Prospect Info: In the System IX (Ads and Prospects)

[Soundgarden]

Wheeler released his top goalie prospects on the Athletic and we have #1 (Askarov) and #4 (Ingram).

This is one of the reasons I'm not going absolutely insane over the pick like some people have been. Before the draft we had a bottom 10 prospect pool, maybe bottom 5. We are still bottom 10, but now we have the best prospect depth in the entire league in goal.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

Ahem, can people maybe just shush up a little about Ingram, please?

Even with contracts and rosters getting settled out, it's still pretty hard to project where Seattle will go on goalie picks, an awful lot of goalie contracts are up in 2021 too. And on the bright side Ingram is no longer waiver exempt at the start of the 2021-22 season, so that might help influence them not to choose him, not if they can get 2 established guys and also find a couple younger/prospect types who still have waiver exemption. So the situation is probably not dire. But it can't help any to go around calling him the #4 goalie prospect in the world. Is there a "shhhhhhh" smiley? Shhh!!!!

 

[Predsanddead24]

ECHL announced a schedule yesterday for December 11 to January 14 for about half of the league (mostly the teams in states without restrictions on large gatherings) with the other half slated to start sometime in January. The Everblades who are our affiliate are one of the teams that are scheduled to play so we could hypothetically have some of our prospects play there. I'm interested to see if NHL teams end up sending some of their guys down. In normal years the league basically plays late 90s style hockey, but they have toned down the goonery and tried to make it a bit more of a legitimate developmental league over the last several years. Could be a decent spot to send some of our guys if nothing else is out there.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

ECHL announced a schedule yesterday for December 11 to January 14 for about half of the league (mostly the teams in states without restrictions on large gatherings) with the other half slated to start sometime in January. The Everblades who are our affiliate are one of the teams that are scheduled to play so we could hypothetically have some of our prospects play there. I'm interested to see if NHL teams end up sending some of their guys down. In normal years the league basically plays late 90s style hockey, but they have toned down the goonery and tried to make it a bit more of a legitimate developmental league over the last several years. Could be a decent spot to send some of our guys if nothing else is out there.

Interesting option... I see these signings on the Florida page:

F John McCarron
F Michael Neville
F Kyle Neuber
F Joe Pendenza
F Blake Winiecki
F Darik Angeli
F Levko Koper
F Jared Thomas
F Stephen Baylis

D Ben Masella
D Michael Downing
D Cody Sol
D Jake Clifford
D Logan Roe
D Theo Calvas

G Cam Johnson

So assuming those 16 signed players basically have spots, it wouldn't seem tooooo likely that we could overload the Everblades with our prospects. Maybe more guys who already played there like Magwood, Fortunato, Craggs, Jeannot, and assign ones who might already have been ticketed there anyway like Smith and Cooley? That would pretty much round out a roster for them.

 

[Predsanddead24]

Interesting option... I see these signings on the Florida page:

F John McCarron
F Michael Neville
F Kyle Neuber
F Joe Pendenza
F Blake Winiecki
F Darik Angeli
F Levko Koper
F Jared Thomas
F Stephen Baylis

D Ben Masella
D Michael Downing
D Cody Sol
D Jake Clifford
D Logan Roe
D Theo Calvas

G Cam Johnson

So assuming those 16 signed players basically have spots, it wouldn't seem tooooo likely that we could overload the Everblades with our prospects. Maybe more guys who already played there like Magwood, Fortunato, Craggs, Jeannot, and assign ones who might already have been ticketed there anyway like Smith and Cooley? That would pretty much round out a roster for them.

Yeah I honestly have no idea how things will go just spitballing that it is hypothetically an option. It seems like the league is operating as normal where most of the guys are on ECHL contracts only, but I'm not sure they would say no if the Preds said they wanted to send a few more skilled guys down. Either way I'm not sure I'd want to put any of our better prospects in the league anyways but it is at least a possibility.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

On a completely different note... I see Filip Forsberg's little brother has stepped up to SHL this year and is off to a great start...

Fredrik Forsberg at eliteprospects.com

 

[Flgatorguy87]

A little Forsbergesque'

 

[Legionnaire11]

On a completely different note... I see Filip Forsberg's little brother has stepped up to SHL this year and is off to a great start...

Fredrik Forsberg at eliteprospects.com

The Brandon Pirri special!

 

[Scoresberg]

Ahem, can people maybe just shush up a little about Ingram, please?

Even with contracts and rosters getting settled out, it's still pretty hard to project where Seattle will go on goalie picks, an awful lot of goalie contracts are up in 2021 too. And on the bright side Ingram is no longer waiver exempt at the start of the 2021-22 season, so that might help influence them not to choose him, not if they can get 2 established guys and also find a couple younger/prospect types who still have waiver exemption. So the situation is probably not dire. But it can't help any to go around calling him the #4 goalie prospect in the world. Is there a "shhhhhhh" smiley? Shhh!!!!

Don't want to turn this thread into a expansion draft one but was thinking about this last night. I think we shouldn't worry too much about Ingram, Seattle will have a lot of good goalies to choose from. Obviously, it would be a different situation if they couldn't get a good skater from us, but they'll likely get one of Sissons, Jarnkrok or Ekholm/Ellis.

