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Prospect Info: CHL, NCAA & European Prospects Thread | Part VIII

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devilsblood

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Triumph said:
Certainly could, but not based on what he's shown so far - he'll have to improve a lot to get to that point.



Yes, it is. Context is important. I can just repeat myself if you want, or you can just insist that everyone who looks at stats just does so blindly. Here, I wrote a post about this 5 years ago, and I stand by it now. The fact that Quenneville didn't play much, if at all, at ES with Patrick and Hawryluk is a point in his favor.



First off, we would never have direct evidence that an injury is why a player performed poorly. We can infer that.

Second, as I said in the previous post, being able to play through injuries is part of life in the NHL. If a player's performance either goes down dramatically when he plays hurt or he's often unable to play due to injury, this decreases that player's value. Obviously hockey players are not robots and playing hurt is challenging, but the NHL is a very difficult league. Just saying 'oh, he had an injury, so we can just write off this season' isn't enough.
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1)what in your opinion has he shown so far? And in what ways does he need to improve?

2)When we say that playing 2nd line is a point in his favor, what does that mean? In what ways do we factor that in?


3)So are you saying you think injuries did play into his dip in production? If so, the fact that he's been able to play in a significant # of games and produce in other seasons negate some of that concern?

IMO they do, and I agree staying healthy is a legit concern, it's a big reason why I'm looking to move on from JJ, but Q has been able to stay healthy, and given he did finish the 14-15 season strong, had a good playoffs that year, had a strong regular season and playoff this year, I'm not that worried about that injury.
 

Triumph

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devilsblood said:
1)what in your opinion has he shown so far? And in what ways does he need to improve?
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He needs to score more goals and get more assists. I haven't seen enough of him to say anything more than that.

2)When we say that playing 2nd line is a point in his favor, what does that mean? In what ways do we factor that in?
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To me it means that the effect of playing on a great team, something that detracts from Quenneville's perceived talent level as it is being judged by goals and assists, is largely negated by this. I have no idea how to properly weight everything, but that's what I think.

3)So are you saying you think injuries did play into his dip in production?
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I'm saying we can't know. Even if someone had been watching every Brandon game, they couldn't know. Ilya Kovalchuk had 19 points in 23 games in the 2012 playoffs, most of which he played visibly limited by an injury. Maybe he would've had fewer points per game if he were healthy. Who knows what would've happened in this counterfactual reality? Points reflect talent to a degree, but there's limitations to that even with very large samples - they do worse the smaller the sample gets.

If so, the fact that he's been able to play in a significant # of games and produce in other seasons negate some of that concern?
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Absolutely.

IMO they do, and I agree staying healthy is a legit concern, it's a big reason why I'm looking to move on from JJ, but Q has been able to stay healthy, and given he did finish the 14-15 season strong, had a good playoffs that year, had a strong regular season and playoff this year, I'm not that worried about that injury.
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I don't care about the injury much either. What I care about is saying 'Well JQ had an injury at blah blah point, therefore his 2014-15 season can just be excused away. Injury.' No, he had that season and it wasn't good. It doesn't matter that much now that he had it because he had a very good season this year and will hopefully carry that through to the pro game, but it did happen.
 

devilsblood

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And we again come to the cross roads. We say he needs to score more goals, but don't know how to factor in the numerous points of context, playing on the 2nd line, injury, opposition, we just know he needs to score more. Yet you claim strawman?

As far as his 14-15 season imo it now has little relevance. I'd say injury certainly played a role, Q himself said as much, but I'd as soon say aberration before I would consider it lack of potential.
 

Triumph

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devilsblood said:
And we again come to the cross roads. We say he needs to score more goals, but don't know how to factor in the numerous points of context, playing on the 2nd line, injury, opposition, we just know he needs to score more. Yet you claim strawman?

As far as his 14-15 season imo it now has little relevance. I'd say injury certainly played a role, Q himself said as much, but I'd as soon say aberration before I would consider it lack of potential.
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Players who score more are generally better players. I want all the Devils' prospects to score more goals. Your strawman argument is that Quenneville playing with Hawrlyuk and Patrick would make him a better prospect. I don't believe that. If he had, I'd be here talking about how we have to regard his performance with some skepticism given A: the year before and B: playing with top talent on a top team. I do not believe that Quenneville had the best possible year a player could have given his circumstances, and that seems to be your argument? A player can almost always be better.

