Prospect Info: //#1// HFStars 2014 Top-20

[piqued]

And summer was just starting to drag, right?

A couple of things before we get voting:

The last few years we experimented with a format where we'd wait a topic before voting and then subsequently used each following poll to discuss the next spot in the order. I think it actually worked pretty well but I'm trying to simplify a bit here and make it a little more accessible to new users. The main thing is to feel free to look ahead and debate the merits of any prospect at any time. There's value to hashing out the upcoming argument before everyone votes.

Nemeth is a prospect. He's played 13 NHL games. Keep that in mind when sorting your list.

It's going to stay a 20 player max list. We could absolutely go to 30 ordering legit prospects, that's how much deeper and better the Stars' system is compared to when we started these. I like forcing people to make tough decisions though. Appearing at all in the ranked prospects should mean something.

Quick rundown of the top 5 of years past:

2013

‏‏‏‏|

prospect​

|

pos.​

|

country​

|

acquired​

|

round​

|

change​

|

% of vote​

1​

|  ‏‏‏‏Valeri Nichushkin |

RW​

|

|

2013​

|

1st​

|

new​

|

90.2​

2​

|  ‏‏‏‏Jamie Oleksiak |

D​

|

|

2011​

|

1st​

|

► 0​

|

50.0​

3​

|  ‏‏‏‏Alex Chiasson |

RW​

|

|

2009​

|

2nd​

|

► 0​

|

50.7​

4​

|  ‏‏‏‏Jack Campbell |

G​

|

|

2010​

|

1st​

|

▼ 3​

|

50.1​

5​

|  ‏‏‏‏Brett Ritchie |

RW​

|

|

2011​

|

2nd​

|

▲ 7​

|

85.9​

2012

‏‏‏‏|

prospect​

|

pos.​

|

country​

|

acquired​

|

round​

|

change​

|

% of vote​

1​

|  ‏‏‏‏Jack Campbell |

G​

|

|

2010​

|

1st​

|

► 0​

|

37.7​

2​

|  ‏‏‏‏Jamie Oleksiak |

D​

|

|

2011​

|

1st​

|

▲ 2​

|

48.0​

3​

|  ‏‏‏‏Alex Chiasson |

RW​

|

|

2009​

|

2nd​

|

▲ 2​

|

57.1​

4​

|  ‏‏‏‏Radek Faksa |

C​

|

|

2012​

|

1st​

|

new​

|

73.5​

5​

|  ‏‏‏‏Brenden Dillon |

D​

|

|

2011​

|

FA​

|

▲ 7​

|

43.9​

2011

‏‏‏‏|

prospect​

|

pos.​

|

country​

|

acquired​

|

round​

|

change​

|

% of vote​

1​

|  ‏‏‏‏Jack Campbell |

G​

|

|

2010​

|

1st​

|

► 0​

|

48.7​

2​

|  ‏‏‏‏Philip Larsen |

D​

|

|

2008​

|

5th​

|

► 0​

|

44.4​

3​

|  ‏‏‏‏Scott Glennie |

RW​

|

|

2009​

|

1st​

|

► 0​

|

50.0​

4​

|  ‏‏‏‏Jamie Oleksiak |

D​

|

|

2011​

|

1st​

|

new​

|

45.0​

5​

|  ‏‏‏‏Alex Chiasson |

RW​

|

|

2009​

|

2nd​

|

▼ 1​

|

71.4​

2010

‏‏‏‏|

prospect​

|

pos.​

|

country​

|

acquired​

|

round​

|

change​

|

% of vote​

1​

|  ‏‏‏‏Jack Campbell |

G​

|

|

2010​

|

1st​

|

new​

|

-​

2​

|  ‏‏‏‏Philip Larsen |

D​

|

|

2008​

|

5th​

|

▲ 2​

|

-​

3​

|  ‏‏‏‏Scott Glennie |

RW​

|

|

2009​

|

1st​

|

► 0​

|

-​

4​

|  ‏‏‏‏Alex Chiasson |

RW​

|

|

2009​

|

2nd​

|

▲ 4​

|

-​

5​

|  ‏‏‏‏Tomas Vincour |

RW​

|

|

2009​

|

5th​

|

▲ 12​

|

-​

Grip it and rip it, folks.

Click to read more...

 

[txomisc]

1. Brett Ritchie
He is very close (if not already) NHL ready and he has first line upside. Should score alot of goals in his NHL career.

