Monday Mailbag: Prospect Pool Rankings, Draft Busts, and Trading for William Nylander

I don’t think the Canucks are ready to give up on Derrick Pouliot just yet. The trade looked like a huge win for the Canucks until about midway through the season, and it’s not as though the team can expect to get much offence from their back end.

Ben Hutton is another story. I’d say there’s a 50/50 chance he’s in the opening lineup. He was scratched multiple times last season and I would not be the least bit surprised if he’s the odd man out if the defence can stay healthy through the preseason.

I actually believe the opposite is true. One of the biggest variables in a player’s career is how much the team believes in them and is willing to invest in them. For better or for worse, the Canucks really seem to believe in Guillaume Brisebois, moreso than another organization would. I think the team really sees something in Jalen Chatfield, too, although I could see him generating some mild interest from another team if there’s no room for him in the Canucks organization.

Ranking the totality of the prospects in each organization is a difficult task. One has to consider quality, depth, which positions are over or underrepresented, and a host of other factors that can effect a prospect’s chances of becoming an impact player. Pronman’s rankings were one way of answering a complex question. So I don’t have an issue with putting the Canucks at #2. Pronman’s rankings were weighted heavily towards the quality of a team’s top 2 or 3 prospects and were less concerned with depth, so the ranking makes complete sense. The Canucks have arguably the best one-two punch of prospects in the league.

What I do have a bit of an issue with is when people take a subjective ranking with very specific and arguably arbitrary parameters and use it to shield the organization from criticism. Rankings like Pronman’s are fickle from year-to-year to say the least , and looking only at players that haven’t yet graduated to full-time NHL duty is something that punishes teams for drafting players that play in the NHL in their draft+1 years. Having the second-best pool under these parameters means far less than many people think.

I have a lot of additional thoughts but I’ll save them for the article I have coming out this week.

It depends on whether or not Olli Juolevi makes the team. If he doesn’t, I’d imagine it would be him. If he does, then it will probably be whoever was sent down in his place, assuming they clear waivers. If the Canucks make a trade or suffer a long-term injury or two, it will be one of Ashton Sautner or Evan McEneny.

It sure is a shame the Canucks never had a chance to draft a player like Nylander. He’d certainly be a boon to the organization.

In all seriousness, I don’t think they could pull it off, unless the leafs are interested in someone like Alex Edler or Chris Tanev, and even then the Canucks would probably still have to add to get a deal done. I’m also not sure how palatable the team would find giving up significant assets in a trade for a player they could have just selected four years ago.

If I were in charge it would probably stay the same for the current season and then go through a re-design once the kids have firmly established themselves, but I have no idea if they feel the same way.

Well, they have a lot of guys who are good at faceoffs, for whatever little that’s worth. Their biggest weakness will be basically everything else.

I’d say Hunter Shinkaruk was probably the biggest disappointment in recent memory. He had so much flash and skill, but losing a season to injury really put him behind in his development and he never really recovered. Nicklas Jensen was pretty disappointing too, given the skill he flashed when he was first called up. The Gillis years were pretty barren when it came to amateur scouting.

Nothing seems to get me in more trouble more quickly on twitter than when I talk about politics, but I’ll give this one a go anyway.

As much as I have no love for John McCain, I don’t think the two are entirely comparable. McCain had a national platform for decades and a longstanding relationship with the beltway press, who were always eager to paint him in the most favourable light.

You could say the same for Kissinger, but unlike McCain, he doesn’t have constituents. No one ever cast a vote for Henry Kissinger. His actions have also had far more time to be judged by history than McCain’s. Escalating the war in Vietnam is still widely regarded as maybe the most disastrous foreign policy decision in American history, even by many Republicans.

I’m sure he’ll still be lovingly eulogized in the pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post, but my guess is that actual public opinion will be much less divided.