Prospect Info: Do Canucks fans badly overrate their own prospects?

[The Stig]

We are weird. In the way that....if we trade the pick, we overrate them more than any fanbase. But if they're a member of the organization, we underrate them more than most.

 

[CanaFan]

We are weird. In the way that....if we trade the pick, we overrate them more than any fanbase. But if they're a member of the organization, we underrate them more than most.

And some people here do the reverse.

 

[Puck Ingrate]

Most people overrate their own prospects because they only follow their own team and can't analyze post-draft statistics under the proper context.

It's not that unusual for a CHL prospect to put up PPG numbers in their post-draft seasons, or for NCAA players to continually improve as they adjust to the college game. Almost every NHL organization has a couple players who outperform their draft position or expected performance in any given year.

But casual fans will take one look at their guy on HockeyDB, see that he's posting 1+ PPG, and assign that the same weight as PPG in the NHL, which is where the overhype and exaggerations begin.

 

[The Stig]

And some people here do the reverse.

Also true.

 

[CanaFan]

Most people overrate their own prospects because they only follow their own team and can't analyze post-draft statistics under the proper context.

It's not that unusual for a CHL prospect to put up PPG numbers in their post-draft seasons, or for some NCAA players to continually improve as they adjust to the college game.

But casual fans will take one look at their guy on HockeyDB, see that he's posting 1+ PPG, and assign that the same weight as PPG in the NHL, which is where the overhype and exaggerations begin.

Spot on post. I think many also underestimate the degree to which a prospect should be dominant in order to be considered a high end prospect.

 

[Pastor Of Muppets]

Maybe they just don't like the picks then?

Hard to be down on someone for being a Canucks prospect when they aren't actually a Canucks prospect, no?

In 17 years..the Canucks have only ever hit a real home run once (Kesler) with a 1st round draft pick...One can understand the reluctance to get overly excited.

 

[CanaFan]

In 17 years..the Canucks have only ever hit a real home run once (Kesler) with a 1st round draft pick...One can understand the reluctance to get overly excited.

Some truth to that. We've hardly been blessed at the draft over the years.

 

[FOurteenS inCisOr]

In 17 years..the Canucks have only ever hit a real home run once (Kesler) with a 1st round draft pick...One can understand the reluctance to get overly excited.

Schneider?

Horvat's gotta be knocking on that door.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Maybe ever so marginally more than the average fanbase simply because we've had such a paucity of high profile draft successes. The man dying of thirst will be more excited by a simple glass of water.

Generally though, fans tend to steer rapidly towards one of two binary poles. This isn't just true of sports fandom, it's true in almost every kind of fandom. Guys tend to be perceived as blue chip can't miss heroes, or they're absolutely driven into the ground. It also tends to be prone to recency bias. This is particularly hilarious in the prospect thread where you can see the mood spiking up and down as players have individually good and bad games.

Carries over to the main club as well, of course, but more folks tend to watch those games, so there isn't as much imagination and projection involved.

 

[Cogburn]

I am having this debate with a few people right now, especially on the main boards where they treat Gaudette like a generational talent.

I find the Canucks fanbase does not just overrate their prospects (I say most if not all fanbases do), but the Canucks do it maybe more than any other fanbase in the league (Leafs debate-able).

I remember back when Cole Cassels was a prospect (I feel victim to this also), his hype was absolutely staggering, I remember people him pegging him into the line up the year after, 100% third liner by the 2016 season. Even tho he had god awful skating.

The Canucks have had countless prospects who had rediculous hype, Cody Hodgson, Schroader, remember Jason king and Fedor Fedorov?

So what do you think?, is it the same as every fanbase?, or do we overdue it more?

King, Fedorov, Schroeder...many of them were due to a lack of nothing else being in the pipeline for so many years. Hodgson was once rated as the top forward not in the NHL...so we aren't more guilty there then the general media.

Cassels was all the name, and I'm hoping Subban isn't under the same spell.

On these boards, the problem is we, and every other fan base it seems, confuse personal opinion about a players ceiling with an absolute minimum, and requiring that to pry said prospect loose. I mean, Filip Forsberg was traded for Erat a few seasons ago...and Burrows/Hansen for Dahlin/Goldobin didn't happen purely because Benning is some kind of wizard. They happened because Ottawa and San Jose saw their guys, and saw they were at best a few years from making the kinds of contributions the vets would make.

