The Flames Fifteen Returns
10 years ago
Welcome back to the Flames Fifteen – our now annual ranking of the Flames’ prospects.
The Methodology
It is thought that a player’s 23 year old season is the one where he goes from prospect to NHLer – or, for some, to tweener. Therefore, that is our cut-off line. Last year, we distinguished players who were already legitimate NHLers – we won’t be doing that this year.
We asked our panel to rank every player under 23 in the Flames system as of March 15th (when I sent out the request), with points being awarded to the top 15 – 1 point for their 15th ranked player, and 15 for their 1st ranked player, etc. In the event of ties, the highest overall single ranking prevailed. The panel this year includes myself, Kent Wilson, Ryan Pike, Book of Loob and Hayley from Matchsticks and Gasoline.
See Ya
There are numerous faces who didn’t make the cut, graduated or left the rankings.
Not Top-15, but recieved Top-15 votes:
- Joni Ortio (16th, two 15th place votes and a 12th place vote)
- Pat Sieloff (17th, one 13th place vote)
- Brett Kulak (18th, one 14th place vote)
- Carter Bancks (19th, one 14th place vote)
- Ryan Culkin (20th, two 15th place votes)
Graduated:
- Mikael Backlund (excluded)
- Leland Irving (5th last year)
- Paul Byron (12th last year)
Ranked last year but not this year:
- Greg Nemisz (11th last year, no points this year)
- John Ramage (13th last year, no points this year)
- Chris Breen (15th last year, no points this year)
We’ll start the articles in the next couple of days. Two little tidbits before we get to that, though – first, there were a few picks that left me saying “really…” – so I’m sure people will be unhappy with a few of the results. Secondly, it’s been widely thought that Jay Feaster’s past two drafts have been very good, but with one or two exceptions the panel doesn’t exactly agree with that.
We look forward to sharing our results with you.
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