Pittsburgh Penguins Prospects Thread

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CheckingLineCenter

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There is no mention or bitching about either when I searched “Hallander” and “1st” in the current thread.

Idk, I just don’t care about Lindgren vs the guy we traded. No need for a measuring contest. It feels OT for the “Pens Prospect Thread.”
 
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Big McLargehuge

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Yeah, I always found it a little odd that people freaked out about giving up Hallander while writing off Lindgren. Both are fairly low upside NHLers, with Hallander's best case being a 3rd liner while Lindgren's best case is a #5D. I don't think Hallander is any "safer" of a prospect either, seeing how he hadn't done anything on NA ice yet.

I think people wrote Lindgren off because he had a poor year in the AHL last year with Toronto, while not realizing that he had multiple strong years in Europe prior to last year. It's like people only saw Hallander's strong years in Europe while ignoring Lindgren's strong years in Europe.

People wrote Lindgren off because he was a 23 year-old with bleak AHL numbers that most of us had never heard of. Considering I'd never seen Lindgren play, his stats, and the little we heard from Leafs fans I don't think it was harsh to set expectations at or below Frank Corrado.

Referencing Corrado here works in other ways...Toronto fans f***ing loved that guy and he just wasn't/isn't anything more than a AHLer you only call-up if there's a glut of injuries (0 games with Ottawa last year). Lindgren was treated as a throw-in, probably largely because he's only played ~30 games in North America after being drafted 5 years ago. Toronto also loaned him back to Modo before the deal, meaning some of the reporting made it sound as if he was a Euro-based quasi-prospect (see: Åberg at this stage of his career) and not someone on an ELC who had simply been loaned back because of covid.

I'm not about to shower Lindgren as our future savior after a few games in Sweden's second tier, but this is at least enough to show that there's something there worth evaluating. Having your first season on a different continent with different ice is already hard enough without a friggin' pandemic. The different sized ice makes it so hard to assume what will and won't translate. I just instantly set my expectations of secondary asset European trade acquisitions I've never heard of to Libor Pivko and go from there. Lindgren could well break the Pivkometer or he could give it a new name, either way I won't complain about hearing good things out of Europe so that this isn't a totally lost year for him...I have a feeling a lot of North American-based prospects across the board are going to really struggle to get anything resembling consistent and decent game action this year.
 

Peat

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Yeah, I always found it a little odd that people freaked out about giving up Hallander while writing off Lindgren. Both are fairly low upside NHLers, with Hallander's best case being a 3rd liner while Lindgren's best case is a #5D. I don't think Hallander is any "safer" of a prospect either, seeing how he hadn't done anything on NA ice yet.

I think people wrote Lindgren off because he had a poor year in the AHL last year with Toronto, while not realizing that he had multiple strong years in Europe prior to last year. It's like people only saw Hallander's strong years in Europe while ignoring Lindgren's strong years in Europe.

Hallander's numbers to date project into being a NHLer more often than not and they came in the shape of a big defensively responsible forward. Lindgren's probably got a bit more boom but as a not particularly big dman who's historically not been hot, there's plenty of bust. Which is probably why people didn't like it. Lindgren profiles as the guy who's great at lower levels but simply can't climb above a certain level because of holes in his game. Hallander doesn't.

To me there's a pretty sizable difference in terms of safety there. It'd be super cool if we end up with the better prospect and it's not that far fetched, but it didn't look like it on the day.
 

Dipsy Doodle

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Yeah, I always found it a little odd that people freaked out about giving up Hallander while writing off Lindgren. Both are fairly low upside NHLers, with Hallander's best case being a 3rd liner while Lindgren's best case is a #5D. I don't think Hallander is any "safer" of a prospect either, seeing how he hadn't done anything on NA ice yet.

I think people wrote Lindgren off because he had a poor year in the AHL last year with Toronto, while not realizing that he had multiple strong years in Europe prior to last year. It's like people only saw Hallander's strong years in Europe while ignoring Lindgren's strong years in Europe.

Hallander's best case is a versatile 2-way complementary scoring line winger.

And a 3 year age difference between prospects is significant.
 

Empoleon8771

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Why not? It's the scenario that quite a few prospects guys have held out for him for a while.

I have seen almost no one say that Hallander has top-6 upside. His upside is a 2-way 3rd line winger that can be fine in spot duty in the top-6. The best case scenario is someone like McCann or Hyman.
 

Empoleon8771

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Yes, it is. That's why there was talk of him combining the attributes of Hagelin and Hornqvist.

That doesn't mean he's going to be as good as them.

Do you think McCann is a "complementary scoring line winger"? Because if you don't think McCann is that, then Hallander doesn't have that upside. His best case scenario is another McCann.

Hallander is a prospect that a majority of prospect pools have multiple of. He only seems special to Penguins fans because the Penguins prospect pool sucks.
 

