Triumph
Registered User
- Oct 2, 2007
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Whatever his CHL production was, I remember that he was considered to be a fairly raw prospect, that's why he lasted to the 4th round after all. I definitely don't dispute that he regressed the following season, but he was good enough for the Devils to sign, and he played a quarter season in the AHL. I don't think you can ignore that. It will be interesting to see how he starts the season in Binghamton.
Popugaev lasted until the 4th round because there were questions about his commitment to hockey. I'm sure he was on a lot of teams' do not draft list.
The Devils haven't signed Popugaev - the Binghamton Devils have. He has a 1 year AHL deal. The only reason he's fallen into the AHL is because he was basically run out of the KHL - he couldn't get consistent playing time for CSKA, a top team, so he was traded to Khabarovsk, a last place team. He couldn't get playing time there either, so finally he signed a minor league deal with Binghamton last season and did enough to get another one of those. But he did have a good development camp scrimmage game so a lot of people are excited about him again.
I don't know, I kind of think anyone at #20 is a bit of a long shot. I'm glad he's in the AHL, if he's going to learn to use his size effectively, that's the place to do it.
Obviously we're talking about very small differences, yeah. In reality there isn't a huge gap between the 15th and 25th best prospects on a team's prospect list. But 6% is 100% greater than 3%, and that's the kind of difference I'm talking about.