Prospect Info: Rangers Prospects Thread (Updated: 11.25.21)

[bhamill]

What's the story with Lamb? He only played at a HS level his draft year, but put up great numbers so they took a gamble on him, or do I have that wrong? I see he is signed to play in the ncaa next year.

Any particular reason he wasn't playing at a higher level and has any other player that's been drafted out of HS had any impact in the NHL? I'm not the best with youth hockey, so i'm honestly not too familiar with scenarios like his. Really looking forward to seeing him develop in any case.

Brian Leetch.

 

[Raspewtin]

Kreider and Stepan were drafted out of high school also

 

[nyr2k2]

Kreider and Stepan were drafted out of high school also

Yeah I mentioned Kreider but not Stepan. They both played at powerhouse prep programs--Phillips Andover and Shattuck St. Mary's, respectively. Phillips produces lots of kids in all sports, really. Shattuck is just a goddamn hockey factory, though.

 

[Ola]

Normally I am not super keen on at least European prospects going to the AHL early. They have enough on their plate with developing as hockey players, if you try to change ever other aspect of their lives too at the same time risk is that the most important things suffer.

But it could perhaps be a good idea to move Karl Henriksson to the AHL. Hockey wise I don't see a big problem with him bouncing up and down the line up, he has the parts with the puck on his stick pinned down so well already and he will get room to make plays with the puck all over the ice in the AHL too.

Henriksson was mostly a top 9 forward on one of the deapest teams in Europe last season. The production wasn't there, but at the same time, in the SHL, if you don't play on special teams and you play on a unit that is solid 5 on 5, I wouldn't look that much at production. This year you want him to take a big step, become more of a driver. At the same time, while Frölunda were deep, they sucked. They have acquired three-four more players and like only lost 1. They have 15 SHL caliber forwards.

 

[Fitzy]

Yeah I mentioned Kreider but not Stepan. They both played at powerhouse prep programs--Phillips Andover and Shattuck St. Mary's, respectively. Phillips produces lots of kids in all sports, really. Shattuck is just a goddamn hockey factory, though.

Yeah Andover is the Harvard to Exeter’s Yale. A lot of wealth and therefore a lot of resources growing up for expensive sports.

 

[nyr2k2]

Hughes is an assistant captain for Northeastern this year.

EDIT: And before anyone tries to correct me, they do refer to them as assistant captains at Northeastern (and some other NCAA programs).

 

[Leetch3]

i think this can be a very significant or very irrelevant data point...because while its very true a ton can change in a year at those ages, giving more runway to a guy that close to being in next years draft i think its case by case. like in the case of byfield last year where a lot was made of his late birth date relative to laf i don't think it meant much. he'd played the same amount of hockey, at the same levels, and most importantly he was very physically developed...so to me he kinda was what he was going to be more or less.

whereas in the case of a brett berard i think its pretty meaningful. this is a kid who was on the other side of physical development, so on top of gaining that year for him, you also had a kid who put himself in the position he did despite having played "uphill" if you will into his being drafted giving up a lot of physical advantages. so to me it stands to reason if he's good enough / works for it, he's got a built in tailwind with the impact that physical development will make.

i love the lamb pick just on the surface. i don't know where he stands in that convo, but its not a bad thing to be on the younger side thats for sure regardless. his stats for minn hs are absurd, hard to make sense of there being a level that would happen in there where he wasn't prodigy level. the ushl numbers aren't ideal but theres not much i can really take from them, having seen nothing, other than that he clearly wasn't dominant. beyond that who knows what opportunity he got joining late...no way too know if his play might have led one to think he shoulda had more or if he really struggled with the adjustment.

regardless of anything def the guy i'm most looking forward to following, the kinda pick i love seeing us take a chance on. hopefully he has a big year in the ushl. the only downside is his going to minn - on the one hand reassuring / validating they wanted him - but on the other it seems like virtually zero offensive talent comes outta there.

not sure what any of this has to do with the fact that he was still in hs cause he is young. Nothing was said about that being positive or negative

 

[2014nyr]

not sure what any of this has to do with the fact that he was still in hs cause he is young. Nothing was said about that being positive or negative

more a general topic of discussion i find interesting since it tends to draw a lot of focus for guys in the very young and older range of a draft year. in his particular case i don't know enough about him to have a pulse on where he'd fall. regardless as mentioned, intriguing kid to follow

 

[Amazing Kreiderman]

 

