Who has the best OVERALL prospect pool in the NHL?

[startainfection*]

The Oilers got an early start when we took Gagner, Eberle, and MPS before we bottomed out and got Hall.

and the islanders got an early start when they drafted comeau, neilsen, macdonald and okposo a few years ago and a few steals when they picked up hillen and moulson when no one heard about them and also thanks for rob schremp

the isles roster is tons better then then the oilers

 

[Qvist]

Whatever dude, earlier in the thread you admitted you dont know jack about the Isles prospects anyway, so theres no point in trying to convince you anything. LOL WHO NEEDS DEPTH? BLUE CHIPS!

Forgive me if I'm bias, as I am an Isles fan. Not saying were the best, but your slander against the team and its prospects is ridiculous. To claim that they are not even top ten is ridiculous. Our 20th rated prospect on HF led the USHL in scoring for gods sakes.

Get a grip on yourself man, you're raving. I don't know much first-hand about the Isles prospects, no. Which is why it is a sensible approach to them to not assume that they're all great just because of the enthusiasm of their fans. If they really are that great, then surely people like the NHL scouts whose input goes into the FW would have noticed. And oh, by the way, you're in exactly the same situation yourself with regard to the players of the 29 teams you have to compare the Islanders with.

When you're starting to use words like "slander against the team" because someone has a lower opinion of it than yourself , you're in fan psychosis territory and need to pull yourself together.

 

[Qvist]

Well, I believe in having different types of players. To me Hall, MPS and Eberle are quite simular. Oilers lack defence prospects and not sure about their goalie prospects. That's why they aren't in my top5.

Obviously, that is the ideal thing. But it is still much better to get three high-impact players of the same kind than two of different kinds. Players can also be traded.

If you gonna compair NYI and Oliers prospects, its only fair to ask someone about Tavares or Hall. Both first overall, one year apart. And then you can ask if you would take MPS and Eberle over Niederreiter and Bailey. Bailey was drafted the same year as Eberle, so that Bailey played on a team letting him get his chance shouldn't matter in this discusion about who you'd pick then.
I know that Bailey and Tavares isn't prospect, but they were drafted the same year so it really shouldn't matter in a case where you have to pick one over the other, because a team choose to develope their players differently.

You could well look at it on that basis, but if you do, then it's a different ball game and the rankings look different. Mine doesn't reflect that basis.

Yeah, Minnesota added Granlund, but that doesn't mean that they jump the prospect list. Other teams picked great prospects too, and Wild clearly has one of the weakest prospect pools in the league. Every team has some decent players like you mentioned, but Wild is in the bottom 5 of prospect pools (probably bottom 3 too).

Well, I beg to differ. Not that I think they are strong, but I'd rather have Granlund than five decent but not blue-chip prospects - and that's pretty much the difference between a deep and shallow prospect pool.

 

[Qvist]

Your right, Mahachek doesn't have a very good shot at winning the open 3rd line winger spot. Kulda isn't basically the 6th/7th d-men onthe roster.

Your reasoning for putting Atlanta 24th on your list was because they traded away a lot of their prospects. They traded away Morin and Vishnevsky, just two players. So somehow they go from being top 7 to being bottom 7 just because they traded away those 2?

The only changes since the last rankings was trading those 2 and adding more from the draft. I never even said they were one of the better ones. They are obviously one of the more underrated prospect pools as you have shown. With all due respect to Calgary, but how exactly do they have better prospects then Atlanta?

So? Most teams have 1 or 2 guys expected to step into the lineup. Sorry, when and where were the Thrashers top 7? My reasoning for putting Atlanta 24th was that they have two really good prospects. But for the trades they would have had four, which obviously would have been better.

They are obviously one of the more underrated prospect pools as you have shown.

I love these little nuggets of fan psychology. If my example shows anything, it is that they are lowly regarded. Which, could be due to several possible reasons, one of them being that they're not actually that impressive. But to you that option doesn't exist, so instead it shows they are underrated. Brilliant.

With all due respect to Calgary, but how exactly do they have better prospects then Atlanta?

