The Other Stars: Lian Bichsel's offense is starting to cook, Chase Wheatcroft, and November's prospect rankings

Dallas' prospect picture starts to clear.

Now that the Dallas Stars have officially solved all of their problems (kidding, although it certainly felt that way last night versus the Penguins), we can focus on the Dallas’ pipeline.

At the beginning of the year, the reaction to the current talent level of the Stars prospects was pretty lukewarm. They’vee graduated all their best players, and so here we sit. Has anything changed? Not really. It’s still an average prospect system at this point. However, that’s not to say the players themselves aren’t changing. And that’s why I’m comfortable with posting my updated prospect rankings.

To recap, these rankings are my own. My general philosophy on prospects is that while development happens at different rates for different players, quicker development tends to imply higher ceilings. It’s why players like Macklin Celebrini, Matvei Michkov, and Wyatt Johnston seem to figure things out sooner — because they already had it figured out.

For this reason, I am not counting players aged 23 and up. Yes, Justin Hryckowian is a solid player for the Texas Stars, and could even crack an NHL roster in the future, but the chances are slim. Because of that, I rate older players lower on average, and younger players higher on average in proportion to performance. Just something to keep in mind. So here we go.

The big risers are Antonio Stranges, Brad Gardiner, Chase Wheatcroft, and Tristan Bertucci, who I had ranked much lower before the season. Part of this is because Dallas’ prospect goalies aren’t having great seasons, and the other part is that they’ve done a really great job in a league that is much tougher, in the AHL. While Gardiner and Bertucci are CHL products, Gardiner is close to the lead in points despite not playing top line minutes, and Bertucci is a big part of the Barrie Colts’ blueline in all situations.

With that out the way, today the focus is on Lian Bichsel, Antonio Stranges, Chase Wheatcroft, and Emil Hemming.