Top 20 New Jersey Devils prospects developing with gusto

[Triumph]

So in 10 years you have 40 or so guys. More then half of which whose rookie years was as a 24 yr old. Half of those guys played in the NHL before their rookie season.

A good portion of that list never became anything more then a journeyman player. I mean, Colin Fraser? Freddy Meyer? Colin Greening?

Coleman will be 25 at the start of next season and has yet to play an NHL game.

It's just goalpost shifting. Already his first list of 'examples' were ridiculous and wrong so now he's using 'rookie' as if that means anything.

Look, Coleman might turn into a good player, but he probably won't. He's barely a prospect at this point, not with his 25th birthday coming up this year.

 

[New Jersey Devils]

I like Coleman a lot. Assuming he's fully healthy, I'd be willing to bet he on the team next season with Tootoo, Gionta, and Ruutu most likely gone.

 

[Tretyak 20]

So in 10 years you have 40 or so guys. More then half of which whose rookie years was as a 24 yr old. Half of those guys played in the NHL before their rookie season.

A good portion of that list never became anything more then a journeyman player. I mean, Colin Fraser? Freddy Meyer? Colin Greening?

Coleman will be 25 at the start of next season and has yet to play an NHL game.

You're leaving out context, though. IIRC, Coleman chose to finish his degree in college instead of signing earlier. He also had a season-ending injury this year when he was really starting to look good. If he had signed earlier he might well have played earlier, and he undoubtedly would have gotten a call up if he hadn't been injured.

 

[JimEIV]

You're leaving out context, though. IIRC, Coleman chose to finish his degree in college instead of signing earlier. He also had a season-ending injury this year when he was really starting to look good. If he had signed earlier he might well have played earlier, and he undoubtedly would have gotten a call up if he hadn't been injured.

He also broke his leg half way through school that cost him most of his junior year. That is another reason he stayed 4 years. He was having a remarkable junior year 19 goals in 27 games when he broke his leg.

 

[JimEIV]

It's just goalpost shifting. Already his first list of 'examples' were ridiculous and wrong so now he's using 'rookie' as if that means anything.

Look, Coleman might turn into a good player, but he probably won't. He's barely a prospect at this point, not with his 25th birthday coming up this year.

You chose to look at seasons where a player played his 1st game which is ridiculous when it was literally 4 games in some instances.

Like if Coleman played 4 NHL games in October at 23 years old that would some how change his future outlook??? That is nutty. I chose to look at the first real season...and yes that does mean something.

 

[Triumph]

You chose to look at seasons where a player played his 1st game which is ridiculous when it was literally 4 games in some instances.

Like if Coleman played 4 NHL games in October at 23 years old that would some how change his future outlook??? That is nutty. I chose to look at the first real season...and yes that does mean something.

Yes, it would. It's simple Bayes, and it's something you constantly overlook in your analysis. Generally teams don't have a ton of callups from their minor league squad over the course of a season, and let's say there's 25 players on an AHL team and they might choose to promote 7 or 8 during the season. We would have to believe, given no other information, that those 7 or 8 are better than the players who were not promoted, yes? Let's imagine we have two sets of people - 23 year olds who play in the NHL and 23 year old AHL players who do not play in the NHL at all. Which do you think had better NHL careers, on balance? Now obviously comparing a 23 year old Ovechkin to a 23 year old 4th line AHLer is a silly. And obviously plenty of players have gone on to play in the NHL without playing there at 23, some of them with exceptional careers. Still, let's say we have two players, Player A and Player B, and they're in the same organization, they play the same position, and they're the same age. Let's say Player A played in the NHL for any number of games and Player B did not. Knowing nothing else about Player A and Player B, I will always take Player A. Luckily we don't live in a world where we know nothing about the players who make the NHL - we also have their minor league stats and collegiate/junior/Euro league numbers, and we can use these to also make guesses about which players will do well in the NHL. Coleman's not winning that battle either, not so far.

