Canucks Prospect Pool - A Reflection and Evaluation Thread

[ilduce39]

5 hours ago, King Heffy said:

I mean only removing the firsts from our group now. 

 

So:

1. Hunter Shinkaruk, Center 
2. Bo Horvat, Center 
3. Frankie Corrado, Defense 
4. Nicklas Jensen, Left Wing 
5. Brendan Gaunce, Center 
6. Jordan Subban, Defense 
7. Henrik Tommernes, Defense 
8. Eddie Lack, Goaltender 
9. Joseph LaBate, Center 
10. Patrick McNally, Defense

 

Vs:

1. Thatcher Demko
2. Jonathan Dahlen
3. Nikita Tryamkin
4. Nikolay Goldobin
5. Kole Lind
6. Jett Woo
7. Adam Gaudette
8. Brendan Leipsic
9. Jonah Gadjovich
10. Tyler Madden

 

I like the second group much better.  All of these guys would have been available if we had been drafting at the end of the first round.

 

That looks good without letting JB have his crown jewel in Boeser (late 1st) on his list. 

 

The “trade everyone and tank” crowd can’t handle that JB has done a great job without doing it their way.  The way I see it, if we had done it their way and shot our wad to go all-in on the 2014/2015 drafts it wouldn’t have ended any better at all.  

 

We even still have some decent veteran assets like Sutter, Edler, Gudbranson and Tanev to keep or sell off as the new core establish themselves.  We could easily flip some of them for more high end picks / prospects at the TDL. 

 

Slow and steady looks to have worked out... but we’ll see as these kids break in the next 2 seasons.

[PistolPete13]

4 hours ago, 189lb enforcers? said:

They accidentally tanked, for years. Which is worse? 

 

I disagree with the winning environment thing.

Having the kids watch the Sedins mail it in for the past few years, until they decided to give it their all during the final few weeks... I don’t see what Benning has done to the roster to support your “win-no-matter-what” claim. 

 

What I have seen is Pedan, Subban, Holm and Vanek moved. Slow yawn. 

I’ve seen Radim and a few other boat anchor, culture-drivers teach the kids how to sulk, mainly. I don’t see how JB has done anything to support your claim, but what do I know. 

 

 

You know how to piss and moan. I’m fact, you seem to be an expert at it. 

[Baggins]

4 hours ago, 189lb enforcers? said:

I would call last year’s roster a recipe for suckcess. 

A few quaranteed IR mainstays, a PP hired pop-gun and a scratched Dman to round out UFAs to supplement the dreadful goaltending dream-team, who must have prayed before every game that JB might trade in a few actual Dmen. 

 

You can call it “trying”, that’s your vernacular. 

Mine is accidental Tank. 

When you can predict poor results but “try” anyways, you don’t win any managerial awards if you work for me. 

There's no guarantees while rebuilding. I'd rather a chance, no matter how slim, at winning games than being set up to fail.

 

Would you still be whining how bad the team is if it was set up set up to fail from opening night?

[spur1]

8 hours ago, bloodycanuckleheads said:

When you look back in 5 or 10 years, you will find out that the majority of these players busted too (Zhukenov has virtually no chance of making the NHL, etc...).

 

It's ridiculous how this board always over-rates our prospects and just assumes they'll all turn out amazing.  Just to point out...  5 years ago, absolutely everyone here had Shinkaruk pencilled in as a 1st line scorer.  Everyone here also thought Subban was going to be a dominant d-man.  Every year, you guys are wrong.  Horribly wrong.

Also, your list includes quite a few players who aren't actually prospects (Leipsic, Goldobin, Tryamkin).

 

And, isn't it surprising how our prospect pool is ranked near the bottom of the league - after we were drafting last in each round?!!  And then, once we started drafting at the top of every round, our prospect pool got magically better?!!  No, that's not a coincidence at all - and it's not evidence that Benning is an amazing drafter.  It's expected.  100% expected.  Your prospect pool better rise dramatically in quality after you were the worst team in the league over the last 3 years.  In fact, it should be better than it is now.  Unfortunately, we made a few horrible mistakes along the way with our best picks (Virtanen, Juolevi). 

Everyone? Really....We all overrate our prospects. 

[Brovat]

10 hours ago, Rob_Zepp said:

If a player is not on the NHL roster they are, by definition, a prospect.   As the former list has one (Horvat) name that is a legitimate player and there are at least five players on the new list who will be NHL players (a couple likely stars) you can be as pessimistic as you like, but the lists are night and day.

