The problem with our "prospects" is, we really don't know if they are. As of today, most are just names. Pick any of the rating sites you want, most rate our prospects with a high of Smith on down. But everyone of those sites gives a strong cya on each guy. For example, Hockeysfuture.com gives Smith a 8.0 rating which is equl to a potentail #2 D. But at the same time they also give him a grade of C, which means "may make it, but could drop 2 points". At 6 points Smith goes from a future #2 to a journeyman #6 or 7 Dman. Everyone else on our list has already made it to the NHL: maursk and nyquist or has yet to play a professional game. Could all of them develop? Yes. Could they all flame out? Yes. Most are 3+ years away from any of us being able to tell, one way or the other. The problem is, we need the help now.
Seeing as you don't know anything about how HFboards prospect rankings work ill break it down for you:
Each team has its own prospect reviewer, the reviewers for teams like Pittsburgh and St Louis have had some really liberal reviewers the last few seasons so their ranks are inflated compared to teams like Detroit who the last two years have had a guy who likes to be a lot more conservative on his projections. The people writing these projections tend not to be any more knowledgeable than your common HFboards posters, so I don't put much if any stock into the grades that they post. They do however write pretty good analysis of strengths and weaknesses.
Edited by Shaman464, 08 June 2012 - 05:28 PM.
