Flames January Prospect NHLE 2013-14

 

Via the WHL

The health of Calgary’s prospect system is not to be questioned – with 12 prospects generating an NHLE of 25 or higher, things do look quite bright in terms of depth. Overall, the system still lacks an elite forward and an elite defensive prospect, but things are better than they have been in, well, decades.

For October’s update and an NHLE primer, click here. For November’s update, click here, and December’s update is here.

Man, how sublime is John Gaudreau?

Granlund is ripping it up right now, but I think people may be overrating him a little. A lot of people were angry that he didn’t play on his call up, but I don’t really understand why. He’s still replacement-level, so it’s doubtful that any look we get of him would be positive. Just puts a lot of pressure on the guy, in my opinion.

For the first time, Monahan is under .5PPG this season. That’s fine, because it’s hard for a 19-year-old to be .5PPG in the NHL. Just more of an observation.

Hanowski went 10 games in a row this month without a point. He’s generating less than 1.75 shots per game, which isn’t good. All that, and he’s still shooting 14% – 2%-4% higher than average. He is rapidly becoming a prospect of little importance.

On the other hand, the other Iginla prospect, Kenny Agostino, is lighting it up. His NHLE seems pretty pedestrian at first glance, but Agostino is producing in different ways: he is generating an insane amount of shots (10 in his last game, ~5 per game overall) and leading his team in scoring (Yale only has 59 goals as of writing). I’m much more bullish on his NHL chances than I am on Hanowski.

Baertschi’s had some damn bad luck since arriving in Abbotsford. From when he was sent down to January 31st, the Heat were averaging just over 2 goals per game. He’s generating shots – about three per game – and he has recently gone on a little bit of a run. I still think everything is fine, and I’d be surprised if he doesn’t improve his scoring totals to get him to roughly the same pace he was scoring at in the NHL (i.e. he gains 5 points in the NHL and he increases his NHLE by 5 points, not PPG).

We’ve gone over why Klimchuk’s raw NHLE isn’t quite as high as we’d want, and we’ve also gone over why that doesn’t matter so much. Here’s another positive arrow for Klimchuk: his +1 scoring is almost 6 points better than his draft year scoring was – meaning that he’s right in the “NHLer” development bracket. He’s still in on a large portion of team scoring – about 40%.

Alas, Michael Ferland is done for year with his knee injury, which is too bad – he was just starting to get the bounces. He is still a very intriguing prospect but missing half of what is likely his biggest developmental year can’t be good.

Max Reinhart’s point total may seem lower than it should be, but there’s three specific reasons for that: he only has 1 PP point, he’s only shooting at 9.1%, and he’s playing a lot of time on the PK. The difference between this year and last year for Reinhart? He’s generating a crapload of shots. Last year, as a 20-year-old, it was pretty tough sledding for Reinhart – he was used in a defensive capability, but being where he was on his development curve meant he couldn’t generate points and play those defensive minutes. It’s a really positive development sign that this year he’s been able to play those defensive minutes and score. Reinhart has more EV points than anyone below him has total points, which is insane. 

Cundari’s scored 5 in 6 since joining Chicago, which I think is hilarious. In case you missed it, he was loaned to the Blues’ affiliate mid-month as Abbotsford has had quite the logjam with everyone on the blue line healthy. His results prior to the loan were sub-par, so maybe he can bring it back a little.

Eric Roy’s scoring at about .7PPG, which is pretty damn good. Ryan Pulock is scoring at about .95PPG, so it might look like Roy is being carried a little – but when the scoring is adjusted to only include EV points, Roy is scoring about .55PPG and Pulock drops all the way down to .66PPG. He might be Calgary’s best defensive prospect at this point, to be honest. 

Kanzig’s scoring under the pace that he did last year – and last year’s pace was 2.5 points. That kills me. He’s going to have to score 2 points in his last 15 to get above 2.5. That doesn’t sound hard, right?

Ramage is having a really rough go in Abbotsford. I’m not sure what there is to say about him.

Sieloff still isn’t back. Hopefully that’ll change soon.

Bah. These suck. Hopefully we see better results from a couple of guys soon.