 

[DaStars99]

2010 was a sad year

 

[Rune Forumwalker]

I'll go Campbell again. It's between him and Ritchie.

2010 was a sad year

It gets worse if you go back further.

 

[LT]

Campbell still. Highest potential out of any of these prospects, and he's slowly starting to show it.

 

[Starry Knight]

#1 is Brett Ritchie for me. Watching him in the AHL playoffs affirmed these feelings for me.

 

[TrillMike]

Ritchie then Jack for me.

 

[Ambassador Of Fun]

Any of Campbell, Oleksiak, Ritchie, Dickinson, Shore, and Nemeth are acceptable answers. Hell maybe even Honka. I think all of which have decent potential to have the best career of the group. I'll go with the 6'7" guy who can skate and has top pairing potential.

 

[BigG44]

Hard call, but I think I have to go Ritchie. He has first line potential. I think he's only a notch below Benn and Nichushkin's ceiling as wingers ... potential elite. He in my eyes has the best chance to make the biggest impact on the team.

I think he could develop into a reasonably consistent 30+ goal scorer on this team.

Campbell could be a huge player down the line for the Stars still, but I think Ritchie has a better shot of reaching his potential now and being a long time Star. He an Campbell are the only guys I think that might have that greatness in them.

I don't have a single issue with Honka pick. I think it was fine when they made it, and I like the guy. I don't know that I'm buying the Karlsson and especially Doughty talk. If he's a notch above a guy like Goligoski ... in the Enstrom mold ... that's a huge win for Dallas and exactly one of the ingredients they need. I think we all just need to see some more before he's in the top end potential talk.

I think I'm going Campbell next, and then it gets more difficult. It's difficult to rank Honka, Klingberg, Nemeth, and Oleksiak ... even Bystrom who I don't think gets as much appreciation for what he's done as a 19 year old. Guy doesn't even turn 20 for two more days.

Shore and Dickinson are ridiculously hard to call, and how do they slot in with those D? Where do you slide Desorsiers in and potentially a guy like Pollock or Elie? I think Faksa is cleary behind Shore/Dickinson but he's sort of right there with Pollock and Elie.

I have a decent idea about who my Top 13 is ... order is impossible almost.

 

[Ampersand]

Ritchie Rich.

 

[Bradyyy93]

While not as far along in his development which is somewhat of the norm for players in his mold I still believe Oleksiak has that highest upside and can be a stud on the back end

 

[Frozen Failure]

I should have voted for Glennie

 

[Hull Fan]

Ritchie. Kid has a scorer's touch and puts himself in good positions to do awesome things in the o-zone. Pretty darn good floor, excellent ceiling.

Klingberg next.

 

[beepeearr]

2010 was a sad year

I was going to say the same thing... Two 5th round pics in the top 5

 

[Stars99Lobo37]

Ritchie my man

 

[Bkennedy*]

I like how the only one with competent nhl performances hasn't had a vote

 

[Satan]

Ritchie

 

[CorwiN]

I put a lot of stock in NHL readiness when ranking prospects like this. Normally I'd consider Nemeth with readiness strongly in mind, but since he has a hard time staying healthy I voted Ritchie.

 

[Spotty 2 Hotty]

It's neck and neck for me between Ritchie and Campbell, but I'm voting Campbell just because of the potential.

 

[glovesave_35]

Ritchie. His top end potential and likelihood of reaching it is higher than any of the other prospects, perhaps barring Campbell. His potential low end is still that of a big beefy winger with a shot that will get him 15 goals in a bottom 6 role. His potential ceiling is in the Jamie Benn/James Neal range.

Jack Campbell is probably my #2 prospect. I don't know if he will reach his full potential but he's starting to look like at worst he will be a decent platoon goalie. He still has the potential to be a top 5 goalie in the NHL. If he can stay healthy and get his reps in this next year we will see him sooner than later.

 

[Ogi1Kenobi]

Brett Ritchie, then Jack.

 

[LT]

I'd love to know the reasoning behind Ully getting a vote

 

[scoutcjustice]

I'd love to know the reasoning behind Ully getting a vote

I am delighted that you asked! (apologies; this ran long due to drunken ramblings... there is no tl;dr)

I'd like to cite a couple reasons. The first is my trump card. I blame beer. This got posted on a Friday evening, so a little 'variance' in the off-season should be expected. I've had enough Bombshells that almost any name on that list looks pretty good to me right now.

