Prospect Info: 2021-22 Prospect Development Tracker

[starsfan86]

Not a shocker but Stankoven was the WHL player of the week

 

[Captain Awesome]

The Athletic are doing their 2022 prospect pool rankings and are on #11. Stars still haven't made the list wonder where they end up. Didn't expect anybody to put our prospect pool anywhere in the top 10. Exciting to see and we are still not even in the re-tool stage yet.

Yeah, I've been checking every day waiting for that coverage, surprised they'd crack the top 10. They were 21st last year with Jason Robertson and Jake Oettinger in the pool (maybe Oettinger is still counted this year?) but it must be driven big time by Johnston, Stankoven, and maybe a guy like Martino or one of the Euro guys who made the WJC this year. Granted I think Robertson proved he was retroactively our best prospect, maybe by a long shot, but still crazy to see a big swing up despite subtracting Robertson.

 

[BG44]

Hard to imagine we could fall with the performances of Johnston and Stankhoven alone.

I agree, but the rankings also are slightly different. The rankings he's referring to that are entering the Top 10 tomorrow are Scott Wheeler's, and they only factor in players who are not yet full-time NHLers. They also must be under 23 as a skater or 25 as a goalie (Oettinger won't be considered because per Wheeler's criteria he's currently a Top 2 goalie on the NHL roster).

Pronman's pipeline rankings include anyone 22 years of age or younger on September 15th so Heiskanen and Robertson are on his list. Both are extremely impressive, but I just wasn't sure if you were aware the criteria are different.

For comparison, Wheeler had Dallas at 21 on his last rankings so they've already risen at least 11 spots because of guys like Johnston and Stankoven. He does his rankings in January/February so they didn't include any of the 2021 picks at that time.

 

[BG44]

Yeah, I've been checking every day waiting for that coverage, surprised they'd crack the top 10. They were 21st last year with Jason Robertson and Jake Oettinger in the pool (maybe Oettinger is still counted this year?) but it must be driven big time by Johnston, Stankoven, and maybe a guy like Martino or one of the Euro guys who made the WJC this year. Granted I think Robertson proved he was retroactively our best prospect, maybe by a long shot, but still crazy to see a big swing up despite subtracting Robertson.

Yeah it's crazy to think he had Robertson at #3 last year, and since I do believe he'll eliminate Oettinger as well who was listed 5th, it's pretty crazy that the 2021 class has been so incredible that you could withstand those losses and jump into the Top 10 on his list. He was always really high on Bourque though and Harley. I remember from the draft he wasn't so hot on Johnston so I'm most interested to see how he sees him now.

 

[Kipper 17]

I agree, but the rankings also are slightly different. The rankings he's referring to that are entering the Top 10 tomorrow are Scott Wheeler's, and they only factor in players who are not yet full-time NHLers. They also must be under 23 as a skater or 25 as a goalie (Oettinger won't be considered because per Wheeler's criteria he's currently a Top 2 goalie on the NHL roster).

Pronman's pipeline rankings include anyone 22 years of age or younger on September 15th so Heiskanen and Robertson are on his list. Both are extremely impressive, but I just wasn't sure if you were aware the criteria are different.

For comparison, Wheeler had Dallas at 21 on his last rankings so they've already risen at least 11 spots because of guys like Johnston and Stankoven. He does his rankings in January/February so they didn't include any of the 2021 picks at that time.

I was not. Thanks for explaining.

 

[Johno]

I agree, but the rankings also are slightly different. The rankings he's referring to that are entering the Top 10 tomorrow are Scott Wheeler's, and they only factor in players who are not yet full-time NHLers. They also must be under 23 as a skater or 25 as a goalie (Oettinger won't be considered because per Wheeler's criteria he's currently a Top 2 goalie on the NHL roster).

Pronman's pipeline rankings include anyone 22 years of age or younger on September 15th so Heiskanen and Robertson are on his list. Both are extremely impressive, but I just wasn't sure if you were aware the criteria are different.

For comparison, Wheeler had Dallas at 21 on his last rankings so they've already risen at least 11 spots because of guys like Johnston and Stankoven. He does his rankings in January/February so they didn't include any of the 2021 picks at that time.

A bit different rankings, but shows incredible progression in our prospects/ young players. Wasn’t too long ago that Dallas was in the 20-25th range constantly.

But yeah, Johnston, Stankoven, Bourque and I’d think even Roulette, Arcuri and Stranges had a huge impact on the ranking for the Wheeler piece!