 

[devilsblood]

You chose to look at seasons where a player played his 1st game which is ridiculous when it was literally 4 games in some instances.

Like if Coleman played 4 NHL games in October at 23 years old that would some how change his future outlook??? That is nutty. I chose to look at the first real season...and yes that does mean something.

The cup of coffee a season before ones "rookie" season is pretty standard. It's often part of a players progression.

Maybe Coleman would have gotten that at age 24. But he didn't. Hopefully it happens at 25. Im not rooting against him, but when drawing up prospect lists, the fact that the earliest we could hope to see him in the NHL he will be 25 needs to be considered.

Bottom line is it's rare for a guy to enter the league at 25 and go on to have a productive NHL career, and your list filled with journeyman players back's that up.

 

[JimEIV]

Yes, it would. It's simple Bayes, and it's something you constantly overlook in your analysis. Generally teams don't have a ton of callups from their minor league squad over the course of a season, and let's say there's 25 players on an AHL team and they might choose to promote 7 or 8 during the season. We would have to believe, given no other information, that those 7 or 8 are better than the players who were not promoted, yes? Let's imagine we have two sets of people - 23 year olds who play in the NHL and 23 year old AHL players who do not play in the NHL at all. Which do you think had better NHL careers, on balance? Now obviously comparing a 23 year old Ovechkin to a 23 year old 4th line AHLer is a silly. And obviously plenty of players have gone on to play in the NHL without playing there at 23, some of them with exceptional careers. Still, let's say we have two players, Player A and Player B, and they're in the same organization, they play the same position, and they're the same age. Let's say Player A played in the NHL for any number of games and Player B did not. Knowing nothing else about Player A and Player B, I will always take Player A. Luckily we don't live in a world where we know nothing about the players who make the NHL - we also have their minor league stats and collegiate/junior/Euro league numbers, and we can use these to also make guesses about which players will do well in the NHL. Coleman's not winning that battle either, not so far.

I don't think we want to have in-depth discussions about distribution and the applications of various methods here, So let me just say I do not overlook probability in my analysis...It is just irrelevant to what we are discussing here.

We can't even agree on the dataset and you want to talk probability? Probability of what? 25 year old rookies? It is quite high...

If you look at how many 25 and 26 year old rookies there are, it is about the same number of 18 and 19 year old rookies...Today in the last two decades...That wasn't always true however

http://www.quanthockey.com/Distributions/RookieAgeDistribution.php#

And if you sort by decade you can see each decade since the 1990's that number is increasing.

It is increasing as more and more players take the college route. In the 1980's there were virtually no 25 and 26 rookies and there were virtually no NCAA players or Euro players in the league...As the importance of the NCAA has increased so has the average age of NHL rookies.

 

[JimEIV]

The cup of coffee a season before ones "rookie" season is pretty standard. It's often part of a players progression.

Maybe Coleman would have gotten that at age 24. But he didn't. Hopefully it happens at 25. Im not rooting against him, but when drawing up prospect lists, the fact that the earliest we could hope to see him in the NHL he will be 25 needs to be considered.

Bottom line is it's rare for a guy to enter the league at 25 and go on to have a productive NHL career, and your list filled with journeyman players back's that up.

No it is not. Not at all...This purely wrong.

 

[njdevils1982]

I don't think we want to have in-depth discussions about distribution and the applications of various methods here, So let me just say I do not overlook probability in my analysis...It is just irrelevant to what we are discussing here.

We can't even agree on the dataset and you want to talk probability? Probability of what? 25 year old rookies? It is quiet high...

If you look at how many 25 and 26 year old rookies there are, it is about the same number of 18 and 19 year old rookies...Today in the last two decades...That was always true however

http://www.quanthockey.com/Distributions/RookieAgeDistribution.php#

And if you sort by decade you can each decade since the 1990's that number is increasing.

It is increasing as more and more players take the college route. In the 1980's there were virtually no 25 and 26 rookies and there were virtually no NCAA players in the league...As the importance of the NCAA has increased so has the average age of NHL rookies.

a 41 year old rookie goalie….ive got a chance!!