It's arguable and close, but I like their top three of Erixon, Backlund and Nemisz. But maybe I do underrate the quality of Atlanta's secondary guys, It's always possible.

 

[Andy Dufresne]

Why don't we add a rule to this thread where you CAN'T just pimp your own team's prospects. Just list you favourite team and then suggest why a different team has the best prospect pool.

My team is Montreal, but I think Florida is at or near the top after the 2010 draft. They have a good mix of everything, including a top goalie (Markstrom), defensemen (Gudbranson, Ellerby) and forwards (Bjugstad, Grabner, Repik, Howden, McFarland).

I can't think of another team that has that type of quality at all 3 major positions.

I didn't bother reading any more of the thread. I'm just pimping this post.

That entire thread that was "the under-25 olympics thread"- something like that is what should be done with any prospects 'by TEAM' thread.

Young players shouldn't lose credit, nor should their teams, just because they made the NHL. The opposite is obviously true imo. Luke Schenn is a better prospect than Colton Teubert, and i'm not a Leaf fan, and at least on par with blue-chip Brayden.

Upside is an unknown quantity at almost all times imo, the only proven limiting factor is age.

 

[Qvist]

I never said the Habs needed a goalie prospect, i said we needed a goalie prospect to move up in ranks for overall best prospects pool. The Rangers are nowhere near top 5 imo.

Well, maybe that illustrates that overall balance in the prospect pool isn't neccessarily a very relevant measure. Would it be better for the Habs prospect pool if it contained an asset the Habs don't need rather than one they do need?

 

[LickTheEnvelope]

Vancouver is pretty strong

Cody Hodgson
Cory Schneider
Jorden Schroeder
Anton Rodin
Sergei Shirokov
Yann Sauve
Kevin Connauton (surpassed Blum for most goals by a D man, best in Giants history also for most pts)
Steven Anthony
Peter Andersson (this guy is our next Edler)
Jeremy Price

Nucks are much better at actually drafting, but due to lack of picks not the biggest pooling of players.

Not top 10 team by any means in prospect pools. On the strength of Hodgson, Schneider and Schroeder probably top 15 somewhere though.

 

[Adityase]

Agreed. I can't believe the same people than complain about the HF organizational rankings when the writers at least do more than list names.

That's not really any defense for the HF organizational rankings.

 

[Qvist]

A general point. I don't care how much you've watched your team's prospects - to rank, you just as much need to consider those of every other team in the league. Nobody in this thread is even remotely in a position to make a general ranking on the basis of direct observation of the players.

Hence, in a discussion like this, I don't think you can get away from employing some sort of useful and reasonably grounded heuristic. One such heuristic is the typical rate at which prospects turn into reasonably good NHL players. The only group of players who does so with any very great regularity (as in more than a 50% likelihood) are those who get more or less consensually identified as blue-chip prospects, most of whom are first round draft picks. On average, those are the 2-3 best prospects on a team. As far as expectation is concerned, these are the guys you can reasonably reckon with.

There is also going to be a considerable number of Kris Versteegs - prospects who make it despite not being so highly rated as prospects. But those are, in the nature of things, not easy to spot. That's why they're not so highly rated. Only a small proportion of those not in the above group are going to be players like these. So, the reality is that if your team have 15 players you really like outside of those guys everybody who reads rankings have heard about, maybe 3 of them will be players. On average. \

Which brings me to another useful heuristic, namely the fact that there are consistent and marked differences between teams when it comes to their ability to turn lesser prospects into NHL players. In practice, the averages mask the fact that there are a handful of teams who pull this off with much higher consistency than the rest - they include Colorado, Detroit, Nashville, Buffalo and New Jersey. In recent years, Washington and Chicago seem to have joined the club as well. Then there is on the other hand a handful of teams who seems to achieve that much more rarely than the average. One of them is the Islanders, and another is Edmonton. Maybe it's the quality of the drafting, maybe it's the quality of their player development program, or both, but the difference is discernible over time. This is also something to take into account.

