Canucks Young Guns

[Megaterio Llamas]

From the interweb:

The Vancouver Canucks have signed five players to one-year AHL contracts. Abbotsford Canucks General Manager Richard Seeley made the announcement via press release

Per the Canucks’ release: “…the club has signed forwards Quinn Emerson and Ryan St. Louis, defencemen Tim Rego and Gavin White, and goaltender Mitchell Weeks to one-year AHL contracts ahead of the 2026-27 season.”


Yes that is the son of.

Wow, cool. I remember Nelson Emerson

I think they were talking about ex-Canuck goalie Steve Week’s kid, and if not him their first round draft pick who never played for the team, Patrick White’s kid.

Ryan St Louis is the spitting image of Martin, and was born in Burlington Vermont where Martin went to university.

[Megaterio Llamas]

Scott Wheeler had six Canucks in his top 100 prospects roundup.

Malhotra - 8

Ohgren - 58

Novotny - 63

Lekkerimaki - 71

Willander - 73

Cootes - 95

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/741611 ... king-2026/

[BoS]

Hmm, I feel like there could be someone missing from that list…

[UWSaint]

Hmm, I feel like there could be someone missing from that list…

There is no objective methodology to the NHL players that Wheeler includes and excludes from his list, which I think he admits. It is 2022 and after draft, I think. Beyond that, he said he was trying to decide who had “established” themselves in the NHL.

So Zeev isn’t on the list because Zeev is “established.” How he is different than Willander and Misa in this regard, I am not sure. I have little doubt Zeev would be among the top 3 or 4 defensemen on the list if he had been included.

The lack of a consistent methodology is a bit frustrating, but I also understand it to a degree. If you exclude guys with some time in the show but either with limited sustained times or there just because the organization isn’t really competing, you get a warped sense of what the future may bring. You are trying to assess guys for what they are projected to be when they mature. And if you include guys who are all stars or signing rfa deals, then your list is comparing apples and oranges in terms of where they fit in the organizational structure and somewhat undermining the “projection” exercise of prospect lists. How is celebrini a prospect?

Still, I would have excluded any player who has played basically a full season in the nhl. There would still be some judgment there (Willander started in the AHL), but you could solve it by picking an arbitrary number of NHL games (say at least 50 in one season) and require the player to have concluded the last regular season on the NHL roster.

[2Fingers]

Agree UW, he should not include any player who has specific number of NHL games under their belt.

But these lists are always hard to do, fans always want to see their players on the list, warranted or not. How he can rank 100 kids is beyond me without some major analytics behind it. Way too many variable to say Cootes is 95 and Malholtra is 8. If you pro rate Cootes points for same # of games Malholtra played he would have more points, he is a year older and has shown more consistency as well.

I also believe he gives a higher rating for players drafted in the current year.

Anyways, at least the Canucks have players on the list and I hope they all make the team in what ever way they can. Next year when they get 1OA then we can all dance in the streets.

[UWSaint]

If you pro rate Cootes points for same # of games Malholtra played he would have more points, he is a year older and has shown more consistency as well.

I also believe he gives a higher rating for players drafted in the current year.

He definitely gives more weight to more recent draftees -- but I think that's because his list is of "how good will they be with good development once they fully established themselves as NHL players." WHEN they will develop is not at all relevant to his list.

I also think that he's not looking at the "most likely development outcome". He didn't articulate it exactly, and he is certainly considering bust potential to some degree, but I think he's leaning into projecting "good development" for a player, and that depends a lot on what that player's ceiling is. Its not exactly a best case scenario ranking, but it skews to imagining futures where things work out, not where they don't. When a player is drafted, the "range" of how they can develop is at its widest. When we are a couple years removed from the draft, for many of these players, we are eliminating (or greatly reducing) the high end of that initial range. We have a better idea about the player they will be when they get to the NHL. And that changes what "good development" going forward looks like compared to draft day. To be sure, not all players develop consistently or linearly, but you know more about players at 20 than 18 in the main, and if scouts were tasked with redrafting 2 and 3 year old draft classes as if their job depended on it, that redraft should line up a lot more closely with a 10 year retrospective on that draft than the actual draft does.

