Quoting: JhonnyCanuck5
Probably the same number as you watched Red Wings games.
And you don’t have to be a scout to watch a game and see when a guy is constantly out of position, or skating slower than his counterparts, or losing battles in the corners, and so on. You can also see when teams tend to favor attacking one side of a D pairing over another. I’m not saying Hughes, Nemic and them won’t be great. And I’m not saying that Seider will be the next Lidstrom (greatest defenseman to ever play). But to say Seider doesn’t have Norris potential is just silly and shows your bias(which is fine, was all have it. But at least keep it reasonable).
And just to summarize my point about detroit, there are very evident holes in the roster when compared to NJD. Your lower tier prospects may all hit and fill those holes, but that's unlikely
Stars:
Hughes
Hischier Larkin
Meier
Bratt
Hamilton. Seider
Mercer Raymond
Finding 3 star quality players isn't easy
Potential Stars:
Hughes
Nemec Edvinsson
Holtz Kaspar
maybe you find someone in the draft or one of your prospects vastly overperforms their rank (these were the only 5 prospects+berrgen at 48 ranked in Wheeler's top 50, and they were all in his top 3 tiers) but I don't think they'll be Luke Hughes level
Quality long term pieces:
Siegenthaler
Marino
Palat
(Top 4 D, top 6 quality forwards, I'm not an expert on this, but I don't see one on Detroits D at all, but a few forwards might fit)
Potential future quality assets:
Casey Wallinder
Arseni Mazur
Soderblum
Berggren
2 draft picks
This is where I'd say detroit has the edge. But more depth prospects. I expect 2-4 to hit for Detroit, and 1-2 to hit for NJD.
Quality Starting Goalies:
Vitek. Husso
NJD has the edge but neither are 1A contenders.
Potential Starting Goalies
Schmid. Cossa
Schmid has been proven more (.922 sv% in 27 nhl games including playoffs this year), while cossa has more pedigreee.
Quality Depth Pieces:
NJD:
Haula
Mcleod
Yegor
Bahl
Again don't know what's a part of detroits long term plans, but depth is depth, and doesn't particularily matter (especially when NJD has good depth available and a fully fleshed out top 6 already (right now palat will be 3rd line likely)
Potential Depth
Walsh
Vilen
Foote
Clarke
I specifically don't see where/how Detroit makes up potentially 4 star players on NJD.