Prospect Info: Caps Top Prospects General Discussion Thread Vol. 1
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Corey Pronman’s deep dive into the farm system of every NHL organization includes a ranking of all of the team’s prospects, broken into tiers based on their projection; the impact on the upcoming season and an overall ranking of all players under 23. Further explanation of Pronman’s system, player eligibility, prospect tiers and the complete ranking of all 31 teams can be found here.
Wasn't sure how much detail was ok to post here - prefer to cite sources but didn't know if people got funny about linking to external articles.
I'm taking it with a big pinch of salt, but hey, it's summer. Got to read something
francaisvolantsparis
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Hivemind
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I was mostly looking for if it was Pronman or not. He tends to have a pretty distinctive opinion when it comes to prospects, although it’s evolving somewhat lately. And seeing this list without an author, Pronman would not have been my first guess. He’s got Protas, Sutter, and Clark much higher than I would have expected from him. Also surprised he has Leason over McMichael.
I just read through Pronman's list and I am not sure he has the Capitals guys projected correctly. He is well respected in his field but lately I've noticed if he "misses" on a player, his draft projections were really off, he simply pivots and says "well I did have him going there until he slipped" type of stuff.
He also said Samsonov had "was up and down as a rookie in the AHL", no he wasn't. He was down and then he was up from January on.
He says he's not sold on Alexeyev as a top four guy, which tells me he doesn't know anything about him. Alexeyev will absolutely be a top four dman in the NHL, period, full stop.
Obviously he can't delve into individual players the way we can but he seems pretty sure in his writing. For me personally, and as someone who used to take Pronman's word as gospel, he has taken a hit recently for his poor evaluations, and not just Caps players either.
He also said Samsonov had "was up and down as a rookie in the AHL", no he wasn't. He was down and then he was up from January on.
He says he's not sold on Alexeyev as a top four guy, which tells me he doesn't know anything about him. Alexeyev will absolutely be a top four dman in the NHL, period, full stop.
Obviously he can't delve into individual players the way we can but he seems pretty sure in his writing. For me personally, and as someone who used to take Pronman's word as gospel, he has taken a hit recently for his poor evaluations, and not just Caps players either.
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Hivemind
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They’re called prospects for a reason. Always keep your expectations in check.
I get it of course, I was sure Burakovsky would be more than he turned out to be, but I have followed AA since the draft and his poise and ability with the puck will separate him. If he stays healthy, and progresses just a tiny bit, he will be a top four guy. All the tools are there.
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This guy is pretty respected and he's got an extremely high floor for AA, only 5 guys are younger and listed as likelier NHLers and 4 of them are Jack Hughes, Kakko, Cozens, and Zadina.
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I run hot and cold with Tierney but I meant Manny Perry, I saw a lot of people defer to his draft grades this year
Langway
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Pronman historically doesn't value defensive-defensemen much. If they're not a PPQB type he tends to IMO vastly underestimate the value of 5-on-5 stability and struggles to grasp some of the nuance in D value beyond offense. I recall him writing much more than once something along the lines of if a defenseman isn't a PP type or clearly very skilled offensively he tends to not be sold on a prospect necessarily being more than a 5-7 D when it really doesn't work that way. I get some of the reasoning in today's game but there's still a lot of room for cerebral positional D with good first passes in today's game.
Hivemind
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@Sam Spade I'm not casting doubt on AA as a prospect. He's definitely got all the tools, and is a blue chip prospect. My comment was more of a general one about all prospects. There's no such thing as a guaranteed prospect, and until they demonstrate it in the NHL, I don't think anyone really deserves the "period, full stop" treatment regarding their future NHL role.
With regards to Tierney, he's more respected for his general NHL analysis. I'm not sure how well his tools have been vetted for prospect development.
Pronman definitely has his quirks, and sometimes gets rather ridiculous with how far he takes his evaluation idiosyncrasies. But, in large, I kinda agree with this point from Pronman. Obviously you don't apply it equally to every prospect you evaluate, and there's definitely room for poised, cerebral defensemen in the NHL today. But it's awfully hard to pick those players out as prospects, and many of them showed a lot more offensive talent as prospects than they carried into their NHL game. It's difficult to figure out which defensemen are going to retain their poise when presented with the game played at NHL speed, and it often takes a fair bit of NHL seasoning to accomplish this (resulting in a decent chunk of later bloomers among these types of D). This is part of the reason I've tended to be less optimistic in my projections of Lucas Johansen than many around here (although not nearly to the extent of one poster
). Ryan Murray was heralded as the prototype 2-way D as a prospect, and it's essentially taken him until he was 25 to move beyond the bottom pairing in Columbus. In juniors, ME Vlasic was an offensive D and PPQB, but he evolved into the poised shutdown type in the NHL. You see some hits on guys without great pre-draft offensive numbers when they come from outside the CHL, like Jaccob Slavin, Brett Pesce, and Mattias Ekholm. But all of them were later draft picks, which tends to demonstrate the point that it's hard to pick out these players as prospects. And a lot of prospects heralded for their hockey sense, positioning, and two-way play at the time of their draft ended up not panning out (thinking of guys like Tyler Cuma, Tim Erixon, Simon Despres, Stuart Percy, Mark Mitera) or having marginal value (Derek Forbort, Cody Ceci).
