Smith at 13 is certainly a choice.
In their draft years I had Smith behind Michkov, Leonard and Reinbacher, what has Smith done to surpass these ? In my eyes he is still the same player. Mind you, is 13 that low ? Everyone above him was picked in the same range he was.
No, you’re pushing your agenda. Maybe if you want to be taken more serious given this is an “annual” list. You would take the obvious bias out of it.
If I was I would've ranked Michael Hage and Owen Beck much higher, they both didn't make my top 50, they both would be very arguable top 50 prospects.
The fact that HFB voted Nikishin 5th best prospect and you have him at 30 speaks for itself
Last year Brock Faber was 41st.
The year before Sanderson was 3rd above guys like Slafkovsky, Cooley, MacTavish and Johnston.
In 2021 Stutzle was 3rd and Lafreniere 1st. Jason Robertson and Kaiden Guhle were ranked outside the top 60. Behind Ryan Merkley and Liam Foudy.
In 2020, Cale Makar was ranked behind Kappo Kaako, Cole Caufield was 23rd, behind Ty Smith, Frost, Brannstrom and Podkolzin. Nick Suzuki was 34th. Jaosn Robertson was 48th.
Want me to keep going ?
Appreciate the effort in these lists
There’s of course some I strongly disagree with, notably Roy, who I’m actually very high on, but certainly not that high.
I also have no idea how ASP doesn’t make a top 50 list after the season he had
Who would you have him over ? He has a case, thats for sure. A lot of other prospects also have a case, Eiserman, Cowan, Hage, Danielson, Dvorsky, Yager, Nadeau, Beck
To me it mostly came down to Willander or him, it's tough to argue Willander has a lesser path to the NHL than ASP does, no ?
Surprising to see Geekie over But and Simashev. Small sample sizes but from what I saw I liked then both a lot more than Geekie.
I absolutely love Geekie. He's still a project, he's a wild player and he has a lot more skills thant he other two, who to me, are incredibly flawed players. But has no dynamic skills, handles the puck in a sub-par manner and his shooting is just ... ugh. Simashev is better, he skates well and handles the puck well. His offensive zone ability isn't that of a great player though. Then there's the POs where he didn't play, you'd hope eh would be handling at least a small role.
I still believe in Geekies potential, last year he didn't look good at all, he looked timid and didn't try his wild plays he did in his draft year. This year he's been back to his regular shenanigans making high skill plays and pushign the pace. I know he's risky and he may end up a dud that never makes it, but I see an actual skilled top line C in him.
You have Yakemchuk too high. Guy is overrated as hell but I guess it’s fitting he got drafted by the Sens.
Yakemchuk was ranked right above Helenius in my draft rankings, they way over shot with him and I actually laughed pretty hard because if there was one player that needed to be carefully developped, its him, I think he busts now, but there we go, no bad faith Ill still have him there.
Where would you have him ?
Reinbacher, Wright and Firkus are way too high,ASP, Simashev and Cowan should be on anyone’s top 50 aswell in my opinion. I like lists that are out of the ordinary though, consensus usually ages horribly so I appreciate people making a unique list based on there own thoughts only. Clearly a big fan of Roy, I love the player as well but I don’t think he has high enough potential to be that high on the top 50 list.
Disagree on Simashev, read the answer two quotes up. Cowan I already answered too in a previous post. There's players that will be left off the list. Who would you have them over ?
People talking crap about bias as if they don't have bias of their own; as if there was an objective list to be made out there.
Also, people complaining about X player being 5 spots low/high as if there was a clear cut difference between 10 and 15, 20 and 25 or whatnot. Maybe a list of prospects in different tiers instead of a ranking like this would help some of you guys sleep better.
I do believe some Habs prospects to be a bit high, but look at the ODD backlash; "Reinbacher in the thirties"; give me a break
Thanks for the list Mrb1p; I may not agree with it entirely, but it's better than any list I could have come up with.
Thanks for the support.
