Elite Prospects 2024 DRAFT Guide

[CaptainShark]

The (IMHO) best of all the great draft guides will be available in a few hours, really looking forward to digging in and finalizing my personal rankings within the next week or so…

https://www.eliteprospects.com/nhl-draft-guide

 

[CaptainShark]

Haven’t spent too much time with it yet, what stands out to me when looking at the rankings:

Iginla @6
Senecke @9
Yakemchuk @17

They have Connelly @14 for reasons well documented but view him as a top-5-talent

 

[barriers]

Can you buy the guide alone or is access limited to EP Premium subscribers? If only available with a sub, do they allow you to download it?

 

[CaptainShark]

If you subscribe to EP-premium for one month, you can download it.

 

[DavidStLouis]

Hello!

Thank you so much for promoting our guide. We think it's our best one yet. It features 400+ player profiles, manually tracked stats, NHL scouts quotes, and more than 5500 individual game reports. There's also a lighter version for those who don't want all the game reports. (I suggest you download the full version if you want more info on players, however).

It's available with a monthly subscription. And you also get access to the https://eprinkside.com/ platform with it and plenty of interesting search functions on Elite Prospects website. We will have dozens of articles on the draft over the next few weeks.

It's a pretty good deal, if you ask me.

Like last year, I can answer questions about prospects and our process here.

Here's our updated top-32.

 

[SannywithoutCompy]

Hello!

Thank you so much for promoting our guide. We think it's our best one yet. It features 400+ player profiles, manually tracked stats, NHL scouts quotes, and more than 5500 individual game reports. There's also a lighter version for those who don't want all the game reports. (I suggest you download the full version if you want more info on players, however).

It's available with a monthly subscription. And you also get access to the https://eprinkside.com/ platform with it and plenty of interesting search functions on Elite Prospects website. We will have dozens of articles on the draft over the next few weeks.

It's a pretty good deal, if you ask me.

Like last year, I can answer questions about prospects and our process here.

You guys seem a lot lower on Luchanko than I'd expect. Is it just the lack of a shooting threat or are there other areas of his game that you think make him less projectable as a top 6 guy?

 

[DavidStLouis]

You guys seem a lot lower on Luchanko than I'd expect. Is it just the lack of a shooting threat or are there other areas of his game that you think make him less projectable as a top 6 guy?

We love the two-way and pressure game and the skating. For a time this season, that's pretty much all we saw in his skill-set, but we warmed up to his scoring skills as the season went on. He's really good at making short passes in transition and give-and-goes. He drives inside and the puck steals he create will result in more points.

We don't see as much high-level playmaking and scoring ability in his game as others, however. He rarely deceive and manipulate defenders. He doesn't control the game, but mostly relies on his pace/work-rate advantage. And so we see him more as a middle-six center. NHL teams tend to want size in the middle, too, so that may affect his career.

He’s one of the youngest players in the draft and probably has more room for development as a result. This was also only his first season in a big role in the OHL.

 

[Hockeyville USA]

Terik Parascak snubbed

 

[DavidStLouis]

Terik Parascak snubbed

He's at 36, however, so not too far from the first-round. We appreciate his hockey sense, especially his ability to find soft spots around the ice, exploit the defence, and stay connected with teammates. But his skating, at his size, makes him harder to project to an NHL role. There are some special elements in his skill-set, but ranking him 36th is managing risk.

There's a good chance he gets drafted much lower than that, from the NHL intel we have.

His profile reminds me a bit of Joshua Roy, personally. He could very well beat the odds.

 

[Kshahdoo]

So no Yegor Surin in the 1st round?

 

[Hockeyville USA]

He's at 36, however, so not too far from the first-round. We appreciate his hockey sense, especially his ability to find soft spots around the ice, exploit the defence, and stay connected with teammates. But his skating, at his size, makes him harder to project to an NHL role. There are some special elements in his skill-set, but ranking him 36th is managing risk.

There's a good chance he gets drafted much lower than that, from the NHL intel we have.

His profile reminds me a bit of Joshua Roy, personally. He could very well beat the odds.

I love that he goes to the net and bangs in dirty goals, plus his ability to find soft spots on the ice, as you mentioned. I will continue to say that it's incredibly impressive he went from minor hockey to over 100 points in the Dub in one year's time. As a result, I have him extremely high on my board; the only person who has him super high in the public sphere is Craig Button.

