Graduation

I graduated today.

Five years of pain and torture can do amazing things to a man. It makes you angry, depressed, elated, shocked, and at times, contemplate career changes. It also causes you to drink large quantities of alcohol. But then again, so has watching the Edmonton Oilers these past five years.

I arrived at University, drafted you could call it, straight out of high school. I was a boy of 18 who thought he knew exactly what he wanted from life and how to achieve it. It took about two hours that first day of classes that I realized I was in over my head if I thought this was going to be a cake walk. My first course that day, Introduction to University 1, told me to immediately expect a 10% drop in my average from my high school honour roll list marks. I was told it would be expected of me to study for two hours for every hour I attended lectures. I was also told that every instructor marks differently from everyone else just to keep us on our toes.

Shit.

I emerged from my first class visibly shaken. This wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought it would. And my first two years proved that very well. I was stuck taking “required” courses that prepared me for nothing by instructors who had long ago lost their passion for teaching. I was stuck going nowhere with very little direction at the time and at a couple points had to sit down and re-evaluate my being at University.

Then, as if someone in the department had understood they were about to lose another talented mind, opportunity presented itself. Maybe I wasn’t going to be that first-line student who could get everything done perfectly and come up with new and exciting research ideas all on my own. But to be behind the scenes doing yeoman’s work for a while to get my bearings and learn my trade hands-on from seasoned professionals? Well that’s right up my alley. So instead of being able to make that seamless transition to the big-time as a 20-year old, I was able to ply my trades as a Co-op student, learning alongside grizzled veterans who knew their time was winding to an end, but could still contribute to the next generation of lab techs and energy-type employees. By working for a couple semesters instead of being thrown into the deep end in classes, I was able to develop at my own pace.

When I got back to University for the fall term after 8 months away from school and entering my 4th year of development I was a better student having learned what I would need to succeed at this level. I took the lessons of time management and proper presentation of scientific date and applied them to my coursework. The results began to show that I had learned something. My grades started improving, confidence skyrocketed, and my hard work started paying off. Finally I was the one the instructors were praising for my hard work and effort. It took me five years from 18 years of age to achieve what I set out to accomplish. I have graduated from the prospect ranks of my career.

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Graduation of prospects is sometimes a hotly contested debate between the sporting community. At what point can we start to address errors in a player’s game as a pre-existing condition and not growing pains? Many have tried to find the perfect formula for measuring a player’s graduation from prospect to NHL player, and many have failed. It is likely that I will fail to win over many readers with my criteria to define a prospect from a player as well, but that’s for you to decide. I have my opinions about who should be considered a prospect, and I’ll defend them.

The most widely accepted notion that defines a prospect is that he remains a prospect until he’s played a certain amount of games in the NHL. Hockeysfuture, a widely read site uses the 75-game plateau to define prospect status. Lowetide, who writes some of the best Oilers-related articles anywhere uses 50 games before you graduate as a prospect (on most occasions). It’s a start, but I feel that a prospect at the age of 18’s first season or so should not be weighted as equally as a 22-year old prospect who has played approximately 100 games of minor-pro hockey, either at the AHL level or over in the many European elite leagues. As some would suggest, the sample size of the 18-year old is too small to make an adequate assessment of his abilities, and I agree with that.

The boys over at Copper and Blue have recently come up with some new prospect criteria that I find to be more reliable than the “play this many games and you’re no longer a prospect” mentality. Instead of ranking “prospects” they decided to rank the most important players in the organization under the age of 25. A pretty good idea, but still leaves too much leeway for me. I don’t consider a player like Liam Reddox to be a prospect, mainly because I think we’ve got a good idea on what kind of NHL player he is. Meaning he is no longer a prospect, but in fact a marginal NHL player.

So, after shooting holes in everyone else’s theories, maybe I should come up with one of my own? Sure. I’ve toyed around with two ideas, and have settled on this.

A young hockey player shall be deemed a prospect until the completion of his entry-level contract. After such time, he will no longer be considered a prospect of the organization, and will graduate.

I’ve come to this conclusion for a couple of reasons. I feel that we the fans should have a clear picture of what a player can and cannot do after (in the majority) a player’s three-year entry level contract is complete. Such contracts are usually signed when a player reaches 20 years of age, two years after his draft. By this time, the organization will have had its hands on a player for five years. There are rare occasions when a player blossoms later than his entry-level contract, but for the most part we have a good idea on what kind of NHL player they will become.

I cite the case of Andrew Cogliano as proof that a prospect needs the full five years of “prospect” status. After his first season, Cogliano had 18 goals playing soft opposition with the best prospects in the Oilers system. Things were looking up, and many were touting him as a top-six forward for the next decade. Fast-forward two years later and he’s hit a wall. Were his first-year numbers the start of an upward curve? No. They were brought back to earth over the next two seasons and show us what Cogliano can be for an NHL team. A second to third line player who will contribute anywhere from 10 to 20 goals per season. Nothing special, but a proven talent after the completion of his entry-level contract.

Now there are some cases where a prospect doesn’t turn pro at 20. We’re going to see two examples of that this off-season. By my prospect grading system Taylor Hall or Tyler Seguin will graduate at the age of 21 instead of 23, and players like Chris VandeVelde and Linus Omark will be older than the age of 23 when they are no longer considered prospects. This is okay in my opinion because at the end of their entry-level contracts we will know how they can contribute to an NHL roster. There might still be room to grow for Hall/Seguin as there might still be for Sam Gagner, but let’s delay their prospect status beyond their 19th birthdays to get a good read on them.

It took me five years to become the educated man I am today. If I have my way, our prospects will be the same age and have the same amount of development time until they too are thrown to the wolves.