 

This was not a thread about "amazing drafting" or otherwise, it was about comparing prospect pools but clearly you see it yet another way to post your dislike of Benning and point out your dislike of both the Virtanen and Juolevi picks - two players that will still make you eat a lot of crow (Jake this  year, OJ soon too).

Cheers happy guy.   

I see the game like you do Rob. I wanna add an extra b to your name. 

[Baggins]

On 21/06/2018 at 10:13 AM, Baggins said:

We already have some very good forward prospects, including C, but are in need of top end D, who as you say, will take longer. We may or may not need a 2C. We definitely need a top D. This draft has high end D. The choice seems obvious to me. I would like to see Benning take 3 D's in this draft and definitely one of the top ranked ones.

Well I got what I asked for.

[Rush17]

Wasn't sure where to stick this. Figured this might be a good spot.

 

 

[ilduce39]

5 minutes ago, Rush17 said:

Wasn't sure where to stick this. Figured this might be a good spot.

 

 

Already a log jam on the left side with Edler - MDZ - Hutton - Pouliot ... now if one of Juolevi or Hughes cracks the roster (let alone both) what can we do?  Pouliot can play right, but we still have Tanev-Guddy-Stecher over there and I think Biega is a great 7th man.  

 

You'd think something has to give?  I can see waiting on selling MDZ or Edler at the TDL.  Maybe they slow play it with Hughes / Juolevi in the AHL until then / injuries.  I dunno.  I wanted De Haan as a UFA as well but that's another LHD.

[danaimo]

I'm pretty sure the thrust of this thread is to assess the prospect pool today compared to 5 years ago.  It was not to discuss the merits or otherwise of tanking.  It was not to crown GMJB as the ultimate Messiah or an ultimate Mess.  It is not a judgement on the drafting or trading capabilities of any management group.  Just compare the 2 prospect pools, that's all. If you just focus on the thread there can be no other conclusion that todays prospect pool is far better than previously. 

Of course this will not guarantee success in the future but this thread no pretence to be about forecasting the future. Thanks Rob for posting an insightful thread.

[We Are All Cucks]

36 minutes ago, danaimo said:

I'm pretty sure the thrust of this thread is to assess the prospect pool today compared to 5 years ago.  It was not to discuss the merits or otherwise of tanking.  It was not to crown GMJB as the ultimate Messiah or an ultimate Mess.  It is not a judgement on the drafting or trading capabilities of any management group.  Just compare the 2 prospect pools, that's all. If you just focus on the thread there can be no other conclusion that todays prospect pool is far better than previously. 

Of course this will not guarantee success in the future but this thread no pretence to be about forecasting the future. Thanks Rob for posting an insightful thread.

First, I have to agree with the posters that say the two pools are not apples and oranges. I think Gillis generally gets a bad rap, and he was a better GM at what he did than he gets credit for, but we need to asses what Gillis did with his oranges to what Benning has done with his apples (how you like them apples?), and from purely a drafting/prospect acquisition standpoint, Benning has admittedly done a good, but maybe not great, job at building his pool.

 

Now, the assertion that this is not about future casting could not be further from the truth - forecasting is precisely what this is about. If you want to look at the 2018 pool from a static perspective, that is, how the 2018 pool looks right now, without considering who may/may not turn out to be good NHL players (ie. without future casting) then you have to do the same with the 2013 pool; you have to look at it from a 2013 perspective. And damn, in 2013 that looked like a hell of a pool. Hunter Shinkaruk was a steal, Jordan Shroeder was a star in the making, and Corrado and Subban were Blue chip - even neon-blue chip - prospect D-men. But, that's not what we're doing. We're looking at these players over time, over a period of 5 years, knowing well that Shroeder didn't have it in him, and being constantly reminded that Subban's first name was not PK. So, to compare that knowledge with today's pool requires us to future cast - even up to 5 years in the future, to be fair. To do so, we have to keep in mind the fact that even potential stars don't always turn out, and the likelihood of a draftee making it is far less than them not making it. 

 

Keeping all that in mind, and also considering the Canucks' luck over the years, and for those of us who have lived through '94 and '11 and even '82, please allow us some healthy skepticism towards what's going to happen with these guys. Sure, it's tempting to get hopes up. I'm thrilled with Hughes. I'll gladly eat the words I said about the Petterson pick after we passed on Glass, and 'why-isn't-anybody-taking-him' Lind looks like the real deal. But, this is just the same way I had high hopes in 2013. Shinkaruk was going to prove to the Flames that they shouldn't have passed on him, and the fact that we got a Subban in the fourth (?) round was enough to get me stoked about the future. So, I'll happily wait and see how the future goes, but I do think Benning has done a reasonably solid job with his apples, and I'm happy to admit it looks even better than the orange fruited future in 2013.