 

[95snipes]

I was curious about something if you would be willing to answer. When you guys put out those player cards with the various shooting / passing / transition / etc z scores, what is the dataset behind those calculations?

This is what I'm talking about-

 

[DavidStLouis]

So no Yegor Surin in the 1st round?

No. Lassi Alanen, our top EU scout, likes him a bit more. He works really hard, forechecks with intensity, disrupt the opposition, and the handlling skills are high-end. But he has a lot of junior scorer tendencies: attacking defenders straight-on, trying to dangle them, and he misses a lot of better plays he could make. We have some significant hockey sense concerns.

That's partly because he plays in the MHL. It's a league that teaches a lot of bad habits. When he transitions to professional hockey, I'm not sure the creativity will be all that translatable. For us, he projects more as a pressure machine, bottom-six forward with occasional flashes of skill.

 

[DavidStLouis]

I was curious about something if you would be willing to answer. When you guys put out those player cards with the various shooting / passing / transition / etc z scores, what is the dataset behind those calculations?

This is what I'm talking about-

Mitch Brown tracks entire teams. So for Lindstrom, these marks are based on his own abilities/results in these categories versus his teammates, to remove some system/team-strength biases. And then it's percentile rank in the database. So someone with a 99 or 100 score is in the very top of that database Most top-end prospects will have exceptional cards because they're much better than the leagues average.

Eleven games tracked might not seem like a lot, but it's thousands of events. Mitch Brown finds that, for most teams, the data tends to stabilize after 8-9 games tracked. For high-event teams like Medicine Hat Tigers or the London Knights, he needs more games.

There's always a margin for error here, but it's extra info that proves very useful to separate a player from their context. A player, placed in a strong team, might score a ton, but they might show some clear flaws in their tracked profiles.

For example, Terik Parascak.

The poor transition results are a bit concerning. He relies on others to transport the puck while he finds space. This profile fits with skating issues. It helps us see past production.

 

[DavidStLouis]

I love that he goes to the net and bangs in dirty goals, plus his ability to find soft spots on the ice, as you mentioned. I will continue to say that it's incredibly impressive he went from minor hockey to over 100 points in the Dub in one year's time. As a result, I have him extremely high on my board; the only person who has him super high in the public sphere is Craig Button.

Parascak is the kind of player that would have featured much, much higher on our previous boards. We tend to shy away from these smart player who score predominantly with off-puck movements and who have pace/skating issues as a group now because we missed on a few of them previously. We were very high on Francesco Pinelli, for example. Not the exact same type of player, but he fits the general profile. Parascak is more inside-driven, like you said. His production is certainly incredible and we respect that.

Daniel Gee, our Western scout, likes him a lot. He would have had him in our first-round for sure. And like I said before, he has a Joshua Roy vibe, too. Same kind of tracked stats profile. And that guy is figuring it out. Maybe if Parascak becomes dominant defensively, it will help his NHL transition.

 

[95snipes]

Mitch Brown tracks entire teams. So for Lindstrom, these marks are based on his own abilities/results in these categories versus his teammates, to remove some system/team-strength biases. And then it's percentile rank in the database. So someone with a 99 or 100 score is in the very top of that database Most top-end prospects will have exceptional cards because they're much better than the leagues average.

Eleven games tracked might not seem like a lot, but it's thousands of events. Mitch Brown finds that, for most teams, the data tends to stabilize after 8-9 games tracked. For high-event teams like Medicine Hat Tigers or the London Knights, he needs more games.

There's always a margin for error here, but it's extra info that proves very useful to separate a player from their context. A player, placed in a strong team, might score a ton, but they might show some clear flaws in their tracked profiles.

For example, Terik Parascak.

View attachment 879469

The poor transition results are a bit concerning. He relies on others to transport the puck while he finds space. This profile fits with skating issues. It helps us see past production.

Thank you for the reply. An impressive amount of work goes into that.

 

[Castle8130]

Not the biggest fan of Sacha Boisvert. I saw you guys are part of the few that had him over Hage. I see a lot of red flags in his overrall game, especially turnovers. What did he do this year that impressed you so much? @DavidStLouis

 

[DavidStLouis]

Not the biggest fan of Sacha Boisvert. I saw you guys are part of the few that had him over Hage. I see a lot of red flags in his overrall game, especially turnovers. What did he do this year that impressed you so much? @DavidStLouis

Personally, I don't see it at all with Boisvert. I like the shot, occasionally, and the power game, occasionally.