CheckingLineCenter

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Very annoying how some have to be the expert on everything. How can anyone firmly say what a young prospect’s ceiling is? It’s just your opinion, not some set in stone fact.

Whether or not you agree- Saying his absolute best case is a complimentary top 6 is definitely within the realm of possibility.
 

Empoleon8771

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Very annoying how some have to be the expert on everything. How can anyone firmly say what a young prospect’s ceiling is? It’s just your opinion, not some set in stone fact.

Whether or not you agree- Saying his absolute best case is a complimentary top 6 is definitely within the realm of possibility.

It's very annoying how some feel like this contributes anything to the conversation.

We're having a discussion. Someone else claimed what his upside was, and I disagreed. You seemingly got offended by me disagreeing and made this bullshit post. If you don't have anything to contribute, just move along.

I don't see what the issue is here. Soggy, Peat and I were discussing what we thought Hallander's upside was. You seemingly got offended because I said "no it's not" to Soggy's claim of "Hallander's upside is a complementary scoring line winger". Disagreeing with that is fine, but getting offended and saying "very annoying how some have to be the expert on everything!!!!" is just bullshit.
 
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Peat

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Hallander slotted straight into sixth on Pronman's Toronto org rankings, despite them being 4th overall in his rankings. Lindgren wasn't even graded as being worth a ranking the last time they did them for Toronto.

I don't want to get into the semantics of versatile 2-way winger who can play complimentary role on 2nd line vs 2-way 3rd line winger - given the nature of the NHL today I don't see how these aren't the same thing - but suffice to say Hallander is ranked quite highly outside Pittsburgh and does have a reasonably high ceiling projected, and is quite clearly considered a better prospect than Lindgren at this stage, and this

He only seems special to Penguins fans because the Penguins prospect pool sucks.

Is a hyperbolic misrepresentation of how the fanbase view him and why people prefer him to Lindgren.
 

Empoleon8771

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Hallander slotted straight into sixth on Pronman's Toronto org rankings, despite them being 4th overall in his rankings. Lindgren wasn't even graded as being worth a ranking the last time they did them for Toronto.

I don't want to get into the semantics of versatile 2-way winger who can play complimentary role on 2nd line vs 2-way 3rd line winger - given the nature of the NHL today I don't see how these aren't the same thing - but suffice to say Hallander is ranked quite highly outside Pittsburgh and does have a reasonably high ceiling projected, and is quite clearly considered a better prospect than Lindgren at this stage, and this



Is a hyperbolic misrepresentation of how the fanbase view him and why people prefer him to Lindgren.

I mean, Pronman also had Daniel Sprong as the 4th best prospect in hockey at one time :dunno:

Pronman is obviously good, but he's just one source. I haven't seen any sources proclaim that Hallander's upside is so significant that it warrants this kind of praise. Jesse heard directly that the Penguins were not high on Hallander for whatever reasons. I don't like the appeal to authority arguments because no team is right all of the time, but the Penguins have a pretty strong track record of drafting/developing forwards and deciding which ones to move on from.

It's definitely possible that the Penguins are wrong on Hallander, just like Pronman was wrong on Sprong, of course. But I'm not seeing anything from his scouting reports, production or whatever to make me think that they're wrong with him yet. I haven't seen anything that makes me think Hallander's upside is higher than someone like McCann. That's not a bad player, but that's also not a substantially high upside for a prospect.
 

Peat

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I mean, Pronman also had Daniel Sprong as the 4th best prospect in hockey at one time :dunno:

Pronman is obviously good, but he's just one source. I haven't seen any sources proclaim that Hallander's upside is so significant that it warrants this kind of praise. Jesse heard directly that the Penguins were not high on Hallander for whatever reasons. I don't like the appeal to authority arguments because no team is right all of the time, but the Penguins have a pretty strong track record of drafting/developing forwards and deciding which ones to move on from.

It's definitely possible that the Penguins are wrong on Hallander, just like Pronman was wrong on Sprong, of course. But I'm not seeing anything from his scouting reports, production or whatever to make me think that they're wrong with him yet. I haven't seen anything that makes me think Hallander's upside is higher than someone like McCann. That's not a bad player, but that's also not a substantially high upside for a prospect.

No, I think McCann or peak Hagelin or early Rust is roughly what people had in line for his upside. There was a bit more hope for him before the legbreak but his skill hasn't really come on as people would like (although the skill isn't necessarily the main thing here). Which isn't an amazing prospect. But it's also not chopped liver. There's plenty of prospects like him, but not so many that most fans are happy with moving on from them without good reason.

And since this is a comparison as much as anything, that sort of upside along with a vastly higher floor today does make him a much better prospect than Lindgren. Hallander's still on track to make the show. I don't think Lindgren is.

