The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler posted a massive list of “prospect tiers” as determined by The Athletic’s prospect gurus, and 9 Red Wings players/prospects made the list, but only two were deemed to be “stars” in the making…
Trey Augustine
Augustine’s Hobey Baker finalist season and second consecutive Big Ten goalie of the year award have again helped solidify him as a top goalie prospect. Now the stoic, calm and controlled Red Wings prospect will have to prove himself in the AHL. He doesn’t have the high-end size or freak athleticism teams drool over, but he’s universally well-respected for his consistency.
Axel Sandin-Pellikka
Sandin-Pellikka’s first season in North America was a perfectly respectable one. He was one of the youngest D in the league for 68 games and scored seven goals before going down to the AHL. But there were also some speed bumps that slowed down the momentum he had coming out of a very exciting year in the SHL. Scouts like his offense and his competitiveness but naturally wonder about that next level, so low-end Star makes sense.
While the bulk of the Red Wings’ prospect pool are deemed to be “support” players:
Marco Kasper
The guys everyone likes but who lack a Star quality offensively often end up with a high-end Support projection in Prospect Tiers. And that’s Kasper, particularly after what was viewed as a bit of a plateau or step back last year.
Carter Bear
Bear is a skilled and hardworking player who has been both a producer and a driver at the junior level and will now test himself against men this season. One scout pushed for him to be in Tier 5 but the bubble between a high-end Support guy and a low-end Star was where he settled. Average skating has often been what holds evaluators from getting too excited about a player they all have time for.
Josh Doan (Tier 5B in Player Tiers this year) has some similarities to Bear in average or below average athleticism propped up by work ethic and skill.
Michael Brandsegg-Nygård
Brandsegg-Nygård is a big, strong, physical, competitive winger with a scoring tilt who projects to be an up-and-down-the-lineup top-nine scorer. However, some wonder if he’ll score enough to rise into the Star tier. Is he a 25-goal guy with that desirable profile or a 35-goal guy with that desirable profile? There’s a big difference between the value of those two players in the NHL even if the gap isn’t huge.
JP Hurlbert
Hurlbert’s smarts, production and multi-positional success won him some fans last year. One of those fans argued he has Star potential. But others think his skating could be a limiter and want to see him have NCAA success first (he also struggled to generate at the World Junior Summer Showcase, which supported their hesitancy to slot him in Tier 4 at the moment).
Max Plante
After Plante wasn’t on last year’s list, I started the Hobey Baker winner in Tier 5C this year before a couple of scouts felt he could maybe move up a letter grade. He doesn’t have the body but his blend of skill, smarts and work ethic have a way of winning people over.
“Plante intrigues me a lot for upward movement,” wrote one scout.
Nate Danielson
Danielson has always been well-liked by scouts and he’s going to be a good player in the league. But you have to put the puck in the net and despite slow and steady, overall positive development for him since the draft, he still isn’t scoring enough and that’s reflected in the league’s view of his projection. Between the NHL and AHL last year, he scored five goals in 46 games. There’s a crowd of good young players in Detroit and it’s hard to imagine him featuring in a truly prominent offensive role. He could become a Support piece, though.
Emmitt Finnie
The league and I both didn’t know what to do with Finnie. He obviously played 82 NHL games last season, including a good chunk on a team’s first line. But some wonder if he has the next developmental step in him that others his age do or if he’ll just be a really good role player. The hope would be that he can become a Zach Hyman type, who has been a Tier 4 and Tier 5 stalwart in Player Tiers. That small chance/benefit of the doubt after last year was enough to get him onto Prospect Tiers this year as opposed to just off.
Continued (paywall); who the hell knows. I don’t think that all the Red Wings’ prospects listed in the “support” tier will be “supporting” players, but we will have to wait and see how things develop over the next couple of seasons.