[Ola]

i think this can be a very significant or very irrelevant data point...because while its very true a ton can change in a year at those ages, giving more runway to a guy that close to being in next years draft i think its case by case. like in the case of byfield last year where a lot was made of his late birth date relative to laf i don't think it meant much. he'd played the same amount of hockey, at the same levels, and most importantly he was very physically developed...so to me he kinda was what he was going to be more or less.

whereas in the case of a brett berard i think its pretty meaningful. this is a kid who was on the other side of physical development, so on top of gaining that year for him, you also had a kid who put himself in the position he did despite having played "uphill" if you will into his being drafted giving up a lot of physical advantages. so to me it stands to reason if he's good enough / works for it, he's got a built in tailwind with the impact that physical development will make.

i love the lamb pick just on the surface. i don't know where he stands in that convo, but its not a bad thing to be on the younger side thats for sure regardless. his stats for minn hs are absurd, hard to make sense of there being a level that would happen in there where he wasn't prodigy level. the ushl numbers aren't ideal but theres not much i can really take from them, having seen nothing, other than that he clearly wasn't dominant. beyond that who knows what opportunity he got joining late...no way too know if his play might have led one to think he shoulda had more or if he really struggled with the adjustment.

regardless of anything def the guy i'm most looking forward to following, the kinda pick i love seeing us take a chance on. hopefully he has a big year in the ushl. the only downside is his going to minn - on the one hand reassuring / validating they wanted him - but on the other it seems like virtually zero offensive talent comes outta there.

Yeah, and one of the bigger factors for me that I always struggle with a lot is the impact of the "physical age" of these guys.

Like, everything else equal, regardless when a player is born, how to you rank a kid that has a full beard when he is 16 vs. a kid that looks like a 14 y/o when he is 18? It would make some sense to rank the baby face over the guy looking like he is 25, since the former ought to have more potential to grow -- right? Like you look at a kid that isn't maxed develop physically, and project how good he will be when he reaches his max potential. This is what scouting is about.

And if we have established that fact, how the heck do you put a "value" on it? You have what you see infront of you when the kid is 17, but have to account for this fact when you project the end result. Sure you can look at parents, siblings and stuff like that. But there is a lot of guess work involved.

 

[Ola]

This is one of my favorite topics. In addition to the above, without any single doubt, being dominant enables a player to develop unique abilities.

My best argument for this is Mario Lemieux. Look at his production in 01'-03'. Scoring in the NHL is record low, he scores 76 pts in 43 games in 01', 91 pts in 67 in 03'. Someone will say, but he was that great, Mario was unique. The thing is, lol, he was god awful in many areas IN 01'-03'. He could barely skate. He was 6'4 and hadn't played for 3 years. 35-36 y/o. It was a bit extreme, but in 02' only 4 players scored more than 80 pts in the entire league.

Mario was literary looking like a man among boys. Serious experts were questioning if the games he played in was rigged, how could he dominate that much despite being one of the worst skaters on the ice, had poor stamina? It of course shows if you haven't played in 3 years. Rusty like heck.

The thing is just that he came into the NHL at a time the level of play was so low, that he was really dominant with his generational talented skill set in 1984. While the NHL raised it overall level super rapidly in the early 90's when the eastern block fell, europeans started to join the league, and when the athleetes went from half-pros to super devoted pros in the 00's -- Mario could adjust and still stay on top of things. Nobody can develop like that anymore, unless they find a way to "jump ahead" from when they are 18 y/o.

My point is just, sometimes the early bloomers, players born early, benefit a lot from just that. They get a ahead and stay ahead. Its much harder to come from behind, you have never been dominant and hence never learned how to be dominant, if that makes any sense.

 

[2014nyr]

Yeah, and one of the bigger factors for me that I always struggle with a lot is the impact of the "physical age" of these guys.

Like, everything else equal, regardless when a player is born, how to you rank a kid that has a full beard when he is 16 vs. a kid that looks like a 14 y/o when he is 18? It would make some sense to rank the baby face over the guy looking like he is 25, since the former ought to have more potential to grow -- right? Like you look at a kid that isn't maxed develop physically, and project how good he will be when he reaches his max potential. This is what scouting is about.

