Prospect Info: HFStars 2023 Boy Rank [#15]

[piqued]

#1	Logan Stankoven	C/RW	Kamloops BC	2021 Draft - 47th	92.6%	▲ 1
#2	Mavrik Bourque	C	Plessisville QC	2020 Draft - 30th	68.1%	▲ 1
#3	Lian Bichsel	RD	Olten SUI	2022 Draft - 18th	78.7%	▲ 2
#4	Christian Kyrou	RD	Komoka ON	2022 Draft - 50th	47.9%	▲ 6
#5	Tristan Bertucci	LD	Vaughan ON	2023 Draft - 61st	53.1%	New
#6	Ayrton Martino	LW	Toronto ON	2021 Draft - 73rd	30.6%	▲5
#7	Artem Grushnikov	LD	Voskresensk RUS	2021 Draft - 48th	21.6%	▲ 1
#8	Matej Blümel	LW	Tabor CZE	Free Agent	28.2%	▲ 5
#9	Francesco Arcuri	LW	Woodbridge ON	2021 Draft - 175th	29.4%	▲ 3
#10	Remi Poirier	G	Farnham QC	2020 Draft - 185th	28.2%	▲ 10
#11	Matthew Seminoff	RW	Coquitlam BC	2022 Draft - 179th	41.4%	▲8
#12	Antonio Stranges	LW	Ann Arbor MI	2020 Draft - 123rd	43.3%	▼ 5
#13	Aram Minnetian	RD	Woodcliff Lake NJ	2023 Draft - 125th	57.1%	New
#14	Brad Gardiner	C	Aurora ON	2023 Draft - 79th	49.3%	New

Starting to see my draft class up there. There's a chance!​

Click to read more...

 

[Ub the Bub]

Huh, how interesting that everyone bounced on Wheatcroft just cause Felhaber was mentioned... Here's are two more names, Mike Hoffman and Jonathan Marchessault... So maybe not fair to throw in the towel on Wheatcroft completely just cause Felhaber was a bust...

 

[Zapp]

Huh, how interesting that everyone bounced on Wheatcroft just cause Felhaber was mentioned... Here's are two more names, Mike Hoffman and Jonathan Marchessault... So maybe not fair to throw in the towel on Wheatcroft completely just cause Felhaber was a bust...

People forget Covid happened too. I think WHL got quite a few games in before the cancellation but everything after that was a mess until ‘22 so it f***ed up a lot of these prospects development.

 

[MrHeiskanen]

Huh, how interesting that everyone bounced on Wheatcroft just cause Felhaber was mentioned... Here's are two more names, Mike Hoffman and Jonathan Marchessault... So maybe not fair to throw in the towel on Wheatcroft completely just cause Felhaber was a bust...

What do Hoffman and Marchessault have to do with an overage WHLer who put up points because he was dominating 16/17 year olds as a 20 year old?

 

[Starry Knight]

Angus MacDonnell is my choice here. He still has a lot of offensive potential to tap into and has a motor to hack out a career as a 4th liner if need be.

I see Andrew Shaw potential in him.

 

[Ub the Bub]

What do Hoffman and Marchessault have to do with an overage WHLer who put up points because he was dominating 16/17 year olds as a 20 year old?

Hoffman and Marchessault were both overagers who put up less impressive numbers in the even weaker QMJHL and they still managed to succeed in the NHL.

 

[Satan]

What do Hoffman and Marchessault have to do with an overage WHLer who put up points because he was dominating 16/17 year olds as a 20 year old?

Average age in WHL/OHL/QMJHL is generally ~18.5-19 years old but yes, as an overager he definitely had development advantages over his peers which saw a burst in success relative to his 19 year old season.

 

[MrHeiskanen]

Hoffman and Marchessault were both overagers who put up less impressive numbers in the even weaker QMJHL and they still managed to succeed in the NHL.

Now should we posts the 1000's of overages that put up 100+ points and accomplished nothing? Then we can talk about probability.

 

[Satan]

Hoffman and Marchessault were both overagers who put up less impressive numbers in the even weaker QMJHL and they still managed to succeed in the NHL.

For every successful overager that transitioned to the NHL, there are like 50 guys that didn't come close to making it.

Brazeau, Felhaber, Luchuk, Dane Fox all come to mind

 

[Ub the Bub]

For every successful overager that transitioned to the NHL, there are like 50 guys that didn't come close to making it.

Brazeau, Felhaber, Luchuk, Dane Fox all come to mind

You can do the exact same thing with every single player left in the poll, none of them are likely career NHLers. They're all lottery picks, long shots. Wheatcroft is no more a gamble than anyone else, and he certainly not suddenly more so just cause someone remembered Felhaber existed...

 

[Satan]

You can do the exact same thing with every single player left in the poll, none of them are likely career NHLers. They're all lottery picks, long shots. Wheatcroft is no more a gamble than anyone else, and he certainly not suddenly more so just cause someone remembered Felhaber existed...

