Prospect Info: 2018 HFDevils Prospect Rankings #8

[Triumph]

yes i would like to see blackwood in front of a competent team and see how he performs rather than just run a stat sheet comparison like it’s apples to apples. the quality of the team in front makes a difference

Why did the other goalies who played there perform significantly better? Why was Blackwood letting in goals at a much higher rate? Why is Binghamton's defense being called 'incompetent' when they were 10th in the AHL in shots against?

EDIT - I don't think Blackwood is a true talent .882 goalie in the AHL. But even if he's a .900 true talent goalie that's not worth anything in the NHL. If I thought his true talent was .882, I'd have him ranked below everyone in the Devils' organization.

 

[NJDevils17]

Add Bernard. Y’all are sleeping on him. He’s going to be an nhl player

 

[Devils Dominion]

Add Bernard. Y’all are sleeping on him. He’s going to be an nhl player

That's a bold statement

 

[Call Me Al]

i dont know the answer. maybe because he's the youngest/least experienced, but he also had a plus .900 season the year before, so the potential for him to exceed last year's performance seems to be there. maybe he has consistency issues or mental focus issues that can be worked on. Maybe it was confidence because the team kept losing. or maybe he's just bad.

but i'd like to see how he develops considering he is still young. no one is writing him into the nhl or even the ahl roster at this point so i'm not even sure why people care this much. not every player is the same and there are exceptions to every single stat you can throw out, i guess i just don't understand the need to try and show that this kid isn't going to amount to anything. i enjoy the aspect of being a fan that allows me to hope for certain best case scenarios i guess

 

[Call Me Al]

and i'll caveat that post with a reaffirmation that i have no idea if he's actually going to be a good goaltender, i haven't watched him but i am taking into account that he seems to have the physical tools being big and athletic, he's competitive and intense and was highly regarded early in the process, and the people who have watched him in binghamton have said it's not all his fault. i really don't know. if i were to guess i'd say he's probably not the goalie of the future here

 

[Call Me Al]

all of that said i did not vote for him in any of these polls yet lol

 

[devilsblood]

all of that said i did not vote for him in any of these polls yet lol

Ya, that's where the "you guys are sleeping on this prospect" posts are off base. I'm voting for a certain guy not because I don't like the other guys, just at the moment I like that particular prospect more.

I've certainly argued against the notion that Blackwood is a lost cause, but at the same time, I'm not close to voting for him in this poll either. He did have a lousy year last year, and like Bastian, or Gignac, or Speers, guys who have bad or meh years will drop in the polls. If any of those guys bounce back with a good year, they will rise in the polls. And we as fans are not being irrational for voting as such.

 

[Triumph]

i dont know the answer. maybe because he's the youngest/least experienced, but he also had a plus .900 season the year before, so the potential for him to exceed last year's performance seems to be there. maybe he has consistency issues or mental focus issues that can be worked on. Maybe it was confidence because the team kept losing. or maybe he's just bad.

but i'd like to see how he develops considering he is still young. no one is writing him into the nhl or even the ahl roster at this point so i'm not even sure why people care this much. not every player is the same and there are exceptions to every single stat you can throw out, i guess i just don't understand the need to try and show that this kid isn't going to amount to anything. i enjoy the aspect of being a fan that allows me to hope for certain best case scenarios i guess

All this is fair, but this discussion was about rating the Devils prospects and someone claimed that he was 'being slept on' at the 8th best. If you're going to rate prospects, even if you're doing so on a 'best case scenario' basis, I don't think you can reasonably put Blackwood 8th or anything close. The Devils have by and large stopped drafting players without results - e.g. Seney, Davies, Hellickson, and Zaitsev seem like they will be at least good pros in a second-tier league - so a player with meh results in 2016-17 and very poor results in 2017-18 in a second-tier league should, in my view, be rated behind just about everyone in the organization.

 

[devilsblood]

Why did the other goalies who played there perform significantly better? Why was Blackwood letting in goals at a much higher rate? Why is Binghamton's defense being called 'incompetent' when they were 10th in the AHL in shots against?

EDIT - I don't think Blackwood is a true talent .882 goalie in the AHL. But even if he's a .900 true talent goalie that's not worth anything in the NHL. If I thought his true talent was .882, I'd have him ranked below everyone in the Devils' organization.

1 goalie that played there was "significantly" better, and he put up some bad #'s himself. The NHL vet who played 16 games down there put up a .889 save percentage.

There were 3 other short sample guys, Wedge and Cory each played 1 game and put good #'s, Johnson played 3 games and had a worse save %.

And If I remember the splits right, Blackwood and Appleby were similar for awhile, but Mac slumped just before the infuse of talent, at which point Appleby took over. Granted Appleby was playing better at that point, but I think his #'s were buoyed a bit when the new players came in.

 

[Devils Dominion]

Let's move on to 9th already

 

[Triumph]

1 goalie that played there was "significantly" better, and he put up some bad #'s himself. The NHL vet who played 16 games down there put up a .889 save percentage.

There were 3 other short sample guys, Wedge and Cory each played 1 game and put good #'s, Johnson played 3 games and had a worse save %.