 

[Captain Awesome]

A bit different rankings, but shows incredible progression in our prospects/ young players. Wasn’t too long ago that Dallas was in the 20-25th range constantly.

But yeah, Johnston, Stankoven, Bourque and I’d think even Roulette, Arcuri and Stranges had a huge impact on the ranking for the Wheeler piece!

I assume Bourque isn’t going to go up in esteem as long as he’s in juniors, but guess we’ll see when the piece is out. It’s cruel to release the top teams last, they’re the ones most invested in needing good players.

 

[Johno]

I assume Bourque isn’t going to go up in esteem as long as he’s in juniors, but guess we’ll see when the piece is out. It’s cruel to release the top teams last, they’re the ones most invested in needing good players.

I mean since the last rankings he has progressed to a better PPG in the Q, although it's less games as of now.
But he also ended the 2020-21 season with 5p in 6gp with the Texas Stars and had a decent showing in the partial WJC with 3p in 2gp.

So even with staying in the Q, I think he has upped his stock.

 

[Captain Awesome]

Welp, haven't read it yet, but it's here: Wheeler’s 2022 NHL prospect pool rankings: No. 10 Dallas Stars

 

[Elysian]

Welp, haven't read it yet, but it's here: Wheeler’s 2022 NHL prospect pool rankings: No. 10 Dallas Stars

Interesting that all 10 draft picks from 2021 are featured in there (one as honorably mention, the others in the top 20), hopefully that shapes up to be a hell of a draft.

 

[Johno]

Interesting that all 10 draft picks from 2021 are featured in there (one as honorably mention, the others in the top 20), hopefully that shapes up to be a hell of a draft.

Leaves a lot of room for positivity that's for sure.
Surprisingly Wheeler still left Oettinger on the list, but remains less than optimistic about him becoming a legit starter, so that effects some of the overall ranking.

 

[Captain Awesome]

Interesting that all 10 draft picks from 2021 are featured in there (one as honorably mention, the others in the top 20), hopefully that shapes up to be a hell of a draft.

When he said that, I did not expect Grushnikov to be the honorable mention. I thought maybe he'd fish out some sort of optimism even with the terrible production, but nope, not the case. He'll probably get flooded with people asking him about what he thinks about Grushnikov, surprised he didn't explain putting a relatively high pick in the honorable mentions. He's not responsible for the pick or anything, but I'll be curious to see what he says. He tends to be pretty responsive, thankfully.

I mean since the last rankings he has progressed to a better PPG in the Q, although it's less games as of now.
But he also ended the 2020-21 season with 5p in 6gp with the Texas Stars and had a decent showing in the partial WJC with 3p in 2gp.

So even with staying in the Q, I think he has upped his stock.

You were right, sometimes I look at guys in Borque's situation and just think all he can mostly do is make his stock worse, but that there's not a lot of room to make it better. With him, I'm just waiting to see what he does in the AHL, because in my mind his being in the Q is unlikely to tell us much more about his potential at this point.

The bits about Harley are sort of alarming, but not surprising. What a shocker, a player with a free wheeling offensive style and he's probably being held back on a leash per team philosophy and it's probably messing with his confidence to do the things he's naturally good at. If you want to have some excuse about 'winning games' at the NHL level as to why they're so conservative, I get it, but at the AHL? There's not a lot to lose by letting him develop his style, I assume it's why he was drafted in the first place. This is the relevant section, for those who may not have access:

But he’s a high-risk, high-reward player who for everything he gives you in transition offensively, or while using his skating to carry pucks deep into the offensive zone, or showing off excellent outside-in hands, or using his mobility to get back when the puck goes the other way, he gives back in misreads, mistiming, and the inconsistency of his decision-making. He’s got the ability to play an effective flow game defensively, sticking with opposing puck carriers and relying on his footwork and stick to compensate for mistakes. But his game lacks polish and he has struggled at the pro level with his identity (I actually find him too restrained at times, almost as if he doesn’t trust himself to make the plays he’s capable of making because he hasn’t been instilled with that confidence from his coaches). His style isn’t for everyone but I think he’s going to have to play loose to reach his ceiling as a play-creating top-four defenceman in the NHL.

Wheeler still likes him as a player, but has moved him below Borque, probably equal parts Borque having a nice season and this section about Harley's development.

Edit: Wheeler has also written some version of this same thing for just about every Harley update, but I thought this was one was particularly interesting because he specifically calls out potential coaching issues in his AHL time. I think he may have actually spent some more time watching him this year instead of giving a canned description.

