Rangers Prospects: October Notable Prospect Update
by Rob Luker on Nov 4, 2009 1:15 PM EST
in Rangers Prospects
17 comments
Authors Note: Welcome to the Notable Prospect Update which will give a quick statistical update of the more intriguing Rangers prospects in the system. This list is not set in stone so please do not panic, just leave a comment with the name of the prospect and I'll add him to the list (I want to keep it under 15 or so). In the end I think it's safe to say we are all more interested in the big club, but it's always good to keep one eye on the road ahead. It should also be mentioned that I am making assumptions from looking at stats, and that I have not watched any of the games I mention. With that said, enjoy.
With the month of October in the books, it's time to look back at some notable Ranger prospects to see how their season has gone thus far. I have a list of eleven players who, for the most part, are some of the more popular Ranger prospects because of their skill, story, draft position, or in one case last name (take a guess). Could I list every single prospect with upside and put their stats down? Sure... but if you're that big into the prospects you can do that yourself (Jim, Joe, and I do have lives, ya know! - j/k - but we do have lives...). This is essentially the Rangers Prospect Update/Guide for dummies. I tried to give the list a nice mix of AHL, NCAA, and CHL players which yielded six forwards, three defense, and two goalies. Let's take a look at the fancy chart shall we?
Some (possibly) out-of-context assumptions and ridiculous statements:
- Bobby Sanguinetti! 13 points in 11 games?!?! Fire Torts, Slats, and Dolan! Trade Redden! Cut/someone somehow cause a season-ending injury to Rozi! His biggest game this year was just this past Saturday on Halloween with 2 goals and 2 assists against Providence in a 7-nil Wolfpack win. Keep it up Bobby...
- Ryan Bourque will be better than his father. Six goals and fourteen points in fifteen games? Smells like domination in Quebec City (or is that the poutine?). In all seriousness, Ryan has been pretty consistent thus far with the Remparts, failing to register a point in only six out of fifteen October games.
- Another Ranger forward prospect lighting up a league in the CHL is Ethan Werek of Kingston. Eight goals in thirteen played? I think we will take that.
- Now to some bad, Ryan McDonagh of Wisconsin. I'm sure he's playing great defense, but in a game on October 24th at Minnesota State McDonagh received a Game Misconduct for hitting from behind just over halfway through the third period. He responded with a two-assist weekend in two wins over New Hampshire along with only two penalty minutes.
- Although the stats aren't great, how about Chad Johnson going down to Hartford and taking over the starting job? He impressed us all I think in pre-season, and his record has actually improved to 4-3 with a 33 save win over Manchester on Sunday (November first).
- Finally, I'm glad to see Ilkka Heikkinen (Can anyone pronounce that?) has adjusted well to the North American game. Get this, as a D-man he has no penalties thus-far this season. Gotta love them Fin's! He also notched his third goal of the season in the same game against Manchester last Sunday.
So what do you guys think of some of the young gun's thus far? I'm particularly happy that Ryan Bourque is ripping up the QMJHL, but at the same time I'm a little worried about Chris Kreider starting off a little slow with BC in Hockey East. I have a feeling he will come around though. Anyone been to any Hartford games? I'll have to look up if the Rangers have any ECAC prospects to keep an eye out for as I work in the Penalty Box for Clarkson games. Either way, sound off in the comments.
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Kreider is a freshman on an established college hockey power. Give him time. And I can only assume Chad Ochocinco’s GAA is a typo.
by XLII on Nov 4, 2009 1:46 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
Chad Veinte-Nueve
4-3, 2.86, 0.895 as of today.
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by RangerSmurf on Nov 4, 2009 1:57 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
I like, but it should be DosNueve in the spirit of the broken Spanish employed by the Bengals receiver
by XLII on Nov 4, 2009 2:38 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
I was giving our Chad credit for not being an idiot.
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by RangerSmurf on Nov 4, 2009 2:49 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
How is Chad Johnson’s GAA 0.75 but his record still only 4-3?
by DJ Wuss on Nov 4, 2009 2:00 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
Typo
Figures. I’ve been doing too much typing I think lately.
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by Rob Luker on Nov 4, 2009 2:10 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Misleading
Using stats as your only measure of how to tell if a prospect is doing good or bad is a waste of time. You do not take into account what his role may be with his team or how well the team may or may not be doing.
You already have Lauri writing here so she knows the Hartford prospects let her do this on the Hartford prospects since she sees them play.
Chris Kreider has played all of 3 1/3 games in his NCAA career and you are worried about a slow start is a great example of why you should not write this stuff. Did you know that Kreider had to leave BC’s game on Sunday?
You do not know what happened with Ryan McDonagh but you call it bad, again misleading because you are not even sure how he is playing.
Ryan Bourque is not dominating the QMJHL as it is an offense happy league, he has gotten close to half his season totals in his last 4 game (0-7-7). He is also playing on a very good Quebec Rempart team.
In the meantime you are missing out on prospects like Carl Hagelin, Derek Stepan, Max Campbell, Roman Horak, Sam Klassen and more.
