Never knew this existed and just wanted to thank you, Stupendous Yappi, for holding it down for me.
It wasn't dumb luck. Being Canadian, we were exposed to Allen a lot because of the WJC. I had the faith, but when all of your best friends are goaltenders, and you have a clear edge in a specific position, it tends to work in your favor.
The hardest part about tracking Blues' prospects at the time is there were a handful of similar guys, fighting for similar jobs, with inches of separation. Rattie had a lot of POTENTIAL, and that's how HF grading worked. How high is the player's potential and what is the probability of hitting it. FYI, I was not responsible for the grading, so there was an inherent need to try and match the grading system with the ranks.
I've actually enjoyed looking back on some of these given the fact that you "professional scouts" have been even more off than I was, which is part of the game in prospect analysis, regardless of the sport.
The way I see it, that Stanley Cup vs. my rankings of prospects was not that bad at all, and the average time for development is such a wide range. I took a huge break from hockey since it got boring with limited skill and now I'm just seeing all the guys I liked 5-6 years ago hit their prime.
I'm absolutely loving the passion from the keyboard warriors who believe they are Ms. Cleo when it comes to hockey prospects. Best of luck, y'all.
Hit a nice +900 on y'all to beat the Canadiens by 2 goals or more a few nights ago and all I could think was, this was for all the work I put in to know your team.