And if we have established that fact, how the heck do you put a "value" on it? You have what you see infront of you when the kid is 17, but have to account for this fact when you project the end result. Sure you can look at parents, siblings and stuff like that. But there is a lot of guess work involved.

yea i've always thought it was a really interesting subject / something that can in the end prove to be a major variable, but like you said...how do you begin to try and quantify it?

its one of those things where theres outlier cases that are easy to point to, but in a draft class there is so much middle ground you're splitting hairs to try and find a way to quantify it as an input.

like for me, in addition to berard, nils was a kid i had a ton of hope for from the beginning because he'd been able to play at a mens level despite looking literally like a child when drafted, and not all that much further along than that even to date. in my mind it makes sense that as he fills out a bit and adds strength, the qualities that allow him to play at that level physically then only stood and stand to continue to improve. and that is going to have a compounding effect on how effective his hockey sense can make him given thats not going anywhere. so the potential range stands to run far wider - obviously still some risk the size / strength dont advance to a degree he would be able to play effectively at the nhl level, but to me the upside far outweighed the risk there.

on the other side one particular kid i remember a couple years ago was evan bouchard who looked 30 at 18. he was coming from a powerhouse program so the numbers to me were a bit inflated. but the biggest critique on him was his skating, and i just had a hard time seeing how much room there was for him in that regard given he appeared essentially fully developed...like it wasn't the case of a kid growing into his body, or still growing in general, so it felt like any improvements there would be marginal and not differential - and thats not a player i'd use an early pick on.

now again both of these are outlier examples in a subject that has a lot more grey area when evaluating a massive group of prospects, so its easy to identify and pick apart. but certainly an interesting variable to consider / discuss, and am surprised at how little its brought up.

 

[nyr2k2]

There was a study years back that showed kids born in the first quarter of the year (I think that was the criteria) were drafted more and higher than players born towards the end of the year. It wasn't just some minor statistical noise, it was a big sample and the bias was really significant. I'm sure someone can find the study. It came up a few years ago when we were drafting older players like Crawley and Lakatos.

I believe it also found that the guys that "suffered" from the bias actually, on average, had more successful careers.

 

[Amazing Kreiderman]

There was a study years back that showed kids born in the first quarter of the year (I think that was the criteria) were drafted more and higher than players born towards the end of the year. It wasn't just some minor statistical noise, it was a big sample and the bias was really significant. I'm sure someone can find the study. It came up a few years ago when we were drafting older players like Crawley and Lakatos.

I believe it also found that the guys that "suffered" from the bias actually, on average, had more successful careers.

The logical explanation for this could be that they are always among the oldest in their age group, with the IIHF cut off being January 1st. So someone born in January, February or March has a significant advantage especially at a young age.

At the same time, the younger players always play against better, or more mature players giving them a bigger challenge at every age level while the older kids get by because they are physically superior.

 

[nyr2k2]

The logical explanation for this could be that they are always among the oldest in their age group, with the IIHF cut off being January 1st. So someone born in January, February or March has a significant advantage especially at a young age.

At the same time, the younger players always play against better, or more mature players giving them a bigger challenge at every age level while the older kids get by because they are physically superior.

Right, that was the "conventional wisdom," that kids who were younger than their peers played up and faced better competition sooner. IIRC however, that isn't necessarily borne out in the results; or at least, the tendency to over-draft based on being younger rather than older wasn't a smart thing to do without accounting for a lot of other variables. In some cases being young for the draft class proved advantageous, but not in every case or even a statistically significant amount.

I will look for the study, shouldn't be too hard to find. I found it a few years ago, LOL.

EDIT: I in fact had their conclusions completely backwards, and it's actually that drafting younger players yields a more successful return than older players. Of course.

"This despite younger players being drafted, on average, 40 slots lower than their elder counterparts born in the first quarter who were less likely to play in the National Hockey League, or meet career benchmarks, a disadvantage to drafting teams.

34 per cent of draftees born in the last half of their draft eligibility year played 42 per cent of the games and scored 44 per cent of the points accumulated by the 2,736 players in the study.

By contrast, those born in the first three months of the year constituted 36 per cent of draftees but only played 28 per cent of the games and only scored 25 per cent of the points."

Study shows drafting younger hockey players leads to more success | The Star

The actual paper is out there but I only see it in pay databases. I'm sure a free version is out there somewhere.

 

[cwede]

don't think I knew there was a league in Hungary
any way, Nejezchleb still chasing his dream
NHL DRAFTOLT JÁTÉKOST IGAZOLTUNK - Felnőtt - UTE Hoki hivatalos oldala

 

[nyr2k2]

don't think I knew there was a league in Hungary
any way, Nejezchleb still chasing his dream
NHL DRAFTOLT JÁTÉKOST IGAZOLTUNK - Felnőtt - UTE Hoki hivatalos oldala

The league also has a couple Romanian teams. I looked at some of the players and saw Jack Suter, who played at UMass with Zac Jones, and former Leafs pick Jack Walker. Otherwise, not much of note from North America or the rest of Europe. Mostly domestic players.