Finally - while that is indeed what we've heard from the Pens beat reporters, and it kinda fits them being reluctant to bring over to WBS, it also fits that the Pens like to go "Oh we never liked him anyway" when sending players on their way. We also have to balance a potential Pens down mark on him with the fact Toronto, who also have a pretty strong track record with their calls on young forwards right now, wanted him. Plus it's not just Pronman. Wheeler really likes him, Button had him as a first rounder back in the day... the consensus view as far as I can see it is that Hallander has a strong likelihood of making the show and a good chance of being more than just another guy. He's not on track to be Zucker good or Kapanen good, but he's on potential to be something. Lindgren has some boom potential but that's about it.
 
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CheckingLineCenter

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It's very annoying how some feel like this contributes anything to the conversation.

We're having a discussion. Someone else claimed what his upside was, and I disagreed. You seemingly got offended by me disagreeing and made this bullshit post. If you don't have anything to contribute, just move along.

I don't see what the issue is here. Soggy, Peat and I were discussing what we thought Hallander's upside was. You seemingly got offended because I said "no it's not" to Soggy's claim of "Hallander's upside is a complementary scoring line winger". Disagreeing with that is fine, but getting offended and saying "very annoying how some have to be the expert on everything!!!!" is just bullshit.

I’m not offended at all, just slightly annoyed.

I contributed to the discussion with the second paragraph. I pretty much agree w/ @Peat on this one, but I maintain my original stance of we prob shouldn’t even be talking about this in this thread.
 
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Dipsy Doodle

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That doesn't mean he's going to be as good as them.

Do you think McCann is a "complementary scoring line winger"? Because if you don't think McCann is that, then Hallander doesn't have that upside. His best case scenario is another McCann.

Hallander is a prospect that a majority of prospect pools have multiple of. He only seems special to Penguins fans because the Penguins prospect pool sucks.

That's why it's called a "best case", Empo.
 

Gurglesons

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No, I think McCann or peak Hagelin or early Rust is roughly what people had in line for his upside. There was a bit more hope for him before the legbreak but his skill hasn't really come on as people would like (although the skill isn't necessarily the main thing here). Which isn't an amazing prospect. But it's also not chopped liver. There's plenty of prospects like him, but not so many that most fans are happy with moving on from them without good reason.

And since this is a comparison as much as anything, that sort of upside along with a vastly higher floor today does make him a much better prospect than Lindgren. Hallander's still on track to make the show. I don't think Lindgren is.

Finally - while that is indeed what we've heard from the Pens beat reporters, and it kinda fits them being reluctant to bring over to WBS, it also fits that the Pens like to go "Oh we never liked him anyway" when sending players on their way. We also have to balance a potential Pens down mark on him with the fact Toronto, who also have a pretty strong track record with their calls on young forwards right now, wanted him. Plus it's not just Pronman. Wheeler really likes him, Button had him as a first rounder back in the day... the consensus view as far as I can see it is that Hallander has a strong likelihood of making the show and a good chance of being more than just another guy. He's not on track to be Zucker good or Kapanen good, but he's on potential to be something. Lindgren has some boom potential but that's about it.

Anyone disputing Hallander versus Lindgren is silly. I just know this team seems to always pull out prospects that were expected to flop and turn them into something.
 

Gurglesons

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Also, @Peat, I have to take a little issue with your idea that Toronto has "filled out their forward depth through the draft". I think that is actually the opposite of what we've seen. Their bottom six has one drafted player in it right now.

If anything, I'd trust our organization for knowing when to cut bait on prospects since Pouliot versus what Toronto has done over the past five years with prospects. Since 2014 they've drafted one player that has played over 100 games that wasn't in the 1st round. And it was Dermott.

And our org since like 2005 has been excellent at converting borderline defensive prospects into 100-200 useful game guys.
 
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Empoleon8771

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That's why it's called a "best case", Empo.

No, I meant that comparing them in play styles doesn't mean he'll end up as good as them.

He may end up a play style that's a mesh of Hornqvist and Hagelin, but that doesn't mean he has the upside of those kind of players.

No, I think McCann or peak Hagelin or early Rust is roughly what people had in line for his upside. There was a bit more hope for him before the legbreak but his skill hasn't really come on as people would like (although the skill isn't necessarily the main thing here). Which isn't an amazing prospect. But it's also not chopped liver. There's plenty of prospects like him, but not so many that most fans are happy with moving on from them without good reason.

And since this is a comparison as much as anything, that sort of upside along with a vastly higher floor today does make him a much better prospect than Lindgren. Hallander's still on track to make the show. I don't think Lindgren is.

But like I said, I don't think this is fair. Hallander has spent 2 years in Europe and hasn't stepped on NA ice yet. I don't think he has shown anything that suggests he's way more "on track to make the show" than Lindgren is. Hallander just hasn't been given the chance to struggle on NA ice like Lindgren did last year.