 

[Johno]

You were right, sometimes I look at guys in Borque's situation and just think all he can mostly do is make his stock worse, but that there's not a lot of room to make it better. With him, I'm just waiting to see what he does in the AHL, because in my mind his being in the Q is unlikely to tell us much more about his potential at this point.

Yeah, it is very easy to go into that view point, but I do get the need to get him against better competition for a longer look, just to grasp where he lands. The few games in the A definitely gave a ton of optimism though. Hopefully that was a sign of things to come!

The bits about Harley are sort of alarming, but not surprising. What a shocker, a player with a free wheeling offensive style and he's probably being held back on a leash per team philosophy and it's probably messing with his confidence to do the things he's naturally good at. If you want to have some excuse about 'winning games' at the NHL level as to why they're so conservative, I get it, but at the AHL? There's not a lot to lose by letting him develop his style, I assume it's why he was drafted in the first place. This is the relevant section, for those who may not have access:

That's the problem with the system though. As the team has commented multiple times, more so during the start of Monty era, that they want to run an identical system in Ceder Park, just so that "the young players are ready and gel quickly with the system", but I don't think either that it's the correct way to go about it. Especially when the franchise system is a zero offense, turtle-to-win kind of system that allows for near zero progression unless you are a can't miss prospect.

 

[Captain Awesome]

Yeah, it is very easy to go into that view point, but I do get the need to get him against better competition for a longer look, just to grasp where he lands. The few games in the A definitely gave a ton of optimism though. Hopefully that was a sign of things to come!



That's the problem with the system though. As the team has commented multiple times, more so during the start of Monty era, that they want to run an identical system in Ceder Park, just so that "the young players are ready and gel quickly with the system", but I don't think either that it's the correct way to go about it. Especially when the franchise system is a zero offense, turtle-to-win kind of system that allows for near zero progression unless you are a can't miss prospect.

Yeah, it's a system that's massively harmful to developing offensive skills, I don't understand why you'd want to deploy it in the AHL, especially because the Texas team is playing horrendous hockey from the standings. Harley has been as close to a can't miss prospect as we've had for a few years now too, so you'd think he would get special exceptions to generate offense. I have a feeling the same gripes we have about Miro's lack of development offensively are the same ones they experience in the AHL, they're refusing to ever let defensemen lead the rush, and it's hurting their ability to develop offensively as a result.

I haven't thought about this much before, but it's especially pointless if Bowness is not going to play the rookies anyway. He regularly throttles back Harley, Damiani, etc. What's the point of playing systems that are the same if you aren't going to give them the chance to prove their worth anyway? Especially jarring because defensemen activating aggressively is what got us to the cup finals. Miro and Klingberg racked up crazy amounts of points during that run (and so did Gurianov, ironically). I don't put a lot of stock in the run itself, but I'd assume you'd want to replicate the most successful period in Stars hockey since the year 2000.

In theory, it's also a development league for coaches too, and forcing them to play an NHL system would stunt them as well, and make sure we don't get to hire the best up and coming coaches.

 

[Elysian]

Yeah, it's a system that's massively harmful to developing offensive skills, I don't understand why you'd want to deploy it in the AHL, especially because the Texas team is playing horrendous hockey from the standings. Harley has been as close to a can't miss prospect as we've had for a few years now too, so you'd think he would get special exceptions to generate offense. I have a feeling the same gripes we have about Miro's lack of development offensively are the same ones they experience in the AHL, they're refusing to ever let defensemen lead the rush, and it's hurting their ability to develop offensively as a result.

I haven't thought about this much before, but it's especially pointless if Bowness is not going to play the rookies anyway. He regularly throttles back Harley, Damiani, etc. What's the point of playing systems that are the same if you aren't going to give them the chance to prove their worth anyway? Especially jarring because defensemen activating aggressively is what got us to the cup finals. Miro and Klingberg racked up crazy amounts of points during that run (and so did Gurianov, ironically). I don't put a lot of stock in the run itself, but I'd assume you'd want to replicate the most successful period in Stars hockey since the year 2000.

In theory, it's also a development league for coaches too, and forcing them to play an NHL system would stunt them as well, and make sure we don't get to hire the best up and coming coaches.

From my viewing in the AHL this season, it doesn't really seem like Graham is trying to deploy the Dallas system so much. I find the TX Stars play more creatively than the Dallas team, it's actually poor defense that's dragging them down, not defensive first hockey. On the offensive side they seem pretty decent, they were putting up a ton of shots most nights and are great along the boards, very creative in the opponents end trying to get the puck on net. I'm no longer a season ticket holder as we're about to move to Austin, so my knowledge is more or less current to the Christmas break, I've missed quite a few games since then, so things could have changed.