There's a big difference between Wheatcroft's situation (undrafted, signed overager) and a lot of players still on the board and that's the leading indicator on talent is getting drafted. I think even for 7th round picks there's a 5-10% chance of taking a guy that plays >99 NHL games. What do you think the success rate is for undrafted signed overagers? 0.1%?

There are still guys on this list that are proven AHL contributors budding for an NHL job this year (Damiani, Back) or guys that have been recently drafted before pick 100 (Gardiner, Fegaras) while most of the undrafted overagers (Wheatcroft, McDonald) end up being AHL/ECHL tweeners.

 

[Ub the Bub]

What do you think the success rate is for undrafted signed overagers? 0.1%?

Good question! Such a good question that I decided to find out. What percentage of players, with 100+ points WHL seasons in their overage year, has played 100+ games in the NHL? As they say, the answer may surprise you.

So I decided to go through every WHL regular season between 18-19 season and all the way back to the 94-95 season and look at every single WHL overager that scored more than 100 points within that time frame. I figured younger guys than that may just not have had time to reach that 100 game milstone, in fact some of the guys I did find may very well still be able to. And 25 years, a quarter of a century is a nice round number. Should be enough for a sample size.

First thing that hit me was... Like, how common do you people actually think it is that overagers score 100+ points? The way you talk about it makes it sound like you think it happened 20-30 times per season... In reality, it's like 1 or 2 players per year. The most I found 97-98 which had 6. Many seasons had none at all.

So how many did I find? 39. That's it. That's all of the overagers that scored 100 or more points during those years in the WHL. Among them, this is how it breaks down.
Players with 100 or more NHL games: 10 (25.6%) (Troy Brouwer 851, Tyler Johnson 671, Brett McLean 385, Mark Smith 377, Ronald Petrovicky 342, Stacy Roest 244, Brandon Hagel 211, Dryden Hunt 202, Shane Willis 174, Chris Herperger 169)
Players with atleast NHL game: 9 (23.1%)
Players with no NHL games: 20 (51.3%)
Sure, none of these guys are/were superstars, but they certainly played a meaningful role in the league. Also yes, the sample size isn't massive, but it's pretty far away from 0.1%... And MrHeiskanen's "1000's of overages that put up 100+ points" is obviously complete and utter gobbledygook.

And since you added the caveat about undrafted players, I looked at that too. That changes the number of players to just 19 and the ratio is now 3, 3 and 13. Which yes, that's lower, at the 100 games played ratio at just 15.8%... But it's still very very far from 0.1%...

So yeah.. I think some of us are vastly underestimating the accomplishment of Wheatcroft. Not saying I think he's a future bonafide star or anything... But he's far from DOA either.

 

[Satan]

Good question! Such a good question that I decided to find out. What percentage of players, with 100+ points WHL seasons in their overage year, has played 100+ games in the NHL? As they say, the answer may surprise you.

So I decided to go through every WHL regular season between 18-19 season and all the way back to the 94-95 season and look at every single WHL overager that scored more than 100 points within that time frame. I figured younger guys than that may just not have had time to reach that 100 game milstone, in fact some of the guys I did find may very well still be able to. And 25 years, a quarter of a century is a nice round number. Should be enough for a sample size.

First thing that hit me was... Like, how common do you people actually think it is that overagers score 100+ points? The way you talk about it makes it sound like you think it happened 20-30 times per season... In reality, it's like 1 or 2 players per year. The most I found 97-98 which had 6. Many seasons had none at all.

So how many did I find? 39. That's it. That's all of the overagers that scored more than 100 or more points during those years in the WHL. Among them, this is how it breaks down.
Players with 100 or more NHL games: 10 (25.6%) (Troy Brouwer 851, Tyler Johnson 671, Brett McLean 385, Mark Smith 377, Ronald Petrovicky 342, Stacy Roest 244, Brandon Hagel 211, Dryden Hunt 202, Shane Willis 174, Chris Herperger 169)
Players with atleast NHL game: 9 (23.1%)
Players with no NHL games: 20 (53.1%)
Sure, none of these guys are/were superstars, but they certainly played a meaningful role in the league. Also yes, the sample size isn't massive, but it's pretty far away from 0.1%... And MrHeiskanen's "1000's of overages that put up 100+ points" is obviously complete and utter gobbledygook.

And since you added the caveat about undrafted players, I looked at that too. That changes the number of players to just 19 and the ratio is now 3, 3 and 13. Which yes, that's lower, at the 100 games played ratio at just 15.8%... But it's still very very far for 0.1%...

So yeah.. I think some of us are vastly underestimating the accomplishment of Wheatcroft. Not saying I think he's a future bonafide star or anything... But he's far from DOA either.

Great digging- but my post didn't qualify guys that scored 100 or more points, I simply stated "undrafted, signed overagers". And I would wager across the CHL leagues for all overagers it ends up being below 1%.