Here are some goalie options for Seattle.

Holtby
Allen
Khudobin
Crawford
Talbot
DeSmith

I don't think Ingram's in any danger.

 

[Predsanddead24]

Don't want to turn this thread into a expansion draft one but was thinking about this last night. I think we shouldn't worry too much about Ingram, Seattle will have a lot of good goalies to choose from. Obviously, it would be a different situation if they couldn't get a good skater from us, but they'll likely get one of Sissons, Jarnkrok or Ekholm/Ellis.

Here are some goalie options for Seattle.

Holtby
Allen
Khudobin
Crawford
Talbot
DeSmith

I don't think Ingram's in any danger.

I could see one of those guys going to Seattle but I can’t see them taking two over 30 goalies. I’m not sure what the situation with other goalie prospect types and their eligibility to be chosen is but Ingram is at least an option I would think.

 

[Legionnaire11]

And we're not going to just expose Ekholm or Ellis. You would trade one for at least a pick of some kind before the ED.

 

[adsfan]

Interesting option... I see these signings on the Florida page:

F John McCarron
F Michael Neville
F Kyle Neuber
F Joe Pendenza
F Blake Winiecki
F Darik Angeli
F Levko Koper
F Jared Thomas
F Stephen Baylis

D Ben Masella
D Michael Downing
D Cody Sol
D Jake Clifford
D Logan Roe
D Theo Calvas

G Cam Johnson

So assuming those 16 signed players basically have spots, it wouldn't seem tooooo likely that we could overload the Everblades with our prospects. Maybe more guys who already played there like Magwood, Fortunato, Craggs, Jeannot, and assign ones who might already have been ticketed there anyway like Smith and Cooley? That would pretty much round out a roster for them.

I do not see Lucas Craggs going anywhere in pro hockey with his skating. He struggled in Milwaukee. He would be a 20 point player in a full AHL season.

Tanner Jeannot hit 20 points last season in 57 Admirals games. He is only 23 and has a chance to improve. I expect him to be in Milwaukee.

Zach Magwood is a lower scoring version of Colin Blackwell. He is 22 and could improve.

I do not believe that Fortunato has played a game in Milwaukee, so I can't evaluate him. He seems to get a lot of assists as a Dman.


I like Joe Pendenza's speed. His problem is finishing. He won't ever score more than 25 points at the AHL level and he is already 29. He will teach the young guys.

 

[adsfan]

Don't want to turn this thread into a expansion draft one but was thinking about this last night. I think we shouldn't worry too much about Ingram, Seattle will have a lot of good goalies to choose from. Obviously, it would be a different situation if they couldn't get a good skater from us, but they'll likely get one of Sissons, Jarnkrok or Ekholm/Ellis.

Here are some goalie options for Seattle.

Holtby
Allen
Khudobin
Crawford
Talbot
DeSmith

I don't think Ingram's in any danger.

If I had to pick one of those guys to play for the Admirals, I would pick Jake Allen. He is 30 years and 2 months. He averaged 2.15 GAA last season in 24 games.

Khudobin sucks and is 34. Holtby has averaged 3.0 GAA the last three seasons. He is done in the NHL. Crawford is 35 with a $3.9M Cap Hit.

I don't know which teams Talbot and DeSmith play for. That is reason enough for me not to pick them.


Since you need at least 2 goalies, Ingram could be the young guy as the back up. He is 23 and went 21-5-5 with a 1.92 GAA and 93.3 Sav% last season for the Ads.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

Don't want to turn this thread into a expansion draft one but was thinking about this last night. I think we shouldn't worry too much about Ingram, Seattle will have a lot of good goalies to choose from. Obviously, it would be a different situation if they couldn't get a good skater from us, but they'll likely get one of Sissons, Jarnkrok or Ekholm/Ellis.

Here are some goalie options for Seattle.

Holtby
Allen
Khudobin
Crawford
Talbot
DeSmith

I don't think Ingram's in any danger.

Yeah, they will probably have to take Holtby unless he completely goes over a cliff in his play next season, just because Vancouver doesn't have a deep list of alternatives. But for the others, it will depend a lot on who else there is to choose from. They'll get 30 players, so some of them will be cases where they target a guy for the minors as well. Picking a goalie prospect who is waiver exempt but expansion eligible would be something that should be added to the list. That's not Ingram either, fortunately.

There are also a lot of other goalies whose contracts expire in 2021. So there will be a ton of free agent goalies to look at. Both for Seattle and for any teams who lose a goalie to them. But it might be a strategy to sign their real starting goalie from the UFA market and use their expansion picks on more prospect-style ones instead.

Now, if Ingram really was the #4 goalie prospect in the world, and you could get him with a simple expansion draft pick, and no other goalie prospect in the top 20 or 30 was available, well, you'd at least be considering him. But he's not actually the #4 goalie prospect in the world, of course.

I don't know if it counts as a "saving grace" per se, but if we go 7-3-1 and have one of Ellis/Ekholm/Fabbro exposed, then of course it's far more likely now that we'd lose a D instead.