Sorry dude but if you do not have time to put in a real effort then why bother? It is not fair to your readers or to the prospects themselves
by theprospectpark on Nov 4, 2009 3:41 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
Fair Enough
But I believe I stated the situation with the article in the italics and introduction. I still take your points to heart and will take them into consideration if I attempt to write another one for next month.
This article is more about the actual stats rather than the assumptions I made. Chris Higgins has played well so far this year for the Rangers, if you ask me, but the biggest issue with him so far has been his lack of scoring. America, for better or worse, judges most of who they can’t see on what the stats look like, whether the subject is Sports or Business.
Thanks for the information on Kreider, though, I had no idea.
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by Rob Luker on Nov 4, 2009 4:26 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
i would agree on higgins for about the first 5-6 games and then the last 2-3 where he played well even without the goals or points, but then the pressure of netting the first impacted his game negatively and hopefully now that he gotten the monkey off he will keep up the better all-around game he has been back to the last could games. Also agree people are overly stat obsessed, but how much of that is about the simplicity of it and the fantasy sports culture?
by mleetch352 on Nov 4, 2009 4:34 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
But I fear you do not get it
I am sorry but using “America, for better or worse, judges most of who they can’t see on what the stats look like, whether the subject is Sports or Business.” is an excuse not a valid reason for not doing a full job.
If you are going to do a prospect update then make the effort to find out about those you are writing about rather than make general assumptions based upon numbers.
If the Rangers put out the kind of effort you put forth here, the fans would be screaming for someone’s head.
The Blueshirt Banter does a great job getting Ranger information to their visitors but allow me to let you know that there is a lot more interest in the Ranger’s prospects than you realize otherwise I would not have a job covering them.
by theprospectpark on Nov 4, 2009 7:48 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
I can't blame ya
I understand your frustration with my essentially half-effort. I do not deny that there is a great interest in Rangers prospects, and I know exactly who you are and the great work you do. I guess the simple mis-understanding we have then is that you cover Ranger prospects for a career while I currently am a student working a weekend job at a rink. If I didn’t have to go to class, do assignments, and work on the weekends, I myself would be embarrassed at this effort of journalism as well.
At this point I have nothing more new to say. I stated in the article that it was just meant to be a simple update and I would like to think that I conveyed sarcasm as well within the article to hint at the fact that I in fact have not watched any of the games the prospects actually played in. That’s the fact, jack.
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by Rob Luker on Nov 4, 2009 8:41 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
have to agree here. Stats alone tell us little about how a player is performing in large part because we dont know situations in which points are produced or saved and the competition against which they are producing. Horak is the leading candidate to be this years surprise player from the draft and while he wont end the year with near the hype Grachev had he will be a very solidly regarded prospect.
A prime example of the stat argument is Sangs. For the most part he is playing a better defensive game but if we are going to praise him for 2G 2A in 7-0 win then we should also point out his -4 in a 6-0 loss the game before. Chad Johnson while his overall number of 2.86 and .895 are solid that is after a slow start as in his last two games he has .96GAA and .96 S% with a shutout. Those both in different ways show stats can be misleading.
by mleetch352 on Nov 4, 2009 4:28 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Great Responses
Good stuff, mleetch. Look, in the end there is no right or wrong answer. I agree with theprospectpark in the fact that watching a player play a full game in Hockey gives you a better assessment of their play rather than looking at just their stats completely. But, as I stated, we are all busy and do not have the means to watch that much hockey as well.
The problem with Hockey (and my other beloved sport, Soccer), is that stats can only go so far in truly evaluating a player. The three most American sports – Football, Baseball, and Basketball – all thrive on statistics to the point where if a statistician is good enough at what he does (Think Moneyball here), that they can be successful at winning the games of the sport. In Hockey and Soccer, statistics undoubtedly are used as benchmarks to show fans and managers trends, but they do not show the whole story is basically my point.
I love these debates.
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by Rob Luker on Nov 4, 2009 5:15 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
I agree, my point is more if we are going to do stats then we have to do an account of all of them good and bad, maybe the trends instead of the overall assumptions that are led to be jumped to. good work rob.
by mleetch352 on Nov 4, 2009 6:49 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Advanced statistics
Are growing at a rate faster than I can keep up with them. Hockey’s behind when it comes to sabermetric evaluation, but it’s getting there, thanks to the work of sites like behindthenet.ca (who just joined SBNation).
When you only concentrate on point production, yeah, stats don’t tell the whole story. But once the advanced metrics catch up, you’ll be able to predict the future much better.
Even then it’s never perfect…how many players in baseball are projected to be stars and fail. How many guys in football are drafted late and become stars. It’s all a gamble in the long run. The dreaded quadruple-A guys as it were, too good for the minors, not good enough for the big leagues.
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by RangerSmurf on Nov 4, 2009 8:33 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Jess, Rob was just trying to give everyone a brief overview of what’s going on, and quite frankly, I’m thankful for it. When everyone needs more in depth looks at the prospects, they know where to find them.
As far as Laurie is concerned, she is a part time contributor here, mostly on the overseas stuff.
We are also well aware of the Ranger fans thirst for knowledge when it comes to prospects, which is why we frequently discuss them, both formally and informally.
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by Jim Schmiedeberg on Nov 4, 2009 9:00 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
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