 

[devilsblood]

No it is not. Not at all...This purely wrong.

Well I'll need to see something beyond that list you posted. Because it was a)not very extensive given it went 10 years deep, and b)half those guys did not become good NHL players.

If the argument is Coleman is a good prospect, and we are within reason to expect a productive NHL career, then we need to agree he will be a special case. Because not many guys who played their first NHL games at age 25 or older have gone on to have solid NHL careers.

 

[New Jersey Devils]

A few notable players that started their career in their mid-20s: St. Louis, Rafalski, Hoffman, Moulson, Beuchemin, Kunitz, Penner, Streit, Franzen, Knuble, Visnovsky.

There are plenty of guys around Coleman's age that have come into the NHL and have had productive seasons.

 

[JimEIV]

Well I'll need to see something beyond that list you posted. Because it was a)not very extensive given it went 10 years deep, and b)half those guys did not become good NHL players.

If the argument is Coleman is a good prospect, and we are within reason to expect a productive NHL career, then we need to agree he will be a special case. Because not many guys who played their first NHL games at age 25 or older have gone on to have solid NHL careers.

Look through here

http://www.quanthockey.com/Distributions/RookieAgeDistribution.php#


Solid NHL careers? That sounds like more weasel words to me...Elite, High-End, top-notch...Solid Career...I don't know what these things mean. It usually means license to disagree by whoever throws out the ambiguous term.

 

[devilsblood]

A few notable players that started their career in their mid-20s: St. Louis, Rafalski, Hoffman, Moulson, Beuchemin, Kunitz, Penner, Streit, Franzen, Knuble, Visnovsky.

There are plenty of guys around Coleman's age that have come into the NHL and have had productive seasons.

Some of those guys aren't even playing anymore. If you're going back 20 years, and you give me a list of 10 guys, then that's not that impressive.

Look through here

http://www.quanthockey.com/Distributions/RookieAgeDistribution.php#


Solid NHL careers? That sounds like more weasel words to me...Elite, High-End, top-notch...Solid Career...I don't know what these things mean. It usually means license to disagree by whoever throws out the ambiguous term.

I don't know, something bigger then Greening, or Ryan Craig, or Maroon.

Again, we are drawing up a list of our top prospects, and you're giving me a list of guys with names like Arcobello on it as comparables.

 

[NJDevs26]

Some of those guys aren't even playing anymore. If you're going back 20 years, and you give me a list of 10 guys, then that's not that impressive.

Plus it's theoretically a lot harder to start at 25-26 now than it was before the full season lockout when you weren't scared to death of losing guys without compensation by 27.

 

[NJDevs26]

Look through here

http://www.quanthockey.com/Distributions/RookieAgeDistribution.php#

Okay at least that's a starting point - so 232 players in the last full decade (122 of them forwards)...that's 23 players a season that started their NHL career at 25+, less than one per team. But it's impossible to tell how many of those guys were just quickie callups/goons/fourth-liners?

Saying it's not rare is a relative term. Yes by sheer numbers it would seem to be not rare but when compared to the number of total NHL rookies over that same timeframe it is rare. Rarer still when one of these guys is above a marginal/fourth-line player.

 

[NJDevils#4]

Another solid draft should bring us to respectability...finally...after several years as one of the worst prospect pools in the league.

 

[Feed Me A Stray Cat]

What is this argument about?

Clearly a players odds of becoming an NHL player decrease the older they get without making it to the NHL.

There are obviously specific cases that are exceptions. But Coleman is more than likely not a future NHL player.

But there's a small chance he could be. And it's no slight on him if he's not. He's already performed well given his draft position - good collegiate player who looks to be an AHL contributor.

Coleman making the big team would be great, but don't count on it.

 

[Bleedred]

First of all by that logic Boucher should be ranked ahead of Zacha. Clearly it is flawed. Also, it isn't that big of a sample size for Boucher. He has struggled every other chance he had. I'm not convinced he is going to be a productive player long-term. I believe JQ has a better chance to be the better player.

