a guy with the last name Rasmussen as my beer league D partner when I played out of the net and his nickname was Razzy. It's kinda stuck in there now.

RAM could be a pretty good one if he's the power forward he's meant to be.