I don't think Pronman is saying poised defensive D don't have a place in the NHL, only that he doesn't rank them highly because it can be so difficult to project which ones are hits and which ones are misses.
With regards to Tierney, he's more respected for his general NHL analysis. I'm not sure how well his tools have been vetted for prospect development.
Pronman definitely has his quirks, and sometimes gets rather ridiculous with how far he takes his evaluation idiosyncrasies. But, in large, I kinda agree with this point from Pronman. Obviously you don't apply it equally to every prospect you evaluate, and there's definitely room for poised, cerebral defensemen in the NHL today. But it's awfully hard to pick those players out as prospects, and many of them showed a lot more offensive talent as prospects than they carried into their NHL game. It's difficult to figure out which defensemen are going to retain their poise when presented with the game played at NHL speed, and it often takes a fair bit of NHL seasoning to accomplish this (resulting in a decent chunk of later bloomers among these types of D). This is part of the reason I've tended to be less optimistic in my projections of Lucas Johansen than many around here (although not nearly to the extent of one poster
). Ryan Murray was heralded as the prototype 2-way D as a prospect, and it's essentially taken him until he was 25 to move beyond the bottom pairing in Columbus. In juniors, ME Vlasic was an offensive D and PPQB, but he evolved into the poised shutdown type in the NHL. You see some hits on guys without great pre-draft offensive numbers when they come from outside the CHL, like Jaccob Slavin, Brett Pesce, and Mattias Ekholm. But all of them were later draft picks, which tends to demonstrate the point that it's hard to pick out these players as prospects. And a lot of prospects heralded for their hockey sense, positioning, and two-way play at the time of their draft ended up not panning out (thinking of guys like Tyler Cuma, Tim Erixon, Simon Despres, Stuart Percy, Mark Mitera) or having marginal value (Derek Forbort, Cody Ceci). I don't think Pronman is saying poised defensive D don't have a place in the NHL, only that he doesn't rank them highly because it can be so difficult to project which ones are hits and which ones are misses.
francaisvolantsparis
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He created corsica.hockey and agrees with you about Lujo
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Marshall
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Pronman doesn't seem to consider size an asset - I can't tell if he's serious or if it's just a reaction to scouts historically preferring less-skilled size over smaller, skilled players.
Langway's post also brings to mind a thought I had a few years back - there's still room for defensive D in the league - they're just Michal Kempny as opposed to Derian Hatcher now. Less size, more speed. I'm sure plenty of teams would love to have a 6'4" fast defensive-minded dman, but there aren't a lot of players like that. So, still there, just changed.
Langway's post also brings to mind a thought I had a few years back - there's still room for defensive D in the league - they're just Michal Kempny as opposed to Derian Hatcher now. Less size, more speed. I'm sure plenty of teams would love to have a 6'4" fast defensive-minded dman, but there aren't a lot of players like that. So, still there, just changed.
Hivemind
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I feel like Pronman has weighted size more heavily in the past couple years, and his Capitals ranking seem to be indicative of that. Leason over McMichael, Protas in the top 10, Clark at 11, Hugo Has at 13. Compare those rankings to our poll here and you'll see significantly more emphasis on size in Pronman's rankings than HFCaps'.
Langway
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He'll stick his neck out there for a particular highly skilled likely bust but not so much a defensive-defenseman or goaltender. I get it. They're hard to evaluate but difficulty projecting could be said about ALL prospects yet his levels of skepticism/confidence fit certain profiles. If he's going to be more bearish and realistic then apply it more universally. In the past he has at times egregiously not done so. He's evolving but it's a weakness.Pronman definitely has his quirks, and sometimes gets rather ridiculous with how far he takes his evaluation idiosyncrasies. But, in large, I kinda agree with this point from Pronman. Obviously you don't apply it equally to every prospect you evaluate, and there's definitely room for poised, cerebral defensemen in the NHL today. But it's awfully hard to pick those players out as prospects, and many of them showed a lot more offensive talent as prospects than they carried into their NHL game. It's difficult to figure out which defensemen are going to retain their poise when presented with the game played at NHL speed, and it often takes a fair bit of NHL seasoning to accomplish this (resulting in a decent chunk of later bloomers among these types of D). This is part of the reason I've tended to be less optimistic in my projections of Lucas Johansen than many around here (although not nearly to the extent of one poster
I don't think Pronman is saying poised defensive D don't have a place in the NHL, only that he doesn't rank them highly because it can be so difficult to project which ones are hits and which ones are misses.
