Prospect acquisition and development are integral to the success of any NHL organization. Bad teams rely on top young players to build new foundations. Good teams are constantly losing good players either due to aging or cap concerns and rely on infusions of young players to keep the engine running.
What is a prospect? There's no perfect definition that will account for every young player. For the sake of this article, the criteria will be the same as that for the Calder Trophy: they cannot have played 25 NHL games in any preceding season, six games in two or more seasons and be older than 26 by Sept.