Long story short, we over rate our guys, but so do nearly everyone of the people telling us we do.

 

[elitepete]

I feel like they badly overrate other teams prospects lol

 

[MS]

Spot on post. I think many also underestimate the degree to which a prospect should be dominant in order to be considered a high end prospect.

Yeah, this.

People don't grasp that guys who make it separate themselves quickly and dominantly at lower levels. And get excited about guys making marginal improvements when the truth is that those guys aren't tracking well at all.

And likewise think it's normal and ok for a guy to spend 3 full years in the AHL and then suddenly 'make it' when the truth is that the successes barely touch the AHL and if you spend much more than 120 games there, you're probably toast.

 

[Nucker101]

Every fanbase laughably overrates their group of prospects in their draft+1 and draft+2 seasons. It's consistently absurd.

/thread

 

[Captain Bowie]

The Canucks have had countless prospects who had rediculous hype, Cody Hodgson, Schroader, remember Jason king and Fedor Fedorov?

I take issue with a few of these. For one Cody Hodgson performed at the NHL level. His hype was fading a little until that point. Though it was short-lived before he was quickly traded, the stretch of hockey he played for us in the 11/12 season, especially from about mid-December through most of January was fantastic, we had every right to be excited about him being a quality NHL center in the near future.

Schroeder was a different story, I remember people being cautiously excited about his prospects in the NHL, mostly due to size.

Jason King was a 7th round draft pick, completely unknown who came out of nowhere, meshed well with the Sedins for half a season and then disappeared into the night. No one ever even had time to hype him up.

Fedor was an over-ager re-drafter who was completely unheralded other than his name, and getting in a scrap with Bieksa in rookie camp.

There are far better examples that exist, because we certainly do hype our prospects up. You picked some terrible examples though.

 

[Balls Mahoney]

I think we boost our prospects as much as any other fanbase. The problem is since our scouting and player development sucks so bad, we look crazy half the time.

 

[F A N]

In 17 years..the Canucks have only ever hit a real home run once (Kesler) with a 1st round draft pick...One can understand the reluctance to get overly excited.

Some truth to that. We've hardly been blessed at the draft over the years.

I wouldn't consider Kesler a home run pick. He was the 23rd overall pick from a historic deep draft. One of the deepest ever if not the deepest. We could have drafted Corey Perry, Patrice Bergeron, Shea Weber, and for a short time Mike Richards and none of us here would have said we could of and should of drafted Kesler.

I would even say Schneider and Edler were more home run picks than Kesler.

 

[Captain Bowie]

I wouldn't consider Kesler a home run pick. He was the 23rd overall pick from a historic deep draft. One of the deepest ever if not the deepest. We could have drafted Corey Perry, Patrice Bergeron, Shea Weber, and for a short time Mike Richards and none of us here would have said we could of and should of drafted Kesler.

I would even say Schneider and Edler were more home run picks than Kesler.

Weber and Bergeron were picked in the later half of the 2nd round, more than 20 picks later.

In hindsight, I don't know a single person that would trade Kesler for Richards. Even at their respective peaks I don't see how Mike Richards was better, and Kesler is still going strong while Mikey crashed and burned hard after a fairly quick ascent.

 

[RandV]

Weber and Bergeron were picked in the later half of the 2nd round, more than 20 picks later.

In hindsight, I don't know a single person that would trade Kesler for Richards. Even at their respective peaks I don't see how Mike Richards was better, and Kesler is still going strong while Mikey crashed and burned hard after a fairly quick ascent.

Yeah I always found the Kesler/Richards thing strange at the time. I can't assess individual talent myself to tell the difference so I could only track by stats, and Kesler seemed to be trending just as well as Richards. Yet word from the 'eye test' people was that Richards was gold while Kesler with his "stone hands" would never be more than a checking center. And this was coming off a 30 goal AHL season as a 19/20 year old, while Richards was still playing a final year Junior.

 

[ProstheticConscience]

Other = duh.

Geez luc, stop being so damn insecure.

 

[Lenerdosy]

I am having this debate with a few people right now, especially on the main boards where they treat Gaudette like a generational talent.

I find the Canucks fanbase does not just overrate their prospects (I say most if not all fanbases do), but the Canucks do it maybe more than any other fanbase in the league (Leafs debate-able).

