NY Islander Fan Centreal-Prospect Center Open !!

New York Islander Fan Central | 7/28/2007 02:50:00 PM | | | | | |


A lot of work to set up but all New York Islander Prospect Profiles are now available on this page.

I have decided to set my own paramaters as to what is a prospect:

The days of Hockey's Future and the Buffaloed-Holly Gunning disasterous guidelines that were served to control writers were a joke that was bad for the folks wanting to learn about prospects. Also their ever-changing comical rating system read more like a game of bingo or battleship with the letters and numbers. Players and their families read these things and take them very seriously. I was contacted by Frans Nielsen's family on a few occasions with information.

Just another reason in a long list of reasons why both of them should be immediately dumped by Hockey's Future, but that's for another day.

My system is a lot more common-sense:
1. All propspects listed by last name: You decide where you think they belong for yourselves.

In my opinion it's silly to read articles and rate a prospects progress based on that and I had seen far too many uninformed writers attempt to rate prospects on the basis of stats or a singular article because teams and leagues are different. There are also a lot of folks like Larry Brooks in Europe writing these articles that we use as paramaters for rankings who would not know some of these kids if they appeared on their front door but still threw out their names.

2. Anyone who's over age 25 or had been around the block in the NHL, AHL or ECHL for years is not a prospect. Sorry gang, but a Matt Spiller is not a prospect, nor is a Tim Jackman, nor is Drew Fata and for that matter neither is Dubie or Joey McDonald and neither is the Islanders recent signing Aaron Johnson, who played sixty games with Columbus last season. The Isles website may have their profiles in the prospects sections but to me they are no longer prospects.

3. Players below the age of 24 who stayed in juniors-Europe for years and are just working their way into the AHL/ECHL I consider a prospect. See-Blake Comeau, Frans Nielsen, Jeremy Colliton.

4. With the new CBA all drafted players must be signed within two years with the exception of college players. Older European prospects before the new cba must be signed within a select amount of years or they are considered UFA and that works on a yearly scale that was grandfathered in year by year. In the past when a club drafted a European Prospect that club owned the NHL rights forever which is why you see NHL.com technically list Dimitri Upper as an UFA now.

5. The days of Per Braxenholm, Juha Pekka-Ketola and Arto Tukio being considered Islander prospects are over as they have clearly fallen off the club's radar nor do they likely have signing rights to them, nor have they appeared in the club's website or have attended summer workouts.

Each person make up your own prospect parameter, these will be mine.