 

[Henderson33]

Can't complain about last years draft at all, but man do I ever wish we took Aatu Raty over Grushnikov.

I know Raty fell for a reason but with back-to-back second rounders I wanted to take a chance on him.

 

[Kcb12345]

I don't have an athletic subscription anymore, could someone please list out his top prospects for the Stars? Don't need info about him just names

 

[M88K]

I don't have an athletic subscription anymore, could someone please list out his top prospects for the Stars? Don't need info about him just names

Check your pm

Also pay attention to note at the very bottom for future use

 

[BG44]

I will say I was not expecting to see Samuel Sjolund on the list. That one caught me by surprise. I rarely even think about the guy anymore. It's a one-off moment, and Wheeler even says that, but he looked impressive in the clip he shared. I guess it will be interesting and might be worth it to watch what he does at Western Michigan next season. If he has immediate success, maybe he actually is someone worth watching. I think if he struggles at 22 transitioning to the NCAA though, that's got to be the final nail ... which I assumed the USHL at 21 could already potentially have been.

 

[Johno]

I will say I was not expecting to see Samuel Sjolund on the list. That one caught me by surprise. I rarely even think about the guy anymore. It's a one-off moment, and Wheeler even says that, but he looked impressive in the clip he shared. I guess it will be interesting and might be worth it to watch what he does at Western Michigan next season. If he has immediate success, maybe he actually is someone worth watching. I think if he struggles at 22 transitioning to the NCAA though, that's got to be the final nail ... which I assumed the USHL at 21 could already potentially have been.

Isn't he going to be just 21 when he join W Michigan?
Anyway, he was going to be a project player regardless and I think a few years in the NCAA might be the best course of action for the dude.

 

[BG44]

Isn't he going to be just 21 when he join W Michigan?
Anyway, he was going to be a project player regardless and I think a few years in the NCAA might be the best course of action for the dude.

Yes, but he turns 22 during that season. You could say it this way, it's extremely rare to see a guy drafted at 18 play his first USHL season D+3 and first NCAA season D+4. I'd be curious if it's actually happened before. It all feels really unique. I can't imagine there have been many guys who turn 22 years old their freshman season that are also drafted in the NCAA.

If he spends 2 years in the NCAA, he's not even a prospect anymore in the traditional sense so my only point was this guy is going to likely have to immediately make an impact in the NCAA to have any shot. If we're talking 3 or 4 years in the NCAA, I'd say the list of guys leaving college hockey at 24 or 25 who also end up with an NHL career is equally short if not non-existent.

Definitely not dumping on the guy, but this also isn't someone like Jack Bar that you say 3 or 4 years could do him well. Bar would be 22 years old turning pro if he played all 4 years.

 

[Johno]

Yes, but he turns 22 during that season. You could say it this way, it's extremely rare to see a guy drafted at 18 play his first USHL season D+3 and first NCAA season D+4. I'd be curious if it's actually happened before. It all feels really unique. I can't imagine there have been many guys who turn 22 years old their freshman season that are also drafted in the NCAA.

If he spends 2 years in the NCAA, he's not even a prospect anymore in the traditional sense so my only point was this guy is going to likely have to immediately make an impact in the NCAA to have any shot. If we're talking 3 or 4 years in the NCAA, I'd say the list of guys leaving college hockey at 24 or 25 who also end up with an NHL career is equally short if not non-existent.

Definitely not dumping on the guy, but this also isn't someone like Jack Bar that you say 3 or 4 years could do him well. Bar would be 22 years old turning pro if he played all 4 years.

Definitely is not likely he’ll turn into anything at this point. 20-21-22yo, whichever it is he was drafted back in 2019. So there you are right, needs a faster projection in the NCAA to be able salvage any NHL potential.

I doubt that there’s any such examples. And hold little to no expectation for him to even make an impact in the A, but it always looked like the long road for him. Unfortunately a Felhaber -like outcome is the more likely.

 

[Kcb12345]

Check your pm

Also pay attention to note at the very bottom for future use

Thanks! Very helpful tip for sure

 

[BG44]

 

[BG44]

I assume there will likely be required to bring back the exact same rosters unless someone is injured. That would be brutal to leave a kid off that already made it.

I think this could be huge for a guy like Bourque more so than Stankoven. Logan probably has a very small to non-existent chance of making the NHL. Bourque on the other hand gets a major tournament, Traverse City, and training camp to ramp up and try and win an NHL spot rather than AHL spot.