Bob McKenzie's mid-season draft rankings: Schaefer the unanimous #1

[Riggins]

Matthew Schaefer a unanimous No. 1 in Bob McKenzie's Mid-season NHL Draft Ranking | TSN

"As far as I’m concerned,” one NHL head scout said, “[Matthew Schaefer] is No. 1 and he’s staying there - even if he never plays another game this season."

www.tsn.ca

Obligatory reminder: this is not Bob's opinion, he polls 10 scouts to come up with these rankings.

1. Schaefer
2. Hagens
3. Misa
4. Martone
5. Frondell
6. Desnoyers
7. McQueen
8. Eklund
9. O'Brien
10. Smith

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[Brodeur]

And here's the show in case you wanted to watch/listen.

 

[FriendlyGhost92]

Just tell me who works hard and plays a 200 ft game with limited offensive upside so I can accurately predict Detroit's pick.

 

[Castle8130]

Not a whole lot of surprises. Thought Cullen Potter at 20 was pretty high for how NHL scouts rank players. They must really see something in him to put a guy with his size/playstyle that high

Just tell me who works hard and plays a 200 ft game with limited offensive upside so I can accurately predict Detroit's pick.

You mean Brady Martin? Hahaha

 

[Hockeyville USA]

Jake O'Brien really moving up lists, nice to see. Carter Bear about where I expected at 15, think he could really move up.

Cole Reschny lower than I thought. Interested to see how high or low Cameron Schmidt will be at the end of the season; tiny but can absolutely fire the pill

 

[CheckingLineCenter]

Not surprised Schaefer is 1, he’s awesome. But very surprised it was unanimous.

 

[BigRangy]

Selfishly disappointed but not surprised that O’Brien is moving up, was hoping he’d slip to the 20s

 

[Stewie Griffin]

22 of the top 32 from CHL. Very strong canadian class.

 

[Czechboy]

I know you all want the Czech breakdown

Mrtka at 12 which seems to be showing up pretty consistently
Benak at 39 and Benak can go anywhere from 1OA to undrafted and working at Wendy's
Psenicka at 55 which is VERY encouraging.. he has yet to play, I think, in CHL but is moving over
Nestrasil at 59 - he's a riser with a slow start but he's a big boy and his latest USHL work is very encrouaging


Cihar at 66 - I'm hoping for round 2
Poletin at 67 - about right


If at actually went down like this I'd be very happy as 6 guys in top 100 would be great. Nice mix of Forwards and D.

 

[Mathieukferland]

Celebrini-Schaefer at 1C-1D would be fun to watch, basically have MacKinnon and Makar V2 for the next 15 years

 

[BKarchitect]

Celebrini-Schaefer at 1C-1D would be fun to watch, basically have MacKinnon and Makar V2 for the next 15 years

Yup, and Smith and Dickinson as the sidekicks is elite…to bad Schaefer isn’t RH but I’d think the Sharks would be fine with that 50 minutes of at least one of the two (Dickinson) on the ice each night.

 

[Hale The Villain]

That Cootes height/weight has to be a mistaken, right? 6'3 201lbs?

Just tell me who works hard and plays a 200 ft game with limited offensive upside so I can accurately predict Detroit's pick.

Hey it could be worse. As a Sens fan I just sort the list by PIM totals and that accurately predicts who they'll take.

 

[BKarchitect]

That’s the highest I’ve seen O’Brien, looks like he’s put some separation between himself and the Martin, Spence, Nesbitt grouping as the #3 OHL forward in the eyes of many.

 

[waitin425]

Yeah.....adding Schaefer to Celebrini or Bedard is wild. MacKinnon + Makar like pair.

If Buffalo wins the lottery....I could see them going forward, unless they trade away someone on the left side. They currently have Dahlin, Power, Byram and Samuelsson as left shot D men.

 

[tomd]

This draft is looking very mediocre. Good year not to have a 1st if you are not in the top 8-10.

 

[Fyodorov]

22 of the top 32 from CHL. Very strong canadian class.

On the contrary, I see it more as a case of the majority Canadian scouts/decisions makers continue to overvalue Canadian CHL players and as a result frequently pay a premium to draft inferior players.

 

[schuelma24]

The pro scouts really like Frondell compared to ... everyone else.

 

[Flynn84]

Bad year for Russian prospects. I mean skaters.

3 goalies in first 3 rounds are ok.

 

[Caser]

Bad year for Russian prospects. I mean skaters.

3 goalies in first 3 rounds are ok.

Interesting defensemen are out there too though.

 

[S E P H]

I feel there is too many CHLers on these lists, and not enough Europeans. This is a great year for Czech and Sweden and I barely see any of them in the first round.

 

[Hinterland]

I wonder which scouts McKenzie talked to when Jack Ivankovic was "the consensus nr.2 netminder" with the reason being that "he has been phenomenal in the OHL this season".

These guys are either complete morons or just haven't watched a lot of OHL. Central Scouting had Ivankovic ranked 5th among NA goalies and personally I think that's still incredibly generous.



Some other rather, uhm, interesting opinions:

- the highest scoring first year eligible defenseman in major juniors apparently can't make top80 + honorable mentions. Lol.
- Wang up at 3
- Zonnon down at 34

 

[jtechkid]

This could be a fun draft because after say top 8-12 the next group could really go anywhere from there to the third round .

 

[Rabid Ranger]

I think NHL scouts have lost the plot this year.

 

[Hinterland]

I feel there is too many CHLers on these lists, and not enough Europeans. This is a great year for Czech and Sweden and I barely see any of them in the first round.

Yet the highest scoring defenseman of CHL leagues didn't even make the list. I don't know but I've seen better lists from McKenzie. Not his final list so still room for improvement but I'm not sure who he talked to in order to put together this list.

 

[Hinterland]

Nevermind, Cameron Reid actually has a point more than Will Sharpe because he scored last night while Sharpe was unable to play. Still, point remains. Pretty crazy to think that Sharpe doesn't belong into a top80 plus HM's.