The USHL is a weird league to scout. Players are often very raw and they don't always get the best environment to showcase their skills because of lower teammates quality. And I know I don't have the best grasp of these prospects so I tend to defer more.

Mitch Brown watches a ton of USHL hockey. Every eligible prospect for hours and hours and hours. And he sees it with Boisvert. He believes in the development he will have in the NCAA And others on our team, too.

Here's one of his reports.

 

[Castle8130]

Personally, I don't see it at all with Boisvert. I like the shot, occasionally, and the power game, occasionally.

The USHL is a weird league to scout. Players are often very raw and they don't always get the best environment to showcase their skills because of lower teammates quality. And I know I don't have the best grasp of these prospects so I tend to defer more.

Mitch Brown watches a ton of USHL hockey. Every eligible prospect for hours and hours and hours. And he sees it with Boisvert. He believes in the development he will have in the NCAA And others on our team, too.

Here's one of his reports.

View attachment 879484

Thanks for the input!

Love your stuff keep at it! He reminds me a lot of players drafted in the later part of the 1st round/early second that look like busts because of lower hockey IQ; Xavier Bourgault, Serron Noel, Jay'Obrien are the guys that come to mind. I just don't have a good feeling about him

 

[badfish]

How do you make changes to your approach based on previous years results? Surely there were times in the past you've missed the mark on players, or have nailed it where others had missed out?

 

[HockeyRobinson]

How do you make changes to your approach based on previous years results? Surely there were times in the past you've missed the mark on players, or have nailed it where others had missed out?

Hey Everyone! I can jump in on this one.. We are CONSTANTLY reevaluating and considering our past successes and mistakes. For instance, we've learned a great deal from ranking skilled players with good size who lack pace and urgency. Additionally, we've refined our approach to smaller, skilled players. You need to have such a high level of skating and compete to go along with puck skills/IQ/shot, etc in order to succeed.

As for bigger, toolsy defenders, we've come around to the fact that you don't necessarily need to have elite hockey sense if you can skate, battle, and have appropriate levels of skill and size. Effort is key.

 

[Sombastate]

Just curious how you guys feel on the 8th-16th spots. Do you think that's a BPA area, or "draft for need" based on the presumed available talent in that area.

 

[DavidStLouis]

Just curious how you guys feel on the 8th-16th spots. Do you think that's a BPA area, or "draft for need" based on the presumed available talent in that area.

NHL teams seem to draft more and more for need at the top of the draft. And in this class especially, I think it's a defendable strategy. The prospects ranked 3 to 15 on our board have about the same value anyway. You can target the one that fit the best in your system.

I used to be against this strategy completely, but now I understand that so much of the success of prospects come from fit and environment. If you have an open spot on your top-line for a powerforward and there's a player that fits that need in the draft, he will have a much better chance of success entering such a top role next to talented line-mates than another player who has to fight for a role.

 

[EbonyRaptor]

NHL teams seem to draft more and more for need at the top of the draft. And in this class especially, I think it's a defendable strategy. The prospects ranked 3 to 15 on our board have about the same value anyway. You can target the one that fit the best in your system.

I used to be against this strategy completely, but now I understand that so much of the success of prospects come from fit and environment. If you have an open spot on your top-line for a powerforward and there's a player that fits that need in the draft, he will have a much better chance of success entering such a top role next to talented line-mates than another player who has to fight for a role.

Which leads me to think you have Celebrini and Demidov clearly above the players in the 3-15 range. How closely do you have Celebrini and Demidov rated?

 

[PittsburghHustlers]

Hello!

Thank you so much for promoting our guide. We think it's our best one yet. It features 400+ player profiles, manually tracked stats, NHL scouts quotes, and more than 5500 individual game reports. There's also a lighter version for those who don't want all the game reports. (I suggest you download the full version if you want more info on players, however).

It's available with a monthly subscription. And you also get access to the https://eprinkside.com/ platform with it and plenty of interesting search functions on Elite Prospects website. We will have dozens of articles on the draft over the next few weeks.

It's a pretty good deal, if you ask me.

Like last year, I can answer questions about prospects and our process here.

Here's our updated top-32.

View attachment 879430View attachment 879431

Amazing work as always! My #1 draft guide.