What everybody here can do with this subject is not much more than try to put some order into the limited information we have. And with that basis, things like these count.

 

[AwesomePanthers]

Well, I beg to differ. Not that I think they are strong, but I'd rather have Granlund than five decent but not blue-chip prospects - and that's pretty much the difference between a deep and shallow prospect pool.

Unless that player is a crosby or ovechkin I would rather have five that are a little weaker. Nothing is sure about Granlund, he is very talented, but he needs to work on his skating and he is kind of smallish too. He's kind of like Mikko Koivu, but look where that have gotten the Wild of latest. Depth is so important.

 

[Qvist]

Unless that player is a crosby or ovechkin I would rather have five that are a little weaker. Nothing is sure about Granlund, he is very talented, but he needs to work on his skating and he is kind of smallish too. He's kind of like Mikko Koivu, but look where that have gotten the Wild of latest. Depth is so important.

Well, Mikko Koivu (who, incidentally, is 6-2 and has never been credited with the kind of creativity usually attributed to Granlund) is the second best player the Wild have ever gotten out of their prospect pool in their decade-long existence. And, I completely disagree with you. Did you notice what I wrote earlier about the 2005 FW? Of the 225 players who were among the ten best prospects on their team, but who didn't make the overall top 75, roughly one in five is today an NHL player of any note. Among the top 50 prospects, it was 3 out 4, in the top 75 more than 2 out of 3.

That's probably a fairly accurate expression of how it typically tends to go. That means that what you can reasonably and typically expect to get out of the five prospects you prefer to keep is one NHLer, and that NHLer is utterly unlikely to be anything even remotely as good as Mikko Koivu - it is also the case that not just does more top-rated prospects make it, but nearly all of the top notch players come from that group. In short - it's better to have one great prospect than to have five good ones. And given how few prospects make it from below the top group of prospects, "depth" simply doesn't give you much return. At least for most teams.

In summation. You're reasoning that outside of generational talents, there are no sure things anyway and that consequently depth is more important than highly regarded prospects. But that's not how it works. Experience suggests that there is, at any given point, a group of more than 50 but fewer than 100 prospects who have a high likelihood of becoming good players in the NHL, and that the kind of prospects who are not in that group (and hence consitute your depth) have a very low probability of doing so. The difference between the highly rated and the less highly rated is very, very big. And this is why your reasoning doesn't hold.

 

[Monctonscout]

We did forwards and defenceman, but who has the best of the bunch from both?

St. Louis with Pietrangelo, Schwartz, Tarasenko, Allen, Sonne, McCrae and Cole?

Florida now with Markstrom, Gudbranson, Bjugstad, Howden, Grabner, Pretovic, Robak, Ellerby and McFarland?

LA with Schenn, Loktionov, Bernier, Teubert, Hickey and Voynov?

Phoenix with Maclean, Tikhonov, OEL, Summers and Gormley?

Thoughts?

Would Hall Eberle and MPS not give the Oilers an edge?

I don't see anybody else with 3 of the top 12-15 prospects in all of hockey. The depth is not great but I'd rather have 3 potential all-stars than 20 3rd liners.

 

[s7ark]

and the islanders got an early start when they drafted comeau, neilsen, macdonald and okposo a few years ago and a few steals when they picked up hillen and moulson when no one heard about them and also thanks for rob schremp

the isles roster is tons better then then the oilers

We'll have to agree to disagree then. Of the names you listed only Okposo I would rank along with Gagner, Eberle, and MPS.

And you're welcome for Schremp. I hope he plays well for you guys. I used to be a big fan of his, but he never got a legit shot at cracking our roster. But I guess it doesn't really matter to us, our forward group isn't exactly hurting for smaller skilled guys.

 

[OK Okposo]

Get a grip on yourself man, you're raving. I don't know much first-hand about the Isles prospects, no. Which is why it is a sensible approach to them to not assume that they're all great just because of the enthusiasm of their fans. If they really are that great, then surely people like the NHL scouts whose input goes into the FW would have noticed. And oh, by the way, you're in exactly the same situation yourself with regard to the players of the 29 teams you have to compare the Islanders with.