 

All that said, I think there are some unfair points about the two lists given by the OP:

 

Elias Pettersson
Thatcher Demko

Quinn Hughes

Olli Juolevi
Jonathan Dahlen

Big Tall Guy in Russia

Nikolay Goldobin
Kole Lind

Jett Woo
Adam Gaudette
Brendan Leipsic

Tyler Madden
Lukas Jasek
Petrus Palmu
Jalen Chatfield   
William Lockwood  

Dmitri Zhukenov   
Zack MacEwen    
Jack Rathbone

 

First, the 2013 list has a ranking of ten, so including more than ten in this list is unfair. Second, I don't know about considering some of these guys prospects: I'll give you Gaudette, but Goldobin and Leipsic have both played about as many NHL games as Boeser. They're both young players on the team, but no longer 'prospect' territory. The Big Tall Guy in Russia is technically a Canucks' prospect, but I'd say he has to be put on hiatus and not considered on these lists. Would we have considered Rodin when he was lighting it up overseas but had no immediate plans to come back? As part of future casting, we have to consider the (strong) possibility that guys like Zhukanov and Madden will likely never make it as full time NHLers. The odds are just against them. So, I'd first knock it down to 10, to compare better, and get rid of the aforementioned non-prospect-status players. So the top 10 might look like this:

 

1. Elias Pettersson

2. Adam Gaudette

3. Jonathan Dahlen

4. Quinn Hughes

5. Thatcher Demko

6. Olli Juolevi

7. Kole Lind

8. William Lockwood  

9. Jett Woo

10. Tyler Madden

 

Looks a lot less dominating over the other list this way.

Pettersson, yeah. He should be like 1-5 on this list.

Gaudette is already an NHLer, and looks like he has great potential for a career.

Dahlen has done his time in other leagues and is ready to make the jump. That doesn't mean he'll make it though.

Hughes is in 4th because he has just been drafted and there's nothing we can attach to him other than his Jr. career. Still, looks like he's primed for success.

Demko still looks good, but not as the sure-fire star/starter everybody had him pegged as not too long ago (see what time and reality can do to prospects once it sets in). OJ...well...we'll see. I still challenge anybody to tell me he was a better pick than Sergachev, McCavoy or even Chychrun. A bit of a miscalculation there.

Lind looks great, but...well...reminds me of Shinkaruk in some ways.

Lockwood had high expectations, but maybe won't live up.

Woo and Madden. Love the picks, but the reality is that the odds are stacked against them.

 

Again, I think it's a decent pool, but along with all the ramblings I've just said above, it's just not that much of a slam dunk better than the 2013 pool. Better, yes. But not way, way better like people keep saying. Still hope I'm wrong!

[iinatcc]

18 hours ago, Qwags said:

That 2013 pool looks like $&!# compared to now. Horvat is the only stand out.

It's funny I was just in the Anton Rodin thread and I saw a 4 year old post saying how the future looks good with the 2013 prospects especially when compared to around the 2010 prospects. 

 

I guess point is it's best to wait and see. I still remember all that talk about how Shinkaruk was supposed to be this team's future Patrick Kane.

 

Anyways I just hope with the prospects and roster Benning has picked Vancouver is going to be a consistent playoff team. The last thing I want to see is being one of those on again off again playoff teams like Ottawa, Dallas, Calgary, NY Islanders, or Panthers. 

 

Heck id settle for the team to be as consistent as San Jose or St Louis (but hopefully winning the cup down the line)

[iinatcc]

5 hours ago, Rush17 said:

Wasn't sure where to stick this. Figured this might be a good spot.

 

 

Honestly I'd rather if he makes the team just because he's better than Hutton or Poullot since that's not saying much. 

 

If he blows them out or the water and looks like he's going to be a really good NHL defenseman next season then yes he should make the team.

 

But if he's just a little better than Hutton or Poullot then I'd rather he continues to play for college so he can further develop to a top top NHL dman 

[Boudrias]

By no stretch was Subban ever a 'blue chip' prospect. His draft position is enough proof. I think fans got excited about him when he put points up in the AHL. 

[iinatcc]

Just now, Boudrias said:

By no stretch was Subban ever a 'blue chip' prospect. His draft position is enough proof. I think fans got excited about him when he put points up in the AHL. 

There still must be something PK said he was the most skilled of the brothers 

[ForsbergTheGreat]

1 hour ago, ilduce39 said:

That looks good without letting JB have his crown jewel in Boeser (late 1st) on his list. 

 

The “trade everyone and tank” crowd can’t handle that JB has done a great job without doing it their way.  The way I see it, if we had done it their way and shot our wad to go all-in on the 2014/2015 drafts it wouldn’t have ended any better at all.  