I don't think your examples apply much. Despres in particular was not a high hockey sense guy, nor were the rest of those D outside of maybe Percy in his draft year (but he had a lot of injuries). The older school defensive-defensemen that struggled to get around, anticipate and/or make a first pass aren't what I'm talking about. Dylan McIlrath and the like didn't have the tools and it wasn't particularly hard to see as the game steadily moved away from sheer toughness. It's the more mobile breed that have caught up to where the game is at since 2014 in full or so that I'm talking about. Given that five year span they should be increasingly easy to ID now that there's more of a plateau compared to the previous five years and the five years before that IMO. Granted, it does take time and there will be those not able to translate less of a true two-way game into substantial upside. But that also goes for more fringe one-dimensional skilled forwards.
Scott Harrington is a good example that's taken some time but found a niche with CBJ now and could perhaps continue to progress further. Cernak broke through last year. Carlo is another that he was bearish on that's thrived. Murray I think would largely be on track if he hadn't gotten hurt so often or been stuck behind some really good D. I was never a massive fan relative to his draft position, though. My lack of optimism on Johansen revolves more around the lack of a clear strength beyond skating. It's a good first tool but he needs more substance, particularly in the strength department if he's just going to merely be a vanilla positional type. Mainly it's just hard to buy into that it's hard to evaluate and project for a particular subset of players but not others. He's sort of wilfully ignored red flags for particular sexy skilled types often in the past. The Caps not having much of that to offer at all make them an easy team to rank pretty close to the bottom. I don't even disagree with that ranking that much. Their depth is pretty unspectacular. It's so unspectacular that even if you like the top five the rest sets them back relative to most teams.
Hivemind
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I feel like most of my examples apply pretty well. They were generally hailed for their hockey sense, all-around play, and/or positioning around the times of their draft. Scouting reports are kinda hard to dig up on some of them now, but here's a couple I can find.
Tim Erixon at eliteprospects.com - "A very smart defenseman that plays a solid two-way game. Erixon is not very spectacular, but plays an effective and rather simple game. He does not throw his body around, but can be aggressive and has active stickwork. Hockey sense is very good and so is his offensive positioning."
Devils at the 2009 NHL Draft: A Simon Despres Overview - "I think for a potential pro player, he's got the size and mobility. I've seen him [in] many games, and he never seems to make a bad play." & "Simon is a very good skater with and without the puck. He has good hands for a big man and he has outstanding vision as well as hockey sense."
Stuart Percy Scouting Report | Maple Leafs Hotstove - "Plays a calm and collected game, able to slow things down, get out of dodge without panic and support his teammates by being a rock in his own end. [...] An extremely intelligent player who displays strong understanding of the game, and hockey sense that allows him to anticipate the play developing in front of him."
I intentionally didn't mention Dylan McIlrath, given that he was definitely more of a "big defenseman" than anything else. While some of these other guys also had plus size, McIlrath was basically only picked for his size & toughness.
I was also picking mostly from somewhat less recent drafts to avoid late bloomers who could still break either way, like Harrington. Harrington also isn't a great example of rating these types of prospects highly, as he's now on his 3rd franchise. While the first trade still returned value to Pittsburgh, the trade from Toronto to CBJ was essentially a change-of-scenery deal. I thought about mentioning Carlo, but his 6'5" frame is a big part of what sets him apart.
When the defining characteristic of cerebral defensemen tends to be that they rarely make mistakes, red flags become more troubling. It's easier to hand waive off potential issues with players who can do special things on the ice that counteract their flaws. It's harder for a player who's supposed to play flawless hockey to mask flaws in their game.
Langway
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Again, Percy I'd agree with but with the caveat that he got injured a lot. I personally wasn't too high on the rest. None were players I'd have considered future top fours aside from Ceci and only because he was thrown into it and could somewhat survive but not in any way you'd draw up. Your examples busted but a lot of players do. I'd agree generally that forwards earlier and defensemen/goalies later is the way to go about business but, again, I don't really get punting on certain categories of players altogether and there are always exceptions. If you're just going to evaluate based on skill and finesse alone then you're inevitably likely to miss on some core components of team building. Harrington is 26 so I think it's okay to start judging his career. It's still unfolding but he's on the way IMO and a good example of a guy I was high on as that type of player if he could continue to progress. It's less that that they don't make mistakes but that they're proficient at shutting down skilled players first and foremost. Whether they can translate that as they go up in levels is the question. It's not being one-dimensional and in survival mode because that isn't tenable but being extremely efficient and on point defensively with the ability to make simple plays when they do have the puck. Players like Carlo & Cernak have reach and frame on their side but that doesn't really make them exceptions. That's part of what helps them excel.
