Flames November Prospect NHLE 2013-14

 

Ah, November. The first month of regression. A lot of the Flames hopefuls got out to tremendous starts in October and although the numbers are still very healthy, many have come back down to earth a little. Except Johnny Gaudreau, of course.

Go here for a primer on NHLE. Otherwise, hit the jump.

– John Gaudreau takes over the top spot from Sean Monahan, continuing his sublime career at Boston College. My prediction of him increasing his NHLE was correct – over 6 points have been added to his total since last month, and Gaudreau was in on 45% (!) of his team’s offense during November (42% overall).

– Sean Monahan’s scoring pace has also dropped considerably, as predicted. The Flames have started to score less and Monahan’s overall totals have come down. Unfortunate that he’s going to have to sit at least the next couple of weeks out.

– Sven Baertschi, Émile Poirier and Coda Gordon are tracking well to fulfill their respective ceilings. They’re all scoring in and around where they should be, and that’s been constant month-to-month.

– Bill Arnold is still benefiting from playing with Johnny Gaudreau, but Arnold is generally Gaudreau’s primary assist man, which means he must be doing a lot of positive things.

– Markus Granlund has continued his out-shooting ways and will likely lead Abbotsford in points at some time before the end of the season. Tracking well in his +2 season to become an NHLer.

– Morgan Klimchuk still isn’t scoring at the pace I’d like him to be – putting together an equivalency around 35 in a player’s +1 year is generally my cut-off line for “top-six” potential. However, in saying that, he’s still in on 38% of the team’s offense, which is healthy.

– Kenny Agostino has gone PPG since being held pointless in his first two. Nothing to worry about here – he’ll be PPG for the rest of the season, likely.

– Mike Ferland has started to generate the type of offense he needs to – he just started racking shots up at a much higher rate than he did in October and the points came. 

– Corbin Knight and Ben Hanowski have basically maintained the same scoring pace the whole season, which makes sense since they’re linemates. Both are still tracking well, and their scoring normalized so don’t expect them to drop below this pace.

– Mark Jankowski hasn’t had a good month points-wise but he’s also not getting shots. That’s a major red-flag; hopefully he can correct his course by the new year.

– Max Reinhart’s numbers dipped a little due to his time at the NHL level, but he’s still generating shots at the developmental level. That’s a positive sign, even if the pro results haven’t been there.

– The last four guys (Jooris, DeBlouw, Elson and Harrison) aren’t really worth talking about right now.

– John Gilmour had a blistering start to the season, but, like the Friars themselves, he’s cooled down a little – after going 5 in 5, he’s gone 5 in 10. The latter is likely closer to what his actual point production is than the former. Now that his PP time and the Friars’ scoring has gone down, like predicted, so has Gilmour.

– Brett Kulak’s legal problems have been more of the focus this month (and with good reason) – doing what he did (allegedly) is absurd and unacceptable, and it flies in the face of the whole Flames thing about good people or whatever. He is scoring at a good pace though.

– Ryan Culkin is continuing his good scoring pace, and he should be – he’s playing both PP1 and PK1 minutes this season. About 25% of Quebéc’s scoring comes off of Culkin’s stick.

– Eric Roy has continued the scoring pace he’s on. Expect him to stay about the same throughout the season. The Wheat Kings are still not very good and they will struggle to score at times, which might mean that Roy get in on a higher percentage of goals, but less points overall. 

– Tyler Wotherspoon has been out since taking a hit from Ben Eager in mid-November. I assume he has a concussion, since we haven’t heard anything about it. He did increase his scoring marginally month-over-month, but if he’s not on the ice that doesn’t matter as much. Get well soon. 

– Rushan Rafikov was part of the Russian squad that came through and played CHL teams last month. He played in 3 games, but didn’t record any points. His scoring in the KHL has remained consistent month-over-month, probably due to how early the MHL starts its schedule.

– Mark Cundari has also been dealing with nagging injuries, but he’s still not putting up anything offensively. His shot rates are poor, but I’ve heard he may be playing in more of a shutdown role, which would explain some of that. I don’t think that he’s demonstrating that he’s anything more than a tweener or replacement level player. Still better than O’Brien, though.

– James Martin is included this month because I just forgot about him last month. He is scoring at a good pace in the ECHL, but if you’re playing in the ECHL and you aren’t a goalie, that’s not a good sign. He was recently called up, but even considering that I doubt he gets another contract at the end of this year. 

– Keegan Kanzig is still under the .2PPG threshold and isn’t gaining much ground. He did score the first (and second!) goal of his junior career, however, so good for him. Less good for him that it took him till the age of 19 to get it. I’m still hesitant to make any definitive determinations but that’s not a good start to the season for the kid. Victoria is now up to 83 goals, meaning Kanzig has been in on just 0.8% of the offense.

– Pat Sieloff still isn’t playing due to a number of infections and his face still healing. John Ramage has still done basically nothing. 

Last month’s prediction was going to come true until Roman Horak was traded and screwed it all up. Regardless, in the time he did accrue in Abbotsford, the trio’s NHLE grew by about 7.5 points. Thus, I’ll reluctantly take the loss.

This month’s prediction will relate to Mark Jankowski: if he can average at least 2 SH/G, we’ll see him move to an equivalency of 25.