That was my first thought as well and his team mates probably projects better as well and I thought he meant Yager but top 10 is too high for with guy.
Yager projects better in a way where his game could end up being simple and low-event. Kind of like say, Carl Hagelin. Firkus's game, if it translates, has one outcome, star player. (I think Yager could end up being somethign like prime Max Pacioretty too, but for that to happen he'd have to progress his game beyond just up and down hockey. We will know more next year once he's out of the Dub, a league that actually emphasizes rush offense. )
The thing about Wright is that it is fine to rank him there but then you have Stank sooo low and he did much better in the AHL and NHL.
What is the relation between Stankoven and Wright ? Yes Stankoven outproduced him in the AHL, with that said I don't think Stankoven has a greater potential. I think a lot of people get lost in production and don't actually take the time to consider things such as skillsets. I think Stankoven will struggle to play his game at the next level and he may end up being a 2nd line tweener that is, certainly very useful to a team, kind of like Ondrej Palat or Yanni Gourde, meanwhile Wright still flashes that high end potential and he certainly did so in this years playoffs.
ASP had a pretty historic season, imo impressed more than about half the list. It’s your opinion, but mine is he’s closer to top 20 than outside the top 50.
He impressed in a league that is not the NHL. He impressed about the same as Runblad did. Of course , Im not saying he's Rundblad 2.0, I think he's a player, but just like with Stankoven, there's a time where skillset has to take over for production or lower league success. ASP needs to produce to be an effective D in the NHL, has he shown that he can be a top 20ish producer ? Mind you, I don't think he got PP time in the SHL, but he probably won't get PP time in the NHL either. Beyond the title he got, which I think is... weird ? What is his real potential ?
Miroschnikenko over Yurov and Nikishin is a real head scratcher. But you’ll never please everyone with these lists. Here is mine
- Celebrini
- Michkov
- Gauthier
- Smith
- Nikishin
- Mateychuk
- Leonard
- Demidov
- Lindstrom
- ASP
- Buium
- Levshunov
- Yurov
- Sennecke
- Catton
- Wright
- Silayev
- Musty
- Danielson
- Nazar
- Iginla
- Reinbacher
- Parekh
- Yakemchuk
- Willander
- Hutson
- Dickinson
- Wood
- Stankoven
- Kemell
- Kulich
- Dvorsky
- Bischel
- Geekie
- C.Ritchie
- Perreault
- Ohgren
- Helenius
- Casey
- Yager
- Stolberg
- Lekkerimaki
- Roy
- Casey
- Firkus
- Bourque
- Savoie
- Miroschnichenko
- Rinzel
- Luneau
Forgot Simashev, Brindley & Coronato. Probably son others too
Why do you believe Mico should be ranked behind those ? I find he has a better skillset than Yurov. Of course theyre both better than him at the moment, but Im not sure they have a better future.
Im gonna put my homer glasses on and ask what a guy like Brindley has to do to be a higher rated prospect? Like I see Nazar at 20 when Brindley brings more and has been better so far offensively which is Nazar's thing
Same reason as Nadeau, Cowan, Simashev, etc. Theres a lot of good prospects out there. Brindley lacks top end potential and he certainly does not have the offensive potential of Nazar.
Nazars been injured for a whole season, one would think it's normal he took a step back. Brindley also played like 1 game away from McGro and Nazar, while Nazar got a bit of the Draisaitl treatment and played a bunch of games on the 2nd line. I'll also put forward that Brindleys game is a lot tougher to translate as a very small body than Nazars.
Yeah he deserved to be there. I just missed him. I do like Nazar a bit more at NHL level but Brindley is a player
I do agree Brindley is a player, I like him a lot.
ASP is a big omition.
Winning best D in the SHL is quite the D+1 feat.
See up.
3 points
- Stars prospects always seem to get underrated, is it because of the small market thing or not who knows? But they consistently develop some of the best young players in this league
- Kraken seem way overrated. Not sure I'd have any of their guys in fhe top 20. Actually I'm pretty sure before taking a serious look of all the current prospects, I'd have them outside the top 20.