I guess we don't really disagree on upside, but my big area of contention is how safe of a prospect some view Hallander to be. He's a guy that really hasn't shown many signs of progression offensively in Europe since being drafted (every year is about a 0.5 PPG) and hasn't come over to NA yet. In Europe, Lindgren had a total of 54 points in 164 games between the Liiga, SHL and Allsvenskan, compared to 60 points in 121 games for Hallander between the SHL and Allsvenskan. Until Hallander actually shows he can succeed on NA ice (which Lindgren really struggled with last year, which hurt his overall view as a prospect), I have a really hard time saying that he's an extremely likely NHLer. It just seems way too premature for me.

I've already brought up Olund as an example, but Bjorkqvist may be another example of a player productive in Europe but can't cut it in the AHL. These things happen pretty often.
 

Gurglesons

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No, I meant that comparing them in play styles doesn't mean he'll end up as good as them.

He may end up a play style that's a mesh of Hornqvist and Hagelin, but that doesn't mean he has the upside of those kind of players.



But like I said, I don't think this is fair. Hallander has spent 2 years in Europe and hasn't stepped on NA ice yet. I don't think he has shown anything that suggests he's way more "on track to make the show" than Lindgren is. Hallander just hasn't been given the chance to struggle on NA ice like Lindgren did last year.

I guess we don't really disagree on upside, but my big area of contention is how safe of a prospect some view Hallander to be. He's a guy that really hasn't shown many signs of progression offensively in Europe since being drafted (every year is about a 0.5 PPG) and hasn't come over to NA yet. In Europe, Lindgren had a total of 54 points in 164 games between the Liiga, SHL and Allsvenskan, compared to 60 points in 121 games for Hallander between the SHL and Allsvenskan. Until Hallander actually shows he can succeed on NA ice (which Lindgren really struggled with last year, which hurt his overall view as a prospect), I have a really hard time saying that he's an extremely likely NHLer. It just seems way too premature for me.

I've already brought up Olund as an example, but Bjorkqvist may be another example of a player productive in Europe but can't cut it in the AHL. These things happen pretty often.

Personally, I think the big thing with Hallander is he's not solely a point producer. From all accounts since day one he's been lauded for his defensive abilities and playing the "right way"
 
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Peat

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What @Gurglesons said. Hallander was analytically one of the best defensive forwards at the WJC as an underager; they were talking about him as maybe the best defensive forward in his draft year. Obviously his production determines his ceiling (and I'm not sure how discouraged I'd be by a bit of a plateau in D+2/3 considering the injury and how quickly he progressed initially) but as long as he keeps playing up to his defensive reputation, he will be given every opportunity to reach his offensive ceiling and that matters a lot; as does the fact he doesn't need to reach his offensive ceiling to make the show.

Sure, he could bust on NA ice, but there's not a lot of reason to think he will given his pedigree and physical attributes. Comparing him to Olund is very inexact because Olund was a guy who did everything well in the SHL but always looked like there mightn't be enough standout qualities to step up. Hallander does have standout qualities in comparison (this also goes for Bjorkqvist, who's also been a goalscoring success on NA ice so not a lot of reason to worry there).

I guess the TL:DR version is Hallander has pretty much everything going for him as well as his points, and Lindgren has pretty much nothing. Maybe if you're looking at just points they're equal, but that's not a smart way to do it.

Also, @Peat, I have to take a little issue with your idea that Toronto has "filled out their forward depth through the draft". I think that is actually the opposite of what we've seen. Their bottom six has one drafted player in it right now.

If anything, I'd trust our organization for knowing when to cut bait on prospects since Pouliot versus what Toronto has done over the past five years with prospects. Since 2014 they've drafted one player that has played over 100 games that wasn't in the 1st round. And it was Dermott.

And our org since like 2005 has been excellent at converting borderline defensive prospects into 100-200 useful game guys.

I don't think I said they'd filled it through the draft? I think they've done a good job of developing young players - although I might be off base on that.
 
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Gurglesons

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What @Gurglesons

I don't think I said they'd filled it through the draft? I think they've done a good job of developing young players - although I might be off base on that.

Yeah, I strawman'd you. They haven't really been a great internal team at developing though for the last 6 ro 7 years and I'd argue they've been bad at scouting pieces that fit. The best they've been is at scouting oversea FAs which Hallander I guess you could kind of include in and that is largely because of their financial weight which allows them to not be drafting off video I assume.
 
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Dipsy Doodle

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No, I meant that comparing them in play styles doesn't mean he'll end up as good as them.

He may end up a play style that's a mesh of Hornqvist and Hagelin, but that doesn't mean he has the upside of those kind of players.

He was compared to those players for a reason, and it wasn't because his best case scenario was a 3rd liner.
 
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