In some ways, I think "overvaluing" the most recent class (and second most recent class) is baked in to the amorphous thing being measured. Those players in older drafts who developed at a rate that's better than a "good" projection are not prospects anymore -- you are eliminating the cream of the crop from a list that is already creamy. The cream of the cream, you might say. Better than good projections aren't there. Benson is not a prospect, Lane Hutson is not a prospect. Even Kindl was not a prospect. And those really good draft picks who topped old lists are also immediate graduates -- Celebrini, Bedard, Carlsson. And because the 2026 class has none of those players, there is going to be a weight towards them.

For guys that have Cootes down at 95 and remarkable have guys like Sushi ahead, I think that's all due to the fact there's a lower ceiling on Cootes in their view. Maybe there's a really good shot he's a good NHLer, but they think there's no chance he's a 1C and it more likely he's a quality 3C than a 2C. I have no idea whether they are right (and it doesn't explain how Ohgren is rated higher). But it does explain why you might have Sushi higher. Because (pulling number from my ass) even if there's a 60% chance he's not an NHLer, if he cracks into that 40% zone he's in the top 6, and there's a 15-20% chance he's a first line wing -- and a "good development" projection has him as a top 6 wing who is part of a top 4 forwards on a team's PP1.

[Meds]

I wonder if it has to do with position as well.

For Cootes vs Lekkerimaki…..

Cootes could become a good 2C, but he almost certainly should be that quality 3C, and it is highly unlikely he becomes a 1C.

Lekkerimaki could become a good scoring top-6 winger, but he likely won’t ever be useful in the bottom-6.

So Lekkerimaki has a narrower floor/ceiling, and if he makes his floor he lands higher, whereas Cootes has a more certain floor but his ceiling is far more variable.

[Picker of Cherries]

Right after the draft all the picks (100% of the 224 picks) seem to have a chance, at least to the team drafting them. The reality is only about 20% (44 players) will play 200 NHL games, and only about 10% (22 players) will play 500 games. The further they get from the draft, the easier it gets to figure out who’s not going to make it, who’s going to be a tweezer, who’s going to a limited to the bottom six, and who has the ability to be a part of the 10%. Makes sense that there is a recency bias in the list, as D+1 and D+2 will give a good indication about who is still progressing and who is stalling.

[Megaterio Llamas]

@UW - even Mathew Schaefer ia not a prospect in Wheeler's scheme, and he is still 18 years old. Scott admits his is a deeply unscientific process, and that he excludes players he considers 'graduated.'

The other prospects guy at The Athletic, Corey Pronman, will have his top 100 coming out later in trhe summer, and he does include young NHLers. So look for Zeev to be highly ranked on that one.

[Cousin Strawberry]

I wonder if it has to do with position as well.

For Cootes vs Lekkerimaki…..

Cootes could become a good 2C, but he almost certainly should be that quality 3C, and it is highly unlikely he becomes a 1C.

Lekkerimaki could become a good scoring top-6 winger, but he likely won’t ever be useful in the bottom-6.

So Lekkerimaki has a narrower floor/ceiling, and if he makes his floor he lands higher, whereas Cootes has a more certain floor but his ceiling is far more variable.

Regarding Cootes, I'm hopeful that he emerges as an Anton Lundell type of high end 3C/ average 2C who is hard to play against and defensively sound. 40-50pts. Thst would be a sweet score from a 15o/a

[Meds]

I’m hoping he emerges as a prime Kesler.

I’ll be satisfied if he hits your description.

[Megaterio Llamas]

I wonder if it has to do with position as well.

For Cootes vs Lekkerimaki…..

Cootes could become a good 2C, but he almost certainly should be that quality 3C, and it is highly unlikely he becomes a 1C.

Lekkerimaki could become a good scoring top-6 winger, but he likely won’t ever be useful in the bottom-6.

So Lekkerimaki has a narrower floor/ceiling, and if he makes his floor he lands higher, whereas Cootes has a more certain floor but his ceiling is far more variable.

Accurate Mëds. Wheeler does think Cootes will have a solid NHL career, as a 3 c. He just doesn't like the value in his draft slot.

It's kind of what I have seen in him since he was drafted. I preferred Cole Reschny at the time, Wheeler must have as well since he has Reschny in the thirties and Cootes in the nineties.

[donlever]

At the very least (as a half full glass) Vancouver has 6 players on the list (Hawks lead with 8) and it was not long ago we were a lost Klimovich away from having squat diddly prospect wise.

So yeah...positives...

[BoS]

I think it’s a fine list.

Toss in Zeev, and you’ve got a broad young nucleus to build a core.

If RJ could pull a dart er-diamond or two out of the later rounds…