3 guys in 25 years. I think the leading indicators on drafted talent vastly outweigh a physically mature player becoming a world beater (38 pts -> 107 pts as an overager). Then as I've mentioned you have guys like Damiani or Back knocking on the NHL door already (FVs AHL regular confirmed... are they FV Call Ups?) when Wheatcroft will be seasoning in the minors for another 2-3 seasons (FV uncertain... but if you were to fairly project him based on what we know now and what we've learned.... AHL Depth?).

 

[Ub the Bub]

Great digging- but my post didn't qualify guys that scored 100 or more points, I simply stated "undrafted, signed overagers". And I would wager across the CHL leagues for all overagers it ends up being below 1%.

3 guys in 25 years. I think the leading indicators on drafted talent vastly outweigh a physically mature player becoming a world beater (38 pts -> 107 pts as an overager). Then as I've mentioned you have guys like Damiani or Back knocking on the NHL door already (FVs AHL regular confirmed... are they FV Call Ups?) when Wheatcroft will be seasoning in the minors for another 2-3 seasons (FV uncertain... but if you were to fairly project him based on what we know now and what we've learned.... AHL Depth?).

True, you did, but if I checked the performance of every overager in the WHL over the past 25 years that would have taken days... Also not sure it's relevant if some guy who had like 10 points in 50 games in his overage year didn't make the league when talking about whether Wheatcraft has a shot or not...

And 3 guys out of the 19 I found, that is. I mean, I didn't check the entire overager group. Previously mentioned Marchessault didn't even reach the 100 point margin in the Q and I'm sure there are WHL overager with established NHL careers that didn't reach 100 points either (especially on D obviously).

But yeah, statistically likely he's just AHL depth... Same is true for everyone else though. I mean, Damiani feels like he's shown his hand already and while not all hope is lost, my expectations are fairly muted. And Bäck... Maybe he could be a fourth line character guy, our very own Anton Lander or Fredrik Sjöström... But that's also it. And among the rest, some of them might turn out to be something, but there are still way too many question marks. Wheatcroft is also a question mark, but he's the only one I right now feel could be something more than an emergency call up or extra body in the line up. Statistically he won't, but he could. And at 15 "could" is enough, atleast for me.

 

[redbeardtx]

Good question! Such a good question that I decided to find out. What percentage of players, with 100+ points WHL seasons in their overage year, has played 100+ games in the NHL? As they say, the answer may surprise you.

So I decided to go through every WHL regular season between 18-19 season and all the way back to the 94-95 season and look at every single WHL overager that scored more than 100 points within that time frame. I figured younger guys than that may just not have had time to reach that 100 game milstone, in fact some of the guys I did find may very well still be able to. And 25 years, a quarter of a century is a nice round number. Should be enough for a sample size.

First thing that hit me was... Like, how common do you people actually think it is that overagers score 100+ points? The way you talk about it makes it sound like you think it happened 20-30 times per season... In reality, it's like 1 or 2 players per year. The most I found 97-98 which had 6. Many seasons had none at all.

So how many did I find? 39. That's it. That's all of the overagers that scored 100 or more points during those years in the WHL. Among them, this is how it breaks down.
Players with 100 or more NHL games: 10 (25.6%) (Troy Brouwer 851, Tyler Johnson 671, Brett McLean 385, Mark Smith 377, Ronald Petrovicky 342, Stacy Roest 244, Brandon Hagel 211, Dryden Hunt 202, Shane Willis 174, Chris Herperger 169)
Players with atleast NHL game: 9 (23.1%)
Players with no NHL games: 20 (51.3%)
Sure, none of these guys are/were superstars, but they certainly played a meaningful role in the league. Also yes, the sample size isn't massive, but it's pretty far away from 0.1%... And MrHeiskanen's "1000's of overages that put up 100+ points" is obviously complete and utter gobbledygook.

And since you added the caveat about undrafted players, I looked at that too. That changes the number of players to just 19 and the ratio is now 3, 3 and 13. Which yes, that's lower, at the 100 games played ratio at just 15.8%... But it's still very very far from 0.1%...

So yeah.. I think some of us are vastly underestimating the accomplishment of Wheatcroft. Not saying I think he's a future bonafide star or anything... But he's far from DOA either.

So you're saying there's a chance...

 

[Zapp]

It’s a good discussion to be had but I think you two are spinning your wheels on an outlier.

His first two seasons in juniors got f***ed by Covid and he was on a dogshit Lethbridge team. In fact he didn’t really have any help last year in PG either. Ziemmer/Heidt/Eastman was the top line and they combined for 246 points. Wheatcroft played with Wiebe and Funk who had 61 points between the two of them.

I’m not sure what developmental edge Wheatcroft has other than his birthdate because his skating isn’t good and his defense is ugly. But I can tell you he has high offensive instinct and impressive puck skills. There’s plenty of PG footage of last season on YouTube, if you check it out you’ll see some really high end passing plays and great positioning.

CW is a boom or bust prospect undoubtedly, and unless he works on his skating it’s probably more bust. But he’s far more talented offensively than some of the other names taken ahead of him so far.

 

[LT]

He's a free prospect so anything he provides at any level is gravy