When you're starting to use words like "slander against the team" because someone has a lower opinion of it than yourself , you're in fan psychosis territory and need to pull yourself together.

I'm not the one who has to post a harsh criticism of everyone elses opinions. It just gets frustrating argueing with someone as obtuse as you.

 

[Qvist]

I'm not the one who has to post a harsh criticism of everyone elses opinions. It just gets frustrating argueing with someone as obtuse as you.

Yeah well, when I start being stubborn without providing arguments, then you can bring out the O-word. Better stop being stubborn without providing arguments yourself too, if you want to make it stick. You know, stones and glass houses and all that.

I've provided a fairly comprehensive argument here, one that can at least be discussed. You on the other hand have provided simply your innate conviction that the Islanders prospect pool is great, and are now sulking because you have nothing more to add other than repeating it, which isn't getting you any further. So, you can agree to disagree, engage the argument, or, if you think that will help you, make one more go at getting the final word by giving me another helping of pointless and misdirected verbal abuse. At your discretion.

 

[xIsle]

Yeah, depth is really important. But "depth" doesn't equate to having 15 prospects who might make the NHL as players with a meaningful impact, but aren't likely to.

There are at least 12 teams with more blue-chip prospects than the Islanders.

I don't think so but that's your opinion.

 

[bluechipbonzo]

Nashville gets lauded for its organizational depth, and brother, they are about to pass that mantle.

The Islanders picture was pretty rosy before the 2010 draft, I mean, the garden was there- we've added a few new species to the mix, but if anyone suggests that the 2010 draft is better than 09 or 08 (!), they haven't followed this team.

Now no one has come out and said it, but why all the love, now? Nino and Nelson are great picks- they should make the NHL- but Kabanov gets no love- or does he?

Assuming a best-case scenario for all players involved (that is, they all reach their projected potential), the Islanders are the top organization out there. The caveat here is that recent picks- from the drafts mentioned- are included.

I add this table to show how my opinion breaks down...each player is matched with his consensus counterpart (that is, if Tavares or Hall were moved down their board, there would be little doubt as to who would be the career superior player).

Tavares = Hall (-0.05)
Kabanov (-0.15) = Eberle
Bailey = MPS (-0.10)
Petrov (-0.20) = Omark

Hamonic = ?
de Haan = ?

I listed the top offensive prospects from each club to show how the Islanders are statistically better here, IMO. And so if Hall and Tavares reach their full potential, Hall could have a better career by no more than a 5% margin- practically a wash if you look at the rest of the numbers. Kabanov, for example, would have been drafted in the top five- and potentially challenged for the first or second overall draft position. This assumes a clean slate- and also assumes a Malkin-like start to his career...that Tavares as his Crosby is blossoming too.

The Oilers have no answer for the Hamonic-de Haan pairing (you remember, the one that was well on its way to being established as the top unit at the WJC last year until de Haan, and then Hamonic were both injured). Florida's overall defensive prospect pool edges the Islanders here, but not on the number of future NHlers.

So there's the homer-rub- we all want to believe our prospects will ascend to their projected place in the NHL. Remember though that any career can be sidelined- even the good Canadian prospects- and so all prospects are just that- prospects. If a team drafts one or two NHLers per year, it is widely regarded as a job well done.

In 2008, the Islanders look to have drafted six players with legitimate shots at NHL careers...that is, they have the talent to make it- though we're not sure how good they will be. We won't use the best-case scenario assumptions from above, but then again, it's not necessary here. The number of great prospects from the 2008 draft is what sets the Islanders apart from the pack:

Josh Bailey
Travis Hamonic
Kirill Petrov
David Ullstrom
Matt Donovan
Matt Martin

All of these players are developing nicely, and will see NHL ice. The problem the Islanders will have is finding room for all these players to play!