 

We even still have some decent veteran assets like Sutter, Edler, Gudbranson and Tanev to keep or sell off as the new core establish themselves.  We could easily flip some of them for more high end picks / prospects at the TDL. 

For the most part, I think the tank crowd preached the importance of high picks

 

I wasn't one of them infact i (and a whole group of others) argued against it: 

stating "it's better to remain competitive and play meaningful games"...

stating "that you don't need top picks to build contending teams"..

stating "You don't want to be bottom feeder like the oilers as loosing culture will ruin our prospects."

stating "this fanbase couldn't handle consecutive loosing seasons."

 

-Juolevi, Pettersson, Virtanen and now Hughes are all the results of the team sucking, be it because of injuries or because it was planned, either way it ended with the same result high draft picks and top end......

-Gaudette is the result of Gillis picking up another pick for Diaz 

-Gadjovich is the result of Torts getting hired in CBJ

 

Then you got tanking type moves which involve trading away vets for players/prospect - Dahlen & Goldi

 

If anything the tank crowd has gotten their way, what they've wanted has come to fruition.

 

 

[Wizardofoz]

21 hours ago, Rob_Zepp said:

The Benning team has now completed their fifth amateur draft.   That seems a fair milestone to compare the prospect pool his team inherited and the one they presented have.   Prior to this arrival, this as the"consensus pool" (2013):

 

Vancouver Canucks Top 10 Prospects

1. Hunter Shinkaruk, Center 
2. Bo Horvat, Center 
3. Frankie Corrado, Defense 
4. Nicklas Jensen, Left Wing 
5. Brendan Gaunce, Center 
6. Jordan Subban, Defense 
7. Henrik Tommernes, Defense 
8. Eddie Lack, Goaltender 
9. Joseph LaBate, Center 
10. Patrick McNally, Defense

Organizational Ranking: 29th

System Overview

The Canucks system is a desert; their top two are strong, and overall, their top four or five make up a mediocre core. Most of their prospects have notable question marks or low upsides.

 

 

Flash forward to June 2018, not sure exactly what the top 10 would look like but here are some candidates and it would be difficult to see anyone not named Horvat on that former list even cracking the top 10?   Roughly ordered - please add your own re-jiggle.      Point is, THIS Is a prospect pool that can support a successful NHL team.

 

Elias Pettersson
Thatcher Demko

Quinn Hughes

Olli Juolevi
Jonathan Dahlen

Big Tall Guy in Russia

Nikolay Goldobin
Kole Lind

Jett Woo
Adam Gaudette
Brendan Leipsic

Tyler Madden
Lukas Jasek
Petrus Palmu
Jalen Chatfield   
William Lockwood  

Dmitri Zhukenov   
Zack MacEwen    
Jack Rathbone

 

Shouldn't 4 or 5 of these players already be on the team? Other teams have players younger than this already playing. Aren't some of those listed no longer prospects? I thought once they play in the NHL or are over 23 they are no longer prospects? Doesn't the prospect ranking go up if none play in the NHL?

[We Are All Cucks]

2 hours ago, Boudrias said:

By no stretch was Subban ever a 'blue chip' prospect. His draft position is enough proof. I think fans got excited about him when he put points up in the AHL. 

You might be right, but I suppose the term needs concrete definition. Regardless, putting up numbers in the AHL is exactly what you would expect an anticipated NHLer to do. As a prospect, that's kind of the goal. Add in pedigree, the comments by PK, and the general hype from fans, and you can't say there weren't expectations for him. If not from the hockey club, at least from everybody else. 

[Westcoasting]

2 hours ago, Boudrias said:

By no stretch was Subban ever a 'blue chip' prospect. His draft position is enough proof. I think fans got excited about him when he put points up in the AHL. 

Lmao! What do you mean, had so many fans her begging for him to be called up to save our pp and win the Norris all the way to a Cup!

[Wizardofoz]

It must be driving Benning crazy having all that cap space, over 25 million

[danaimo]

4 hours ago, iinatcc said:

There still must be something PK said he was the most skilled of the brothers 

PK made those comments minutes after his younger got drafted by an NHL team.  It was the biggest day of Jordan's life and the press were swarming around PK.  Of course PK is going to want to pump his brother up to the press and let him have some time in the spotlight.  What else could he say? " Me and Malcolm were much better, Jordan sucks and will never make it to the big time". It was just PK throwing some glory over his brother, a classy thing to do.  Unfortunately, some people took the comment as a serious analysis of Jordan's abilities and let their imagine run wild.