And If I remember the splits right, Blackwood and Appleby were similar for awhile, but Mac slumped just before the infuse of talent, at which point Appleby took over. Granted Appleby was playing better at that point, but I think his #'s were buoyed a bit when the new players came in.

Once again, I'm called on to verify someone's memory - Blackwood was awful from the jump - he gave up 7 goals in his 2nd game, and in his first 7 games he had an .868 SV%. It was only in 2018 that Blackwood recovered somewhat - after giving up 5 goals in each of his final 4 games of 2017, he didn't give up more than 4 goals in any game in 2018. But he still gave up 3 or more in 11 of the 13 games he played after New Year's.

Appelby did start out struggling as well - .883 in his first 7 games, albeit that's still significantly better than Blackwood - but he obviously improved by season's end as well.

 

[OmNomNom]

All I'm saying is it's kind of nuts to me that blackwood is being rated so low, almost to an unfair level

If he was still in the CHL putting up the numbers he did, yall would have voted for him already. Playing IN Binghamton is dragging prospects ratings down

 

[Cheddabombs]

All I'm saying is it's kind of nuts to me that blackwood is being rated so low, almost to an unfair level

If he was still in the CHL putting up the numbers he did, yall would have voted for him already. Playing IN Binghamton is dragging prospects ratings down

I think it's more of a mix of him struggling in the AHL and other prospects just having really strong seasons. Davies had a hell of a season, plus he's a LHD.

Also, it's just hard to rank goalies along with skaters.

 

[My3Sons]

Just as an aside on Blackwood, he was 92% in five regular season ECHL games and .964 in four playoff games. Small sample size inferior league etc but he ended the season with confidence and good results. My concern is that he was hurt badly enough that he couldn’t participate in prospects camp. I fear that just when he could have come into AHL camp with better technique and mental state he is back to square one.

 

[devilsblood]

Once again, I'm called on to verify someone's memory - Blackwood was awful from the jump - he gave up 7 goals in his 2nd game, and in his first 7 games he had an .868 SV%. It was only in 2018 that Blackwood recovered somewhat - after giving up 5 goals in each of his final 4 games of 2017, he didn't give up more than 4 goals in any game in 2018. But he still gave up 3 or more in 11 of the 13 games he played after New Year's.

Appelby did start out struggling as well - .883 in his first 7 games, albeit that's still significantly better than Blackwood - but he obviously improved by season's end as well.

Dude get over yourself.

 

[Call Me Al]

yeah my posts were more about blackwood in general not his ranking in this thread i guess. he doesn’t deserve to be above anyone listed so far i just haven’t given up on him completely. but he doesn’t have the performance so far to support a higher ranking

 

[Triumph]

All I'm saying is it's kind of nuts to me that blackwood is being rated so low, almost to an unfair level

If he was still in the CHL putting up the numbers he did, yall would have voted for him already. Playing IN Binghamton is dragging prospects ratings down

Blackwood, who turned 21 before January 1, 2018, was not eligible to play in the CHL this season.

Dude get over yourself.

I guess I should've just said 'I remember Appelby being great and Blackwood being awful to start the season' so that way you might've looked it up. I guess what I can do in the future is just not look stuff up when people are unwilling to do it themselves. Anyway, you're welcome.

 

[My3Sons]

People are sleeping on Studenic

Nobody’s sleeping on Studenic. That was a one time thing and those people didn’t know he was hiding under their bed.

 

[OmNomNom]

Blackwood, who turned 21 before January 1, 2018, was not eligible to play in the CHL this season.

that i know, but what i mean is if he was, like most of these prospects listed here, playing in the CHL instead of bing last season, he'd be rated higher.

the bias is insane

 

[Triumph]

that i know, but what i mean is if he was, like most of these prospects listed here, playing in the CHL instead of bing last season, he'd be rated higher.

the bias is insane

Maybe by other people, but not by me. I ranked him pretty high last season - he started out poor but he came on strong at the end of last season, and his final SV% seemed pretty good for a young AHLer. If that was a trend, then things were looking up. But he had a horrid year and that's what happens. It's hard to rank goalies relative to other positions but it's also rare that anyone has this bad a season.

 

[devilsblood]

I guess I should've just said 'I remember Appelby being great and Blackwood being awful to start the season' so that way you might've looked it up. I guess what I can do in the future is just not look stuff up when people are unwilling to do it themselves. Anyway, you're welcome.

You hardly looked it up, and you didn't even disprove my point.

But we should agree that your post above saying the other goalies in Bing were significantly better is false.

 

[Triumph]

You hardly looked it up, and you didn't even disprove my point.

'I hardly looked it up?' I went through both guys' game by game numbers and had to manually add up their save percentages. You don't even know what you don't know.

But we should agree that your post above saying the other goalies in Bing were significantly better is false.

You hardly proved that. Lack only got in 16 games and he did so in fits and starts, between being injured and shuttling back and forth between New Jersey and Binghamton. He did also play very poorly, but he has a least a modicum of an excuse.

 

[Bleedred]

Blackwood kind of sucked, okay he really sucked, but I'd give him another year and see what he looks like next year before really starting to worry. Could have just been a really poor season, hopefully an isolated one.

I mean, he was a bit better than Scott Wedgewood's first couple years in his rookie AHL season. Not that that sets the bar too high, as Scott Wedgewood is terrible at the NHL level.