Prospect Info: 2022 HFDevils Prospect Rankings #13

[devilsblood]

Walsh may be a tweener but until Nemec is acclimated Nemec may make too many mistakes or need to pick up the pace enough that it takes him half a season to surpass Walsh. He's an 18 year old kid. Talented or not, it's hard to compete with the experience of a smart 23 year old who knows this is maybe his last chance to impress the coaches enough to make the team or at least be the first call up. I expect Walsh to continue to pile up points in Utica and be the first PP option there to start the season. Nemec will almost certainly pass him up but I'd expect at least a 40 game or so acclimation. I don't think NJ rushes him and they might not even play him every game to allow him to grow slowly into a North American Pro. We will see.

Assuming both start in Utica, it will be interesting to see who get's top pp minutes there.

 

[Guttersniped]

I'm not saying Gauthier or Young are as good or better prospects then Brennan, I was merely pointing to their #'s being as good, or significantly better when people here argued Brennan's poor #'s are due to playing on a bad team. I'm sure that played into it, but it was possible to post a solid save % on that team. And while Gauthier was a 2 years older then Brennan, Young is a full year younger.

So for Brennan, same as it is with Stillman the question is, is there more than the #'s suggest? I have no issues shrugging off the notion that the story is strictly in the numbers, but if we are going to use these nebulous factors such as "top rated NA goalie" why not also factor in where they were actually drafted?

Which kind of brings us back to the original Stillman criticism which was, he wouldn't be getting votes if he weren't drafted in the first round, but I'd argue back that he is getting negative push back because it appears he was drafted too high. Where as the board sentiment regarding Brennan is the opposite, he was very good draft day value. Stillman is viewed in a negative light, Brennan in a positive one.

And in Gauthier’s case, two years older and 194 (plus 9 PO) GP vs 59 (plus 4 PO) GP is a big difference for me. Brennan will be a pro in the out minor leagues when he’s in his D+3 season.

I don’t know anything about Ty Young, he’s only played 26 WHL games, plus 1 playoff game. That’s not a ton so the numbers don’t mean much to me. He’s very young, he’s 5 days off from qualifying for the 2023 draft. He was rated 6th on Central Scouting NA Goalies, but maybe the Canucks got a real find at #144.

Lots of people always thought Stillman was drafted too high but he was 8th on the 2021 list. He was an unknown because the OHL didn’t have a season and he’s dropped now because of his disappointing season.

The difference between Brennan vs Stillman rankings now is completely negligible, you can flip a coin if you want, because you’re talking about the 12th vs 13th. It doesn’t matter that much if people say nicer things about the new guy. All these rankings are provisional.

 

[Guttersniped]

I'm not saying Gauthier or Young are as good or better prospects then Brennan, I was merely pointing to their #'s being as good, or significantly better when people here argued Brennan's poor #'s are due to playing on a bad team. I'm sure that played into it, but it was possible to post a solid save % on that team. And while Gauthier was a 2 years older then Brennan, Young is a full year younger.

So for Brennan, same as it is with Stillman the question is, is there more than the #'s suggest? I have no issues shrugging off the notion that the story is strictly in the numbers, but if we are going to use these nebulous factors such as "top rated NA goalie" why not also factor in where they were actually drafted?

Which kind of brings us back to the original Stillman criticism which was, he wouldn't be getting votes if he weren't drafted in the first round, but I'd argue back that he is getting negative push back because it appears he was drafted too high. Where as the board sentiment regarding Brennan is the opposite, he was very good draft day value. Stillman is viewed in a negative light, Brennan in a positive one.

You’re still ignoring that Stillman is #13 in this poll vs Brennan at #14.

And Brennan has the advantage of being a shiny new toy while Stillman disappointed people who went into 2021-22 who were openminded about him.

Older players are supposed to do better in Juniors, so Stillman gets more scrutiny in his D+1 year, just like Brennan will.

Young might be really good but he’s played very few games in one season.

I’m not going to argue this anymore and I can’t stress how there’s basically no difference between these these spots, but people aren’t wrong to value a goalie’s draft stock and scouting reports when they were just drafted. It’s not just about the numbers, particularly when he didn’t get to play the season before.

It’s not just about the numbers with Stillman for me either, if he was any good defensively, produced more even strength (rather than on the PP), played center, or had elite skating and/or size he would hold more value for me.