NHL farm system rankings: Best, worst

[dudacek]

The athletic’s Corey Pronman is doing a daily countdown series ranking all teams assets outside the NHL. Given his stated bias towards high end skill, don’t expect to read the Sabres report for quite some time.

Basically, he’s ranking all assets under 25 NHL games that he thinks have even an outside chance to make it - between 13 prospects from the shallowest pool to 25 in the deepest.

The two worst? The Eastern conference finalists.

[LGR4GM]

Pronman is still going and Buffalo is in the top 3. 

[GASabresIUFAN]

36 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

Pronman is still going and Buffalo is in the top 3. 

Not hard to figure out from here

1. Van - they have 4 players in his top 50 prospects and 2 in the top 8.  Plus DiPiero and Lind is is honorable mentions.

2. Buf - Casey and Dahlin.  Enough said.  Also Nylander at 59th of his 67 honorable mentions

3. Stl - 2 players at 16 & 17 plus Kostin in HM.

[Thorner]

7 hours ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

Not hard to figure out from here

1. Van - they have 4 players in his top 50 prospects and 2 in the top 8.  Plus DiPiero and Lind is is honorable mentions.

2. Buf - Casey and Dahlin.  Enough said.  Also Nylander at 59th of his 67 honorable mentions

3. Stl - 2 players at 16 & 17 plus Kostin in HM.

Do you have a link to his prospect list? Where did Dahlin and Mittelstadt rank?

I could see the Sabres being #1, though. Steve Kournianos had Dahlin (oddly) not even ranked as the #1 prospect, and still had the Sabres listed as the #1 team. 

[LGR4GM]

14 minutes ago, Thorny said:

Do you have a link to his prospect list? Where did Dahlin and Mittelstadt rank?

I could see the Sabres being #1, though. Steve Kournianos had Dahlin (oddly) not even ranked as the #1 prospect, and still had the Sabres listed as the #1 team. 

Who'd he have as the #1 prospect? Elias Petersen ?

[Thorner]

6 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

Who'd he have as the #1 prospect? Elias Petersen ?

Yup.

I take it with a pretty big grain of salt, as he also had Svechnikov at #2. From what I can recall, he was the lone voice in the wilderness that had Svechnikov ranked as the #1 2018 draft prospect. 

[GASabresIUFAN]

2 hours ago, Thorny said:

Yup.

I take it with a pretty big grain of salt, as he also had Svechnikov at #2. From what I can recall, he was the lone voice in the wilderness that had Svechnikov ranked as the #1 2018 draft prospect. 

Pronman has Dahlin 1, Petersen 2 and Casey 4

Edit: my mistake it was Wheeler w the above rankings.

Edited August 29, 2018 by GASabresIUFAN

[LGR4GM]

Petersen 1 I get. That is a reasonable take. Svechnikov 2... that's weird. I'd say that's a preference for forwards more then anything. 

[pi2000]

And why do we trust a guy named Pornman?

[LGR4GM]

Pronman? He does a lot of work with the draft and prospects and his opinions are usually pretty good. 

 

BTW, St Louis was ranked #3.  Tage Thompson better be f###ing good because we missed out on some good prospects. 

Edited August 29, 2018 by LGR4GM

[LTS]

9 hours ago, pi2000 said:

And why do we trust a guy named Pornman?

That joke is only funny with 3.14% of people.

[WildCard]

1 hour ago, LGR4GM said:

Pronman? He does a lot of work with the draft and prospects and his opinions are usually pretty good. 

 

BTW, St Louis was ranked #3.  Tage Thompson better be f###ing good because we missed out on some good prospects. 

Don't remind me

[GASabresIUFAN]

Predicting Pronman

He is using a 7 tier rankings. Thompson won’t appear on his list because he played over 25 games in the NHL last season

1) Special - A generational talent.  In our case Dahlin

2) Elite - top line player - top 10% of the league. - Mittelstadt - Wheeler has him as the no. 4 prospect in all the NHL.

3) High End - A player projects as a top line player - This was what he was predicted to be when drafted and still appears in Wheeler’s honorable mentions. However at this point I’d slot him in the Very Good section.

His next slots are

4) Very Good - top6/top4/starting goalie - UPL, Nylander, who else? 

5) Legit Prospect - bottom 6/bottom pair maybe can play up some

6) Has A Chance - Depends on development - 

7) Depth - roster filler or AAAA

As a reference point, Pronman has Pu as Carolina’s 11th best prospect and in the Has A Chance Tier.

So where do we place Guhle, Pilut, Olofsson, Samuelsson, Asplund, Davidsson, Borgen, Oglevie, Smith, Hickey, Baptiste, Bailey, Weissbach, and Laaksonen?