Boucher has struggled ever other chance he's gotten so far, because he clearly wasn't ready for this league yet and probably had no business being here.

Although he didn't look bad in his first ever call up, considering the way he was used. He was playing on the 4th line with Gionta and Carter way too much.

I think I remember seeing that he had one of the higher points per minute on the team that year.

 

[JimEIV]

What is this argument about?

Clearly a players odds of becoming an NHL player decrease the older they get without making it to the NHL.

There are obviously specific cases that are exceptions. But Coleman is more than likely not a future NHL player.

But there's a small chance he could be. And it's no slight on him if he's not. He's already performed well given his draft position - good collegiate player who looks to be an AHL contributor.

Coleman making the big team would be great, but don't count on it.

Here is what I'm saying...that logic is flawed.

The flaw is that you are establishing a baseline of age based largely on a path from junior hockey.

There is clearly a difference in the starting age between the two paths.
Again if you look at the number of 24, 25 and 26 year old rookie players in the NHL since 1990 the number is significant... it coincides with the rise of both European and NCAA players that arrive to the NHL in a very different timeline from junior players.

 

[Triumph]

Here is what I'm saying...that logic is flawed.

The flaw is that you are establishing a baseline of age based largely on a path from junior hockey.

There is clearly a difference in the starting age between the two paths.
Again if you look at the number of 24, 25 and 26 year old rookie players in the NHL since 1990 the number is significant... it coincides with the rise of both European and NCAA players that arrive to the NHL in a very different timeline from junior players.

Since 1990 is silly. The NHL has changed an incredible amount from that point - college players were largely an afterthought, Europeans had just started trickling in. A player like Brian Rafalski would never go unsigned out of college now, because now teams know that Brian Rafalski is a thing that can happen. Let's just do this simply - here is a list of forwards whose first NHL game comes 25 or later, from 2005-2006 on, with the caveat that the lockout wiping out an entire year does alter things in that first season: The list

It is not good. You have a future top line player in Johan Franzen. You have other top 9 forwards in Joel Ward, David Moss, Ville Leino, Matt Read, Leo Komarov, Carl Soderberg and Jori Lehtera. In the case of the latter 2, they were drafted high but never signed. There's guys like Justin Fontaine and Michael Raffl who seem to be NHL keepers. There's Europeans who showed promise like Cervenka and Brunner who went back to Europe. The rest of the list - and it numbers 140 players - is mostly a lot of future 4th liners and never was-es. It's a really hard league.

 

[njdevils1982]

andy greene went the college route and was full time at 25

 

[SladeWilson23]

Boucher has struggled ever other chance he's gotten so far, because he clearly wasn't ready for this league yet and probably had no business being here.

Although he didn't look bad in his first ever call up, considering the way he was used. He was playing on the 4th line with Gionta and Carter way too much.

I think I remember seeing that he had one of the higher points per minute on the team that year.

Boucher has looked really good this year. I think he's thriving playing on the line with Zajac and Palmieri. He's definitely a lot more confident, and is making a difference. And I agree that he was never used properly before. He needs to be in a top 6 role, and he's shown what he can do when given that chance. I know his points don't blow you away right now, but it's not because of his play. The points will come. I have no doubt.

 

[Bleedred]

Boucher has looked really good this year. I think he's thriving playing on the line with Zajac and Palmieri. He's definitely a lot more confident, and is making a difference. And I agree that he was never used properly before. He needs to be in a top 6 role, and he's shown what he can do when given that chance. I know his points don't blow you away right now, but it's not because of his play. The points will come. I have no doubt.

I think you need to keep him on that line with Zajac and Palmieri.

They were killing it against Washington. They've looked good pretty much every game so far, in the very short time they've been together.

 

[Devils Dominion]

Another solid draft should bring us to respectability...finally...after several years as one of the worst prospect pools in the league.

I'm excited to see Castron's first draft.