With his performance this year, he's not on track to be a 20-20-40 player in the NHL, and that's where this discussion started. He could get there for sure. He's not on a track where that's a reasonable median projection for him. But it could very well end up being what happens.
 

devilsblood

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Triumph said:
Players who score more are generally better players. I want all the Devils' prospects to score more goals. Your strawman argument is that Quenneville playing with Hawrlyuk and Patrick would make him a better prospect. I don't believe that. If he had, I'd be here talking about how we have to regard his performance with some skepticism given A: the year before and B: playing with top talent on a top team. I do not believe that Quenneville had the best possible year a player could have given his circumstances, and that seems to be your argument? A player can almost always be better.

With his performance this year, he's not on track to be a 20-20-40 player in the NHL, and that's where this discussion started. He could get there for sure. He's not on a track where that's a reasonable median projection for him. But it could very well end up being what happens.
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There is no set track, that's more the discussion.
 
Marshal Rochambeau

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devilsblood said:
I think we can make reasonable guesses. Chances are those guesses are wrong, but it's part of fandom, it makes for good discussion.
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I honestly don't know why I used the word reasonable since that's exactly what we're doing. I meant we can't know what kind of production he'll have in the NHL because every player reacts and adapts differently.
 
VoidCreature

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Every year it seems someone jumps onto the scene that no one expected. Shayne Gostisbehere, Johnny Gaudreau, Jamie Benn.

One of these years it'll be one of our prospects.
 
Feed Me A Stray Cat

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Marshal Rochambeau said:
I wonder if the development process should be attributed to the scouting and coaching staff or if it is nearly random.
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In terms of projecting how an 18-year old will look when they're 25, I'd say it's about 60-70% random. Some players just continue to get better and progress, while others don't, and most of the time there's no real identifier.

Coaching obviously does matter. Having an awful coach can stunt a player's development, and having a great coach can probably help a guy get incrementally better.

Scouting is there to basically draft prospects that give the team the best probability of success in the future. Even if a scout loves a player, he would be hard-pressed to say that they're 100% going to be an NHL player. As a result, you pick then guys with the best combination of production, smarts and skill, and hope for the best.

I think good scouting is more about avoiding bad picks than it is about making great ones.
 

devilsblood

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VoidCreature said:
Is that hindsight, or are you claiming you saw them coming?
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The Great Dame said:
Both had A LOT of hype. Especially Gaudreau. So I wouldn't say they came out of nowhere.
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Gaudreau had a humongo jr season in college, and did it in that small skilled player sort of way that is so fun to watch.

Ghost's last year was impressive, but not off the charts, his production rate in his rookie year this season is pretty similar to his final year in college.

Ghost was certainly more of a surprise.
 
Zippy316

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devilsblood said:
Gaudreau had a humongo jr season in college, and did it in that small skilled player sort of way that is so fun to watch.

Ghost's last year was impressive, but not off the charts, his production rate in his rookie year this season is pretty similar to his final year in college.

Ghost was certainly more of a surprise.
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That was after he was drafted though.

In their draft years, I don't remember hearing anything about Gaudreau or Gostisbehere.
 
Rhodes 81

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Zippy316 said:
That was after he was drafted though.

In their draft years, I don't remember hearing anything about Gaudreau or Gostisbehere.
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If the argument is that players that aren't great prospects in their draft years very rarely turn into great players, then yes, eventually that will happen to the Devils. At some point every ~10 years, a team will get an elite player or two out of the mid-late rounds.

But the argument that prospects that up until that point were unheard of step in as rookies and show future superstardom is disingenuous. The players that "come out of nowhere" are generally just guys that were drafted between 3-7 and then started playing significantly better. Normally by the time these guys reach the NHL there's already a pretty good idea that they're better than their draft position.
 
Devils Dominion

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Development Camp

Looks like the week of July 11.

Get your first look at the Devils' first round draft pick Mikey McLeod, as he and his Development Camp teammates hit the ice at the Barnabas Health Hockey House on Wednesday, July 13 for a 3-on-3 competition.

Event starts at 10 a.m.

Click below to RSVP for this event and you will receive an email notification of your confirmation.

Space is limited.

Go Devils!
 
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