Canucks Army Midterm Prospect Rankings: #4 Frank Corrado

Here at Canucks Army, we love three things more than anything in the
world: prospects, prospect rankings, and whining about prospect
rankings.  Every summer we vote on and rank the top-20 Canucks prospects to
take stock of what’s in the system, and every summer we hear vocal
complaints from our readers they disagree with our rankings.

So this year, in our mid-term ranking, we gave you the chance to vote on prospects and
have a say on these players.  Since our summer rankings, we’ve
simplified the definition of “prospect” to any player in the Vancouver
Canucks’ system that is eligible for the Calder Trophy if they were to
play in the NHL this year.  This means that players like Linden Vey and
Joacim Eriksson who were not rated over the summer will be covered in
this series.

Without further adieu, here is our 4th rated Canucks Prospect.

Frank Corrado has not changed in rankings since this summer, one of the few prospects to remain steady, which bodes well for his development.  The more he plays, the more likely it becomes that the 5th round pick is going to become the best prospect from the 2011 draft class. 

Frank Corrado started off his year in the American Hockey League.  There, we know he spent time rotating in and out of Utica’s top-4, often playing with Travis Ehrhardt and Henrik Tommernes.  In 21 games this season, Corrado scored 4 goals and 4 assists (translating to a 0.38 points/game ratio) and notching 50 shots on goal (2.38 shots/game).  At even-strength, Corrado had a 63.64% goals-for% with a +1.14% rel Gf%.

In the NHL, Corrado only has 7 games under his belt this season and has managed to score 1 goal.  He has a 53.7% Corsi-For %, which is good for 3rd on the team behind Adam Clendening and Chris Tanev, while he is also second worst of all defencemen with a relative Corsi of -5.3%.  Even worse is Corrado’s team worst -8.1 relative Scoring-Chance For%. 

If you’re at all concerned about these negatives, the goods news is that Corrado has only played seven games, so they’re likely not at all indicative of his talent level.  He’s still young as he is only in his 21 year-old season and defencemen do not peak until they are later in their careers.  His two most common partners this season in the NHL have been Dam Hamhuis and Luca Sbisa and Corrado and both players have improved their Corsi-For with Corrado.

This summer, Corrado will be entering contract re-negotiations with the Canucks as he is an RFA given that he burned a year of his Entry-Level Contract with the playoff stint against the San Jose Sharks.  So far he has not done much to earn himself a long or a high paying contract, so I’d imagine he will receive a further 2-3 year bridge contract to allow the Canucks to further evaluate what they have in Corrado as he continues to develop before making further decisions.  

It is not unlikely that Frank Corrado will be an NHL regular at some point in his career, most likely as a low to mid-range second pairing guy.  He still has year or two left of development before he will be a full time NHLer but it would not be unexpected to see the Canucks bring him to the team right out of training camp next season.  For now, Corrado in injured with an undisclosed upper-body injury and will be out for the next 2-3 weeks.