Vancouver Canucks: Steve Dangle Prospect Pyramid
We really liked our Vancouver Canucks prospect ranking. But Steve Dangle hates the system, so this one goes out to him.
There is nothing really wrong with the standard system of rankings. Fans want to know who the top Vancouver Canucks prospects are and we tell them. It’s true that it sparks controversy and arguments, but that’s also kind of what we want.
In our rankings, we added each player’s average rank. That way, Thatcher Demko ranked first but actually had an average rank of 1.6, Olli Juolevi came in second at 2.2 and Brock Boeser finished third at 2.6. So, our staff certainly had some very different opinions there. What we all did agree with was that Demko, Juolevi and Boeser are the top three — or the top tier.
Which leads us to Steve Dangle’s ‘new’ ranking system. Okay, it’s nothing totally innovative, it’s just a pyramid.
In case you don’t know what I’m talking about yet, check this out:
While I have never seen a prospect pyramid before (at least I don’t think so), the idea to sort prospects in tiers isn’t entirely new. I am not even sure where I have seen it before, but I believe it was HFBoards.com, where users divided their team’s prospects or even overall rosters into tiers.
Now, none of this really matters. So let’s get to the actually interesting part: the Vancouver Canucks prospect ‘pyramid’. Or, let’s divide the prospects into tiers.
Tier 1: Thatcher Demko, Olli Juolevi, Brock Boeser
I already touched on this one. Our staff couldn’t completely agree on who would be No. 1. We also didn’t really agree on second and third. However, most agreed that the three players above build the top tier — and the rest of Canucks Nation seems to agree as well.
Tier 2: Jake Virtanen
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We are only four players in but already run into the first problem. In our prospect ranking, Jake Virtanen still qualified as he has only appeared in 55 NHL games and might start the 2016-17 season in the American Hockey League. A year ago, he probably would have been in the top tier, but people are starting to question his scoring ability, putting him in a tier for himself. Which already makes this pyramid look more like a Christmas tree.
Tier 3: Nikita Tryamkin, Brendan Gaunce, Jordan Subban, Andrey Pedan, Tate Olson, Guillaume Brisebois, Troy Stecher, Michael Garteig,
Is Nikita Tryamkin the fifth-best prospect? Is it Brendan Gaunce or Jordan Subban? What about Andrey Pedan, Tate Olson or Guillaume Brisebois? You get the idea. In case you are wondering why my tiers don’t match our main ranking, that’s because I’m making the tiers by myself while the ranking was a combination of our staff rankings.
Tier 4: Adam Gaudette, William Lockwood, Dmitry Zhukenov, Cole Candella, Cole Cassels, Carl Neill, Lukas Jasek, Jacob Stukel
This is where sorting in tiers really makes sense. Do you know whether Adam Gaudette will become a better player than William Lockwood? What about Dmitry Zhukenov or Cole Candella? Simply put, we have no clue, but we don’t expect them to be as good as, say, Nikita Tryamkin.
Tier 5: The rest
Most of the remaining players are AHL guys that have been down there for a while and might never become NHL players. How is anyone supposed to accurately rank them?
Next: NHL Projections for Top 10 Prospects
To be completely honest, all we did for our top-10 ranking was to create our individual top 10s. We never ranked 11 to 20 or anything after that. We did choose honourable mentions, but even that was difficult enough.
The tier system makes sense. So thanks for that, Mr. Dangle (which is, by the way, a really cool name for a hockey writer). But, truth be told, we will probably go back to a top-10 ranking next summer anyway.