- Lastly, to everyone moaning about Hutson. Hutson is better than mist prospects on this list in terms of nhl readiness, achievements and potential. Damn be draft pedigree. They mean nothing a couple or so years after the draft. I'd argue even one year after the draft is when they lose most of the relevancy.
P.s. I agree Roy should not at all be considered in the top 50 prospect ranking. There are way better prospects without some of his major holes such as slow skating. Though players like him are likelier to hit their floor and end up better than a good chunk of these prospects who lean more into boom or bust territory
Stars are probably the best team at drafting.
Thats harsh on the Kraken, especially as they picked twice in the top 6 in the past two seasons.
Roy was the Habs 3rd best forward the moment he hit the ice for us, I know it's hard to believe we actually have a good one in a sea of terrible forwards we've had in the past 6 decades, but this one is good, his skating deficiencies are way overstated.
Amazing how Anaheim always has three or four dudes on these lists yet never gets any better.
That's true, but they have been shipping out talent at an astronomical rate and their scouting mainly sucked at finding forwards. They blew a tire with the Zegras selection when Boldy was right there.
I’m only judging on the NCAA perspective as that ls what I know.
Nazar over Perrault is a big Oooofffff
Nadeau was better than Nazar
Nadeau was good and I debated him a long while over Perrault. I don't agree that Nazar shouldn't be over Perrault, there's a whole lot more translatable game in Nazar than Perrault, even if I recognize that Nazar hasn't been the best in the NCAA.
So from the eyes of a homer, to be a homer OP would have to have him relatively high in the top 50 as opposed to just being on the list at all. Checks out.
If I was such a homer, surely I would've found a way to fit in a guy picked in the 20s this year and two guys picked in the late first two years ago in the top 50, no ?
What steps did you see Lane Hutson (with virtually identical stats) take to rank up 17 spots exactly?
Sounds stupid, but the pro games he played alleviated a lot of the worries I had. Just seeing him outskate players, duck over much bigger ones and seeing him absolutely dominate the offensive zone for two games let me breathe a little. I also have seen Hutson's skating sky-rocket in term of speed, pivot and balance from D year to D+2. I was watching him this year in the NCAA and I kept telling myself :"Did he just get really fast or is that me dreaming?" Seeing him do it in the NHL put out a whole different perspective.
Anyway, it's mostly about the skating, it would be pretty disingenuous to act like Hutson is the exact same player because his stats didn't move.
Yes. 4 Habs in the top 18. Not Homerish at all.
If I was such a homer, why didn't I include Hage, Beck, Engstrom, Mailloux and Mesar ? Surely I could've found a way to argue it.
They both spent the majority of their seasons in the AHL. Flames were in the playoff hunt until the deadline. Coronato started the year in the NHL.
Coronato was over a point per game in 41 games in the AHL. Roy was 0.78 points per game. But let's look at smaller sample size being placed in completely different situations.
Roy went up and never looked back. He only slowed down because of injuries. Also, Roy was over a PPG for 25+ games before they completely decimated the roster by calling up Armia, Stephens, Condotta, Xhekaj, Struble and with injuries to Andersson, Simoneau, Heineman, etc. The roster was completely diminished and they spent the year mostly defending. He came up with the Habs anyway and was instantly the 3rd best forward behind Slaf and Nick, and he produced at a very good rate despite not getting PP time and playing with Anderson, Armia and Newhook (Whos good). His PP time consisted of plying with Gallagher, RHP, Ylonen, Armia and Anderson. His 2nd assists, PDO, shooting % were all below average too, which indicates it was not lead by luck.
From the games Ive seen, Coronato has spent most of his time with Kadri, Backlund and Coleman. Why did Roy severely outproduce him ?
You can laugh at the Habs and how bad they were, and probably still will be, but it's not all bad every where.