Going from 2013 on back a few more examples of players I've been high on are Santini, Lindholm, Edmundson, Dumoulin, McNabb and to some extent Hamonic. Santini will be an interesting follow in NSH in whether he can settle into more of a third-pair/PK role on a more competitive club and progress further. His play with NJD was pretty unremarkable if not downright bad but he was also probably rushed. Change of scenery type deals for these sorts of players aren't overly rare IMO given that it does take some of them a little longer to develop, kind of like power forwards at times. Lindholm may be the best example of a guy that was a high pick, a big riser and someone that doesn't put up a whole lot of points but is a very efficient/cerebral 5-on-5 beast most years when his team is any good. I'd bet on Seider eventually fitting into that type and I think Alexeyev pretty much ticks off all of the boxes unless injuries give pause. Size would be the one area where Fehervary doesn't quite match up but it's possible that becomes less essential and also depends on the technique/leverage of the player in negating that. Your examples did have red flags IMO and it's the difference between players that may look good against their peer group and those that have a diverse enough skill set and a higher processing of the game to maintain efficiency as challenges become ever more demanding.
The main thing about special offensive players that counteract their flaws is sometimes those flaws can be so glaring (like defending or working hard defensively) that they're still going to have a rather limited role. Some don't earn their coaches trust altogether and don't always really have the translatable impact skill to compensates enough for those weaknesses so as to gain confidence and trust their game. Yet that level of doubt doesn't seem to be factored in as much in his evaluations when referencing upside or risk when it should. It's an area where if it's awful it may keep them from being regulars altogether. Sheer upside is IMO a bit of a cop-out and one-dimensional view when evaluating, esp. when it only applies to certain player types and ignores downsides. Impact profiles in general should be more highly valued but when it comes to evaluating on a case-by-case basis a more one-dimensional application tends to lead to certain outcomes as a matter of preference when impact is really more of a diverse skill set than is being recognized. It can lead to a certain cartoonishness.
Going from 2013 on back a few more examples of players I've been high on are Santini, Lindholm, Edmundson, Dumoulin, McNabb and to some extent Hamonic. Santini will be an interesting follow in NSH in whether he can settle into more of a third-pair/PK role on a more competitive club and progress further. His play with NJD was pretty unremarkable if not downright bad but he was also probably rushed. Change of scenery type deals for these sorts of players aren't overly rare IMO given that it does take some of them a little longer to develop, kind of like power forwards at times. Lindholm may be the best example of a guy that was a high pick, a big riser and someone that doesn't put up a whole lot of points but is a very efficient/cerebral 5-on-5 beast most years when his team is any good. I'd bet on Seider eventually fitting into that type and I think Alexeyev pretty much ticks off all of the boxes unless injuries give pause. Size would be the one area where Fehervary doesn't quite match up but it's possible that becomes less essential and also depends on the technique/leverage of the player in negating that. Your examples did have red flags IMO and it's the difference between players that may look good against their peer group and those that have a diverse enough skill set and a higher processing of the game to maintain efficiency as challenges become ever more demanding.
The main thing about special offensive players that counteract their flaws is sometimes those flaws can be so glaring (like defending or working hard defensively) that they're still going to have a rather limited role. Some don't earn their coaches trust altogether and don't always really have the translatable impact skill to compensates enough for those weaknesses so as to gain confidence and trust their game. Yet that level of doubt doesn't seem to be factored in as much in his evaluations when referencing upside or risk when it should. It's an area where if it's awful it may keep them from being regulars altogether. Sheer upside is IMO a bit of a cop-out and one-dimensional view when evaluating, esp. when it only applies to certain player types and ignores downsides. Impact profiles in general should be more highly valued but when it comes to evaluating on a case-by-case basis a more one-dimensional application tends to lead to certain outcomes as a matter of preference when impact is really more of a diverse skill set than is being recognized. It can lead to a certain cartoonishness.
Marshall
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By showing up a month early and declaring his ambition to make the Caps this year, it's clear that Alexeyev has no respect for erroneous stereotypes about Russian hockey players.
I for one would be thrilled if Alexeyev got some games this season. I like Djoos but he is a dime a dozen bottom pairing NHL'er and I think (hope) Alexeyev can be more.
I also just saw the tweet about him being in the "rookie showcase" this season.
I also just saw the tweet about him being in the "rookie showcase" this season.
Marshall
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Thanks for post that it was a good read. Would love to corner Mahoney some time and 'attempt' to get some insight on the debates(pros/cons) for some bust picks and general hindsight 20/20 stuff.
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Very possible he's talking about Anton Gustafsson for one of those based on the timeline.
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