But, it does go a little further than that. So I'll admit my bias up front. I like skill. You can find guys with size or you can find guys that can skate. They're all over the place. But skill is skill and some guys have it and most do not. So when skill falls in your lap, you damn better take it. And there's no doubting that Ully has skill.

And more, there's a specific way that I like to judge skill. And that's if their skill level is high enough that they are the primary drivers of offense and/or positive possession on their team (also, fancy highlights help too).

I don't believe any Stars' prospect has carried the skill on his team as much as Ully had to this past year at Kamloops. Sure, Jason Dickinson had a great year. I am rightfully excited about his potential. But he finished 6th in scoring on the most stacked team in the CHL. Was it him or was it the absurdly great team surrounding him? I honestly can't say.

And yeah, Ritchie looked great in the 'A'. But he still only finished 6th in scoring on his team. And 7th in the playoffs at the end of the season, when y'all were saying he was really coming into his own. If he's really as dominant as y'all think, then it needs to show up in the stats, and not just when he's the benefactor of Ryan Strome in juniors or AHL vets like Hedden and Dowling.

And sure, Jack Campbell finally had the year we were waiting on. His stats this season were off the charts. Except, his injuries made for a damn small sample size, and, yet again, it was all behind a stacked team. His stats behind mediocre teams in juniors? Damn pedestrian.

There's no doubt Oleksiak has an absurd toolbox. That size and that skating and those puck skills? If he puts it all together... *******. Except he didn't in juniors. He hasn't in the AHL. Why should he in the NHL?

But here's Cole Ully, playing on the second worst team in the WHL and not only finishing PPG+, but also clearing the next closest player on his team by 27 points. He's the only guy that I feel has been dealt a **** hand and still exceeded expectations. I'm not that impressed by prospects that looked good on team that woulda been the best in their league without them taking a shift. But a guy like Ully that puts up legit numbers despite a team that's destined for the basement? I like that a lot.

Anyway, there's numerous reasons I'm super wrong about this. It's not all blind devotion to Ully. I was mostly trying to make the point that as good as we may feel about our prospect pool (and we should feel good about it, it's real good), we're penciling in a lot of guys that have never really carried a team. We've got one prospect that's really been definitively the best player on his team, and it's not somebody that's going to make the top-10 on the list we eventually produce.

 

[BigG44]

If we're going to use this logic for Ully, he's not even the best candidate among the prospects for that distinction.

Ully did nothing to impact the team from being a bottom dweller.

Shore almost on his own from some reports carried Maine from cellar dweller in one of the best NCAA conferences to a middle of the road competitive team including a late season sweep of the best team in the country.

He also did that as a teenager against 20 to 24 year old grown men .... not other teenagers and a handful of 21 year old players.

This is my least favorite argument among prospects. It's pretty silly to punish players on great teams and reward players on awful teams. The reverse is also true.

You can twist and turn these debates an way you want to fit your argument. Example ... Ully had more ice time and opportunity to collect his points than Dickinson since he was sharing time with quality players. Or you can reward Ully for playing top checkers against other teams as the only threat. Still ... you could counter with Dickinson was one of the top scores in the league, playoffs, and Memorial Cup while playing and shutting down the other team's best players effectively in a rather suffocating manner.

Point is ... The debate offers little explanation to who is better because every point one side makes has a counterpoint that is just as reasonable.

At the end of the day, you either than an elite performing junior two-way center with decent size has more upside or an elite performing junior offensive winger who is undersized has more upside. Where and who they play with and against is mostly irrelevant when you have no reasonable path to compare WHL vs. OHL vs. NCAA and an unbiased way. Even team to team is difficult with Elie vs. Dickinson ... and Elie falls in the same category as Ully.

I will take an elite performance in the AHL ... especially the playoffs though and say that guy has more upside at this point. Glennie was an elite scoring junior ... even without Schenn that last season. Top junior scorers bust all the time even in the AHL. Most young prospect aged top scorers in the AHL ultimately prove to have a pretty good success rate in the NHL. It's without a doubt a better indicator than junior success.

 

[Magic Mittens]

Went Ritchie also. Out of him and Jack, and even a few other specs, I feel he has the least chance to not be an impact player in the NHL.