Prospect criteria conversation

[Vatican Roulette]

Nobody is questioning that, but just because a player makes the NHL at age 19, should the team not get recognition rather than completely whiping out the player from the database?

The organizational rankings are misleading, especially since some organizations can have older players with just barely 65 games experience considered, and younger players from other organizations aren't listed because they have played just above the limit.

I'd hate to give an example, but last year with Jason King. He was a top 3 prospect for the Canucks, which boosted them up in the rankings, but with 10 more regular season NHL games the Canucks would have dropped quite a bit more. Had there been a season in 2004/05, a matter of 3 weeks would have dropped the Canucks in ranking.

When you have that possibility, wouldn't it be correct to say there are serious flaws in the criteria? Though he wasn't young (at 23 years old), it's flawed to have guys in their very early 20's completely whiped out of these organizational rankings.

It's quite possible had there been a 82 game season, the Pittsburgh Penguins would have graduated more than 6 prospects from HF.com, which would drop them in the organization ranking from #2, which is really inaccurate.

If you're going to use the term "prospect", it makes sense to have these young players who have played just more than 65 games also listed, since they all fall under the category of prospects.

I know NHL people call their young and developing players "prospects", doesn't matter where they're playing.

Why not do what THN does on the prospect watch.

They include the teams ranking based on the top 10 prospects, plus the amount and quality of young players the team has. they use 21 and under.

Also, i suggest HF uses the NHL's cutoff of 25 games played to determine prospect vs. NHL player. You can't get the calder if you've played 25 games.

Another thing. All these rankings, player grades, spilting of hairs so to speak gets kinda old. The rankings of 5.5C, a 8.5D, 7D, 6.5A, leaves most people to look at the grade, then spend an hour comparing him to other players with the same grade, while time after time going back to find out/try to remember what the A/B/C/D or 5/6/7/8 meant in the 1st place.

Personally i'd rather have a ranking and a number. Saying that a prospect has the potential to move up 3 spots, or fall 3 spots is meaningless: Every prospect has that chance. Besides, debating that is what the forums are used for.

my 2 cents.

 

[Vatican Roulette]

Some possibilities could be:
Skills
Stickhandling
Passing
Shooting
Skating

Attributes
Size
Hockey Sense
Toughness
Determination (Work Ethic)

Intangibles
Plays against top competition
No long term health concerns

Who determines "top competition". Long term health concerns? Is HF going to look up his records or something? This would also lead to a prospect being downgraded every time he breaks a nail.

No offense, but most of things you're suggesting would take full time writers to type out about 4-5 pages on each guy. Not to mention, it will all be 2nd hand info, unless there are scouts around here i dont know about.

 

[Kevin Forbes]

Also, i suggest HF uses the NHL's cutoff of 25 games played to determine prospect vs. NHL player. You can't get the calder if you've played 25 games.

That idea was in fact tossed around when the last set of revisions were made. But if it was implemented, we'd see something like 25% of our guys no longer be eligible. And, from the way the rest of the conversation has been flowing, it seems at least everyone else who weighed in on this discussion agrees with the thought behind the judgment made back in the day: The idea is to be as inclusive as possible, while still remaining relevant.
A player who has player in 26 games is still a prospect.

I do agree with your thinking about making it as easy for the readers to quickly understand ratings as possible. That's why a lot of variables are difficult. But the same goes for trying to make one variable stand for too much. Having the number stand for the skill and at some level the possibility of reaching that skill, it was stretching the amount of information we could assign to one value.

Who determines "top competition". Long term health concerns? Is HF going to look up his records or something? This would also lead to a prospect being downgraded every time he breaks a nail.

It would again, be a judgement call. Like the rankings and ratings, something that the writers have to look at and decide. Very subjective and near impossible to be consistent.

No offense, but most of things you're suggesting would take full time writers to type out about 4-5 pages on each guy. Not to mention, it will all be 2nd hand info, unless there are scouts around here i dont know about.

I think you underrate the HF staff. We're admittingly not running at top capacity, due to the lockout sapping some of our strength as interest in hockey lulls, but last year this time we had a writer for every team, as well as one in every major country in europe and every major prospect league in north america. We had everything covered and it would of been hard to pick a prospect that no one had seen before. Call that second hand if you want, but we all contribute to providing the coverage. Almost all the information that you find on Hockey's Future.com comes from internal first-hand sources.

 

[Kevin Forbes]

honestly, i believe the more indepth you go with credible writers the better it would be... we all could use more to read

finding credible writers and having them stay is always a challenge, we have a good crew now and have standards in place to make sure the site remains strong, but we can only provide so much.

Which is why a fair amount of the discussion here is unwieldly at this time. We just don't have the manpower and time to provide that sort of coverage. Looking at the site now, there are numerous profiles that need to be updated, teams that lost their writers and no one else has stepped up, articles that haven't been written. I dunna if it's as noticeable to you guys, but again, we can only provide so much.

 

[Leaf Army]

As for HF's prospect criteria, I think anyone who's eligible to win the Calder trophy should still be considered a prospect.

If they're 21 years old or younger, they should be able to play up to 50 NHL games and still be considered a prospect.

And If they're over 21 and not eligible to win the Calder anymore, then they're not a prospect.

 

[Kevin Forbes]

As for HF's prospect criteria, I think anyone who's eligible to win the Calder trophy should still be considered a prospect.

If they're 21 years old or younger, they should be able to play up to 50 NHL games and still be considered a prospect.

And If they're over 21 and not eligible to win the Calder anymore, then they're not a prospect.

50 games in one season or overall?

 

[Leaf Army]

50 games in one season or overall?

Overall.

 

[ZombieMatt]

Who determines "top competition". Long term health concerns? Is HF going to look up his records or something? This would also lead to a prospect being downgraded every time he breaks a nail.

No offense, but most of things you're suggesting would take full time writers to type out about 4-5 pages on each guy. Not to mention, it will all be 2nd hand info, unless there are scouts around here i dont know about.

Most of us are credentialed with one league or more. Most of the information, particularly from the CHL, is primary information, not second hand. Of course, there are differences in evaluation between a scout and a reporter, but that's a different issue.

 

[borro]

Most of us are credentialed with one league or more. Most of the information, particularly from the CHL, is primary information, not second hand. Of course, there are differences in evaluation between a scout and a reporter, but that's a different issue.

Why is there no late bloomer category? The reality is there are some. It seems to me that a player who is not on a team who might impact it in a positive way should be noted and accounted for. I see no reason not to add a category. This would in no way pollute the HF prospect idea.

 

[ZombieMatt]

Why is there no late bloomer category? The reality is there are some. It seems to me that a player who is not on a team who might impact it in a positive way should be noted and accounted for. I see no reason not to add a category. This would in no way pollute the HF prospect idea.

Interesting. I'm curious as to what you mean though? As in a guy who toils in the minors and makes the NHL for the first time as a 29 year old? I'm not clear what exactly you mean.

 

[KILLger]

Interesting. I'm curious as to what you mean though? As in a guy who toils in the minors and makes the NHL for the first time as a 29 year old? I'm not clear what exactly you mean.

What I see from what he said is more a guy like Niklas Nordgren and Magnus Kahnberg of the Hurricanes, Mark Streit from the Habs. Guys that could come over and have an impact... Marek Zidlicky being the latest example.

 

[ZombieMatt]

And the problem with that is that we would essentially have to cover every other professional league in the world...you know what I mean? We'd have to track all the decent players in the RSL, SEL, SM-Liiga, DEL, etc, because maybe a 24 year old who was never drafted would make the jump. It's just such a small percentage of players that do this that it isn't worth the effort of covering all the possibilities.