Thanks for sharing! Would love to hear your reasoning for Ruckdäschel+Sumpf ahead of Bicker and Niehus ahead of Panocha. Ruckdäschel, to me, doesn’t do anything at a level necessary to be drafted. And Niehus was one of the big disappointments of the season. Panocha on the other hand, and I think I’ve mentioned this before, is who I think has the best draft chances among Germans this year.
TLDR: My rankings may have a consistency problem, thank you for making me realise that, and limited viewings hurt Panocha's ranking.
Full reply:
Before I get into the details, I'll admit there is an incosistency here in particular when it comes to assessing Bicker and Niehus compared to the others.
I had the same problem with Bicker and Niehus that they did not look too impressive in the DNL, a league they should frankly dominate or at least they should stand out way more than they did, and I was way harder on Bicker than I was on Niehus here, otherwise I would have either dropped Niehus a spot or two or I would have kept Bicker at the 2 spot or at worst the 3 spot.
This is where only working on the rankings for a short time here and there, whenever I found a little time probably hurt the consistency. If we ignore that inconsistency for a second the following was my reasoning:
Ruckdäschel over Bicker:
Bicker has more gamebreaking potential and the higher ceiling, but I like Ruckdäschel's game a lot. Unlike Bicker he has been remarkably consistent for a young player, whenever I watched him and I also like his defensive play better. Not that Bicker is bad in that regard, he is a dangerous penalty killer for example, but overall I think Ruckdäschel is the smarter and better player in his own zone. Combine that with the disappointing offense from Bicker in the DNL and I went with Ruckdäschel over him by a hair. All three, including Sumpf were very close, and even Brandl was not that far ahead.
Sumpf over Bicker:
This was a tricky one. I have seen Bicker more than Sumpf, who I watched mostly on the national team, where he outperformed Bicker as far as I am concerned. Not by a mile, but to noticeable degree. There were a few instances where the team was playing bad and Sumpf seemingly just decided to take over and to create a couple of chances by himself. That was basically the tie breaker for me. Again these three are incredibly close for me.
Niehus over Panocha:
First, I want to thank you for making me look back into this, because I just noticed a mistake in my ranking not in the positions, but in the rating. Panocha should have a "C" rating same as the 5 above him. I'll correct that in a minute after I finish this post.
Now we go back to the incosistency because, if I had followed the same arguments for the decision between Niehus and Panocha, I probably would have swapped those two. Because where I was choosing the higher floor (in my opinion) over the higher ceiling in the Sumpf, Ruckdäschel, Bicker situation, I went the other way with Niehus and Panocha.
While Niehus' season was a far cry from last year, where he seemed like a much better prospect, he still shows these flashes of brilliance that make him very intriguing for me, even if I have come to doubt his hockey iq a little more this season. I also sometimes have trouble "letting go" of a player I fell in love with at some point earlier. I had a similar problem with Kechter last year, and several others over the years who were less prominent.
But what hurt Panocha the most compared to Niehus as far as my ranking is concerned is that I just didn't get to watch him a whole lot compared to almost everyone else. His DEL appearances were to short to take anything away from and I did not see a lot of DNL games of him, which probably put him at a disadvantage.
I believe it was In the Bicker thread in the prospect section, where you first mentioned that you think Panocha has the best odds at being drafted.
He had been a riser for me throughout the season, but I thought that was overrating him, because even if I have never seen him play a bad game in the few I have seen, I did not see anything that I felt would attract the attention of NHL scouts. Since that initial reaction I thought a bit more about it and while I still don't agree (again based on a fairly small sample size) I can see where you might be coming from.
I may have, in my head, conflated NHL or North American media, who respond favorably to flashy attention grabbing hockey (like Bicker at the Hlinka),
with NHL scouts, who might have more appreciation for Panocha's game.
Still, I want to see more from him and hopefully I'll get the chance at the WJC U18 in April.
Btw, in order to make the rankings more consistent even if I have to work on them with breaks of sometimes several days in between, I am playing around with a new rating system, similar to the old HF system where players had grades like 8.5 B or 7.0 C etc.
I will probably not use that same format, but I am trying to create a score for each player that reflects my assessment of their floor, their ceiling and the likelihood they reach that ceiling. But that is something for the offseason. If I can come up with something that works I will start using it next season.
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