I remember back when Cole Cassels was a prospect (I feel victim to this also), his hype was absolutely staggering, I remember people him pegging him into the line up the year after, 100% third liner by the 2016 season. Even tho he had god awful skating.

The Canucks have had countless prospects who had rediculous hype, Cody Hodgson, Schroader, remember Jason king and Fedor Fedorov?

So what do you think?, is it the same as every fanbase?, or do we overdue it more?

Hodgson had the skill to play, the foot speed and desire were always my question with him. Schroeder was small and there was a reason he fell so hard during his draft year. Jason King was like a shiny toy that no one really knew he was going to blow up for 20 games and I thought he could be a solid NHL player, didn't see him fading and dissapearing a few years later. Federov was the last name, nothing else.

As for Cassels, I thought by this past season he would atleast get a look, he did great as a junior against McDavid but he was also 2-3 years older in the last season of his junior so looking at him from that point kind of skews the view. Now I didn't see him being anything in the NHL more than a 4th liner, maybe a 3rd down the road as a in the pinch type guy, but some injuries seem to really derailed him and if he ever gets a callup now I will be impressed.

People expect too much from young kids nowadays, its hard to handle the pressure and get to the next level. Loads and loads of prospects fizzle out and are gone and forgotten from oraganizations always.

 

[gianni]

I think half the fanbase is realistic, and the other half overrates prospects. Prospects that I was never a fan of that got a lot of hype include: Hunter Shinkaruk, Jordan Schroeder, and Nicklas Jensen... I believe the hype for Cody Hodgson was warranted, but the game kind of passed him by early in his career, as his skating wasn't up to par to the style of play that the NHL transitioned to.

 

[F A N]

Weber and Bergeron were picked in the later half of the 2nd round, more than 20 picks later.

In hindsight, I don't know a single person that would trade Kesler for Richards. Even at their respective peaks I don't see how Mike Richards was better, and Kesler is still going strong while Mikey crashed and burned hard after a fairly quick ascent.

20 picks mean nothing. Besides, I also mentioned Corey Perry who was picked 5 picks later who is undoubtedly the better player.

As for Richards, that's why I said for a short time. In 2007-2008 he had developed into his peak form as a 30 goal point per game #1 C. Even after the 08-09 season, how many wouldn't have traded Kesler for Richards and slap a C on Richards? Of course Richards' decline came early and rather swift, but for a period of time before Kesler developed into a even a 2C Richards was the type of prototypical captain the fanbase here desperately wanted.

 

[F A N]

I think half the fanbase is realistic, and the other half overrates prospects. Prospects that I was never a fan of that got a lot of hype include: Hunter Shinkaruk, Jordan Schroeder, and Nicklas Jensen... I believe the hype for Cody Hodgson was warranted, but the game kind of passed him by early in his career, as his skating wasn't up to par to the style of play that the NHL transitioned to.

To be fair the hype quickly fell off. Shinkaruk and Schroeder got a lot of hype because many of us felt we potentially had a top 10 talent fall to us due to size. The hype quickly wore off for many of us when those two didn't come in and dominate the AHL. Jensen only got the hype because he showed a lot of potential in the games he played with the Canucks in essentially his first full season in the AHL. That too quickly wore off when he showed little to no progress in the AHL and didn't impress with the Canucks either.

 

[lawrence]

Not really, and sometimes I really wished fellow Canuck fans can step up a little more too when everyone is ganging up on one of theirs. Laffs fans band together like a wild pack when it comes to overrating their overrated players to coming to an aid when they are properly called off for overrating them.

The only prospect that was was really overrated, Cody Hodgson, which was warranted as he was in the mist of scoring the lights the out in the OHL and scoring a ton at the WJC.

Other then that, we've been quite generous. Examples is when Shinkaruk was lighting it up, we really didn't bump that thread very much, this year, Adam Gaudette was actually ripping it up already but we didn't even really know about it, until 3 months later? Thatcher Demko, we didn't even know, he was doing that well, until he went on a 6-1 streak at a 97% save perecentage at one point.

did Canuck fans even know, Brisboise was nominated for best defensemen in the QMJHL this year? he lost out to Chabot. anyways I think we've been quite modest.

 

[Wilch]

This thread should be renamed "How self aware do you think you are?"