 

[Amazing Kreiderman]

The league also has a couple Romanian teams. I looked at some of the players and saw Jack Suter, who played at UMass with Zac Jones, and former Leafs pick Jack Walker. Otherwise, not much of note from North America or the rest of Europe. Mostly domestic players.

Yeah, that area of Europe has a lot of overlap in leagues.

The Austrian league and the the Alps League have had teams from the Czech Rep, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Italy and Croatia, the German 3rd league has teams from the Netherlands.

It's an interesting way to grow the game.

 

[nyr2k2]

Chmelař didn't make the Czech team for the U20 Four Nations. He's listed as a spare/substitute player.

 

[Amazing Kreiderman]

Chmelař didn't make the Czech team for the U20 Four Nations. He's listed as a spare/substitute player.

Yeah, he was contacted by them, and he did get an invitation for training camp later this year.

Oh, I asked him yesterday to pronounce his name, especially for you. So I will have that up soon.

 

[Clark Kellogg]

Not much here.

 

[darko]

Yeah, he was contacted by them, and he did get an invitation for training camp later this year.

Oh, I asked him yesterday to pronounce his name, especially for you. So I will have that up soon.

Would like to know this as well. Been pronouncing it Sh-meh-lah

 

[Fitzy]

Would like to know this as well. Been pronouncing it Sh-meh-lah

 

[HockeyBasedNYC]

9. New York Rangers: LHD K’Andre Miller
Actual draft pick: No. 22 (change: +13) to the Rangers
My final ranking: No. 57 (change: +48)
This is probably my ranking’s most egregious L from the 2018 class. I always liked Miller’s power, and presence, and skating, and strength, and his ability to defend the rush. He was also beloved by NHL scouts. But I worried about his decision-making, his pivots, and his feel for the game in the offensive half of the ice in terms of ranking him inside the first round. It’s not the first time I’ve been too low on a player of similar makeup, either. I was a little too low on Sens first-round pick Jake Sanderson last year too (though Sanderson has never had issues with his decision-making, his offensive touch left me a little lower on him despite the obvious translatable tools he had in his athleticism, strength, length and skating). So this is definitely something to learn from in that way. I still don’t think Miller’s ever going to be a particularly productive defenceman, but you don’t have to be a good one (sometimes all you need is skating-power-length blend to do what teams covet most: defend and then advance the puck from A to B) and his tools inside the offensive zone are strong enough that he can still make plays there.

13. Dallas Stars: RHD Nils Lundkvist
Actual draft pick: No. 28 (change: +15) to the Rangers
My final ranking: No. 50 (change: +37)
Lundkvist is the first player to appear on this list who hasn’t yet played an NHL game and in doing so appears in front of players who have, which speaks to the promise he has shown in the SHL since he was drafted. He’s also the second Rangers’ first-round pick from the 2018 draft that I was too low on at the time. I saw an efficient, smallish defenceman who projected as a third-pairing NHL guy who can play an effective, calculating game but wasn’t particularly dynamic on the puck for his size. I’ve gone back to do tape on him from his draft year to see if there were pieces of the skill level and aggressiveness he now shows inside the offensive zone that I’d missed, or whether the progression has just been the rapid, exceeded-expectations kind since. In that process, I concluded that it’s a little bit of both (I was a little off on his skillset but that’s because the mentality wasn’t there so he wasn’t using it quite as confidently as he now does). He’s got clear second-pairing upside for me now and has turned me into a real fan.

20. Los Angeles Kings: RW/LW Vitali Kravtsov
Actual draft pick: No. 9 (change: -11) to the Rangers
My final ranking: No. 15 (change: -5)
For as wrong as I was about Miller and Lundkvist, I still believe the reservations I’ve held onto about Kravtsov are warranted, as well as that excitement about him drifted a little too far from the reality of his game after his strong 2018-19 season. Kravtsov is big and talented in possession, and that combination is going to make him a full-time NHLer who can contribute offensively while giving a line something a little different. He’s probably going to be a middle-six guy who is the second or third best player on his line. But he never had star power, nor the skating or dynamic quality needed to warrant a top-10 selection or project as a first-line guy. And even if he has the kind of career it looks like he’s going to, which will be a good one, it probably won’t be enough to go ninth overall in a re-draft 10 years from now when it’s all said and done.

Honorable mentions: Joey Keane.


Wheeler: Who goes first in a 2018 NHL Draft redo? And how do their pre-draft rankings hold up today?

2018 Redraft - Rangers notes

 

[ThirdEye]

Hope he's wrong about Kravy. Based on the small snippet last season i certainly disagree with his assessment that he's not dynamic and has zero star potential.