Realistic player comps for Dallas Stars top prospects

If you’ve read my work before you probably know I’ve become a prospect curmudgeon.

It’s just the reality of how my career has gone covering the Dallas Stars. I started covering the organization as an AHL beat writer more than a decade ago, and realized over time most of these “prospects” will never sniff an NHL roster.

It’s why I’m not a huge fan of team-based prospect ranking stories. After the fifth or sixth-ranked prospect, it’s a bunch of AHL filler and seventh defenders in waiting.

At one of my other places, EP Rinkside, they ranked the Stars prospects 1 through 13, from Logan Stankoven all the way down to Jack Bar.

Here was the EP Rinkside list. Players have to still be eligible for the Calder Memorial Trophy as NHL rookie of the year to be considered “prospects” for this exercise.

1. Logan Stankoven
2. Mavrik Bourque
3. Lian Bichsel
4. Emil Hemming
5. Aram Minnetian
6. Ayrton Martino
7. Tristan Bertucci
8. Matthew Seminoff
9. Christian Kyrou
10. Antonio Stranges
11. Angus McDonnell
12. Connor Punnett
13. Jack Bar

It’s a top-heavy group, after the first four on the list, I’d bet the final nine would combine for close to a 20 or so NHL games collectively in their careers.

Minnetian could be an NHL regular, but to me profiles very much like a Joel Hanley type. A reliable enough defender, that can run the power play at the AHL level when needed.

Martino also has a chance because he plays a style that coaches love. He’s aggressive on the forecheck and smart defensively, he’ll also score in the AHL. In most NHL organizations he’d likely be a future third-line player, but the Stars long-term depth and Jim Nill’s typical approach to forward depth roles — proven NHLers on team-friendly deals — doesn’t bode well for Martino.

So I don’t want to waste too much time trying to project future AHLers. That’s too much of a niche conversation for my phone calls with my pal Stephen Meserve, the braintrust behind 100 Degree Hockey and my co-author on We Win Here.

But I think we can look at historical comps for the Stars core-four prospects, something to at least give fans an idea of how Stankoven, Bourque, Bichsel, and Hemming could project in the NHL.

Logan Stankoven: shades of Pat Verbeek

I stole this comp from Stars GM Jim Nill when he and I spoke this summer while watching the World Junior Summer Showcase. Stankoven isn’t going to be nasty like Verbeek, who was nicknamed the “Little ball of hate,” but they are very similar players in how they use their leverage as shorter players with low-center of gravity.

Stankoven was one of the AHL’s most impressive players last season, and continued to play well in the NHL, because he constantly won so many battles you wouldn’t expect him to win with his stature. Stankoven goes well into board battles, gets leverage, and then is able to make plays out of the battle because of his passing vision.

Mavrik Bourque: shades of Nick Suzuki

Bourque isn’t as fast or as flashy as the Montréal Canadiens captain. He’s also likely not going to be a 30-goal scorer the way Suzuki was this past season. But Bourque and Suzuki create for others in very similar ways, working as connectors that string together quick passes in transition and create space in the offensive zone by manipulating time and space.

Bourque has a bit of that “it factor,” as well. At the AHL level he was the guy in big moments. Being at the right time and the right place is a skill, both on the ice and within game situations.

Lian Bichsel: shades of what Jamie Oleksiak was supposed to be

Jamie Oleksiak has pieced together a nice NHL career. He’s getting paid handsomely now by the Seattle Kraken and you can’t take that away from him. But he never lived up to the expectation or dreams the Stars had when they drafted him as a 6-foot-7 defender who could be a taller modern-day version of Derian Hatcher.

Bichsel is slightly shorter, 6-foot-6, but he’s a violent and physical defender. He’s very bold in his playmaking decisions and has no issue punishing opponents around the net. Bichsel took an odd path last season, playing in both the SHL and AHL, but he’s progressed nicely and is probably the closest thing the Stars have had to a throwback defender in a long time.

Emil Hemming: shades of Nick Paul with a better shot.

I watched Hemming in person for the first time this summer at the World Junior Summer Showcase and a scout from a different NHL team compared him to the Tampa Bay Lightning forward. Having watched some film of Hemming for this project, I can see it.

Hemming is a well-rounded forward that is reliable defensively with a heavy shot that could escalate him, at time, further up a lineup. The high-end skill is noticeable at times, but it’s his ability to play in all situations that will help him reach the NHL and earn coaches trust first. Once he does that, his ability to score from anywhere will help him move up the lineup. The key for Hemming will be earning coaches trust, because that’s effectively the difference between the Daniel Sprongs and Nick Paul’s of the world.