Nevertheless, we'll continue to mull over all options here as the season unfolds.

 

[BigFatCat999]

So Chris Johnston hinted at AHL teams following their NHL teams

 

[triggrman]

There's no way Ekholm or Ellis is exposed, none, both have too much trade value.

Neal was exposed because he had one year left on his contract and was making $5M a year while only scoring 41 points, and had injurie issues.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

Well I like Ekholm a lot, but I guess I'd have to have a chat with him about his next-contract expectations first. He'll be 32 when his deal is up. The way he has played for us to date, I think he's overall better than Ellis. So what does he want as his next contract? 6 years * $7M? He has played a number of years for us on a "bargain" contract already. Does he feel he's ready to Get Paid?

At this point, I really don't know. So I'd have to talk to him. I'd have to also see what the market might bear in a trade for him or Ellis. Ellis is doing fine right now, but I still don't like his contract for when he turns 35, 36 years old.

And Fabbro is looking good, young, cost-controlled still for a while. But if his ultimate upside turned out to be more of a decent in-between #4 guy, that's not something that would be too devastating to lose either. I don't know if just 1 more season will be enough to confidently cap his projected upside, though.

Anyway, more data to collect. Just have to go ahead and roll the season and see what it shows, see if anything changes up.

If you do trade one of them to "Avoid Losing Them in Expansion", well, you lose them but you also lose somebody else instead of them too. There are still too many variables for me to rule anything out.

 

[Flgatorguy87]

I remember Ekholm specifically talking about the importance quality of life/situation were to him, and how he was a bit of a miser as far as his spending. He said something about taking less money, and he did on his last contract. We will see if this is the case with his next deal. He certainly has given us a ton of value and I would not hold it against him to try and cash out.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

I remember Ekholm specifically talking about the importance quality of life/situation were to him, and how he was a bit of a miser as far as his spending. He said something about taking less money, and he did on his last contract. We will see if this is the case with his next deal. He certainly has given us a ton of value and I would not hold it against him to try and cash out.

I think if Ekholm was ready to take 5x$5M to finish out with us, then I'd sign him and protect him. Assuming no sudden dropoff in his play occurs, anyway.

He gets $5M in 2021-22 as the last year of his current "bargain" deal. So that kind of sets a nice number to extend on.

I thought maybe his play was a little below his standards last season, but it's really such a terrible season to try to judge anything on. So much chaos, and it's obviously different carrying a rookie than being paired with Subban.

But if he wanted to push things on term and $$$... I would not whatsoever blame him... he has earned the right... but it would definitely be a factor in my Expansion Draft considerations.

 

[triggrman]

But you're mostly likely not losing a top pairing defenseman. Those are hard to replace, we're just lucky to have 3. I'd gladly lose Sissons, Jarnkrok, Grimaldi, etc over losing a top pairing defenseman. As far as Fabbro goes, he has speed that only Josi can match on our blueline.

 

[Scoresberg]

I hate speculating about the expansion draft since so much can change on our way there but.. a lot of what happens with Ekholm depends on other factors. Do Joey and Duchene bounce back and force us to protect them? How does Kunin look in Gold? Does Fabbro develop into a legit top-4 and losing Ekholm won't hurt as much? Does Farrance jump right in like Adam Fox and be solid defenseman for us?

 

[Predsanddead24]

I hate speculating about the expansion draft since so much can change on our way there but.. a lot of what happens with Ekholm depends on other factors. Do Joey and Duchene bounce back and force us to protect them? How does Kunin look in Gold? Does Fabbro develop into a legit top-4 and losing Ekholm won't hurt as much? Does Farrance jump right in like Adam Fox and be solid defenseman for us?

Yeah I think at this point you just wait and see. If we're out of the playoff race by the deadline then moving Ekholm is probably a pretty attractive option.

As far as Ekholm long term goes I'm still pretty wary of having three aging defenseman locked up on long term deals that take up a significant portion of our cap space. I'd prefer to move Ellis but I'm not sure you'd get all that much value from him at this point given his contract whereas I think you would get a pretty big haul for Ekholm.

 

[triggrman]

I don't think some of you realize how good, Ellis and Ekholm are, Ellis contract is average for a top pairing guy, which he most certainly is at this point.

 

[OldFan]

I don't think some of you realize how good, Ellis and Ekholm are, Ellis contract is average for a top pairing guy, which he most certainly is at this point.

Ekholm would make multiple teams line up for him on the open market. He is a very talented Dman and the league knows it. Preds need to hold onto him; he is a Dman par excellance.

 

[Predsanddead24]

I fully realize how good Ellis and Ekholm are but they are both nearing the age where players typically start to decline. I have no qualms about them for the next 3 years or so but after that things get risky with how they age. I just really don’t like the idea of potentially having 3 highly paid defenseman all underperforming relative to their contract in a few years.

As for Ellis’s value we just saw Schmidt go for a third round pick and while I think Ellis is better and the Schmidt move had extraneous circumstances it does give us some indication of the market which isn’t great.