I’d argue that Guhle, Pilut, Olofsson, Samuelsson, Asplund, Borgen and Davidsson are all 4s or 5s.  I could see Pronman downgrading Borgen to a 6. To me Oglevie, Smith, Baptiste and Hickey are all 6s, with Bailey, Weissbach and Laaksonen as possible 6s as well.  However, I think Pronman’s gradong will be tougher.  

Our Depth right now is Pekar, Malone, O’Regan, Bryson, Fitzgerald and Johansson.

[dudacek]

Baptiste won’t be eligible. Like Thompson, he played too many games last year.

Bailey may not be either. He didn’t play 25 games last year, but he did two years ago.

Given what he looks for, Im betting Nylander in tier 4 and Guhle, Asplund and Davidsson in tier 5. The others 6s and 7s, although I wouldn’t be surprised if he is higher on a skilled older prospect than the league consensus. At least we’ve seen that with other teams.

[GASabresIUFAN]

Wait, you are downgrading Samuelsson to a 6?

[dudacek]

That’s my Pronman prediction, not my personal take.

I think he appreciates raw skill and flash far more than anything Samuelsson brings to the table.

[LGR4GM]

I think he will put him at the 5 level. Although if he put him at 6 after some of the players he put at 5... that I would find interesting. 

[GASabresIUFAN]

2 hours ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

Predicting Pronman

He is using a 7 tier rankings. Thompson won’t appear on his list because he played over 25 games in the NHL last season

1) Special - A generational talent.  In our case Dahlin

2) Elite - top line player - top 10% of the league. - Mittelstadt - Wheeler has him as the no. 4 prospect in all the NHL.

3) High End - A player projects as a top line player - This was what he was predicted to be when drafted and still appears in Wheeler’s honorable mentions. However at this point I’d slot him in the Very Good section.

His next slots are

4) Very Good - top6/top4/starting goalie - UPL, Nylander, who else? 

5) Legit Prospect - bottom 6/bottom pair maybe can play up some

6) Has A Chance - Depends on development - 

7) Depth - roster filler or AAAA

As a reference point, Pronman has Pu as Carolina’s 11th best prospect and in the Has A Chance Tier.

So where do we place Guhle, Pilut, Olofsson, Samuelsson, Asplund, Davidsson, Borgen, Oglevie, Smith, Hickey, Baptiste, Bailey, Weissbach, and Laaksonen?

I’d argue that Guhle, Pilut, Olofsson, Samuelsson, Asplund, Borgen and Davidsson are all 4s or 5s.  I could see Pronman downgrading Borgen to a 6. To me Oglevie, Smith, Baptiste and Hickey are all 6s, with Bailey, Weissbach and Laaksonen as possible 6s as well.  However, I think Pronman’s gradong will be tougher.  

Our Depth right now is Pekar, Malone, O’Regan, Bryson, Fitzgerald and Johansson.

So

4.  UPL, Nylander, and Guhle

5. Samuelsson, Asplund, and Davidsson and maybe Pilut and Olofsson?

6. Pilut, Olofsson, Borgen, and Smith

7. Hickey, Weissbach, Laaksonen, O’Regan and Malone

[dudacek]

Unless I am confusing Pronman with a similar writer, I’ve already seen him call Guhle a bottom-pair defenceman.

Edited August 29, 2018 by dudacek

[Thorner]

19 hours ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

Pronman has Dahlin 1, Petersen 2 and Casey 4

Edit: my mistake it was Wheeler w the above rankings.

Right, that makes more sense, hadn't seen a Pronman top 50. 

So I'd imagine Wheeler may have ranked the Sabres #1, considering we have the #1 prospect and 2 in the top 4. Have to wait and see with Pronman. 

[Hoss]

Since Dahlin and Mittelstadt both count I don’t think there’s any way we’re not number one.

For the record, Pronman said we’d be around #11 if you just subtracted Dahlin and Mittelstadt from the pool. But if you subtracted players that are near locks to be full time with their big club immediately we would rise again, one assumes.

[Neo]

No Cliff Pu in Carolina ...  did I miss something, or did they?

[GASabresIUFAN]

1 hour ago, Neo said:

No Cliff Pu in Carolina ...  did I miss something, or did they?

Pronman had him as their 11th best prosoect in the Have a Chance catagory

[Brawndo]

Sabres have the Number One Prospect Pool per Pronman. 

[jsb]

A No. 1 farm system is no guarantee of success. The Atlantic is very competitive, and Buffalo needs guys to develop well, while continuing to add talent. But in terms of adding value to their team from players who didn’t play in the NHL last season, nobody is in better shape to do that than the Sabres.

Well we won the #1 spot

Well Brawndo as usual beat me to the punch

Edited August 30, 2018 by jsb