I think we should get away from talking about McKeown at all, if we had kept the pick there's no telling who we would have picked. For me, i'm going to be comparing Vey to what i think the value of a late 2cnd round pick should be.
The answer of whether Vey was worth the pick will be cleared up by this time next year at the latest imo. The question of where he belongs on our prospect rankings will be damn tough though, probably very very close to Jensen for me.
Agreed. We may have picked someone completely different. People bring up McKeown because that's who went in that spot instead. Personally, I don't like making the comparisons because one is on the cusp of a possible NHL career and the other is years away.
Vey with only 18 games is still a prospect. He's basically had a cup of coffee in the bigs, much like Jensen. Jensen is more NHL ready than most of our prospect as well, and can play at that level, which to me makes him among the best prospects to fill NHL minutes and duties, moreso than anyone else right now.
It's always #3. Some people just seem to believe that best = closest to NHL for some reason. Archibald #1 prospect hype.
It's not always #3. That's why a little more clarification on 'best prospect' would have been helpful.
Closest can be best, since they have the best path to the NHL than others who haven't even played a minute in a pro-league like the AHL.
Archibald even in that scenario wouldn't be the best prospect. Jensen and imo Vey are closer to attaining NHL minutes for their duties than Archibald is, for many reasons including the ability to show that they could play at the pace of the NHL game and contribute offensively, while not being defensive liabilities. We can't say that of Archibald yet, imo.
If you're best able to fill a regular spot on an NHL roster over the rest of the prospect pool then you're the best prospect for that spot. Most ready is best in that situation then.
Again, a little clarification would have been helpful, but I understand after a bit the jist of the OP's intentions by saying 'best'. Maybe I was slow on understanding his intentions.