A second group from the 2008 draft still has a chance at the NHL, though things have not gone as smoothly here. Still, there is time. The Islanders 2008 draft is easily the best by any NHL team this decade. If any of the following players have great seasons this year, there will be little doubt. I expect one and maybe two of these players to either play in the NHL for a short while-though not necessarily with the Islanders:

Corey Trivino
Aaron Ness
David Toews
Jared Spurgeon

It is unheard of to think that a single draft could produce seven NHL regulars, which would be the best-case scenario. Even if only Bailey, Hamonic, Petrov, and Martin go on to have careers, it will have been a coup.

That is the way you compare the best overall prospect pool- by asking how many of the players are likely to be NHLers, period. On 2008 alone, the Islanders prospect pool is in the top third of the NHL. Add in Tavares, Okposo, Hillen, MacDonald, de Haan, Kabanov, Neidereiter, and Nelson, and it becomes clear that no other NHL team can match the quality and variety of the Islanders prospects.

There is another level of prospects here too that look awful good:

Anders Lee (compares favourably to both Nelson and Bjustag)
Mark Katic (by now you've heard of Andrew Macdonald...)
Blake Kessel (big, mobile, and responsible...watch him blossom this year)
Mikko Koskinen (watch him play a full healthy season in Bridgeport this year)
Anders Nilsson (back-up on Swedish WJC team plays as big as MK)
Casey Cizikas (fourth line face-off specialist/pk)
Jason Clark (has big future third-line grinder written all over him)

In short, it's the abundance of quality prospects that sets the Islanders apart. Sure, Taylor Hall might edge Tavares. Sure the same could be said of MPS over Bailey. Kabanov and Petrov are both high-end talents that will play top-six minutes in the NHL...they are just too good not to.

Add Hamonic and de Haan (top four NHLers minimum) to Hillen and MacDonald (already NHL regulars) with the real possibility of Donovan (made Fowler look awful good at the last WJC) and you can see how the Islanders sheer numbers dominate here again. Katic, Kessel and Ness are just gravy, really.

Again, every time you compare prospect pools, you have to go on best case scenarios to level the comparisons. The Islanders have more darts! It's as simple as that!

Will, or are already having NHL careers:

Tavares (NHL)
Okposo (NHL)
Bailey (NHL)
Petrov
Kabanov
de Haan
Hamonic
Neidereiter
Nelson
Hillen (NHL)
MacDonald (NHL)
Martin

Good chance at regular NHL duty, not necessarily careers:

Ullstrom
Lee
Donovan
Poulin
Koskinen
Nillsson

May yet make the NHL:

Cizikas
Katic
Kessel
Clark


Tis sad that the Islanders have had to build through the draft these last few years!

 

[Qvist]

Again, every time you compare prospect pools, you have to go on best case scenarios to level the comparisons. The Islanders have more darts! It's as simple as that!

No, it's not as simple as that. A prospect isn't a dart (metphorically speaking), unless you think of them as some darts you get to throw from virtually point blank and others you get to throw from the other end of the room. And take into consideration that not all dart-throwers are equally proficient.

Lots of selections does not neccessarily turn into lots of players. Lots of decent prospects does not neccessarily turn into lots of players either - in fact, it ususally doesn't. You are projecting that the Islanders end up with 10-15 NHL players from their current prospect pool, even after deducting those who are already there. That's just ludicruous. I'd bet good money that there has never, in the history of the NHL, been a prospect pool who resulted in that kind of output. And certainly not one that consists largely of players drafted in the second round or lower. Do you realise how momentuously against any normal probability that outcome would be? If you get five players, you have a good result.

Why exactly do you need to look at a best-case scenario? (ie, one that is virtually guaranteed to not be the reality). As you write, "It is unheard of to think that a single draft could produce seven NHL regulars, which would be the best-case scenario.". True, but on the other hand, it is very easy to think of a single draft that at some point looked like it might produce seven NHLers if you applied a best-case scenario. Which is again the basis on which you consider that it's realistically possible enough to be worth discussing for the Islanders to get seven players out of that draft.

So there's the homer-rub- we all want to believe our prospects will ascend to their projected place in the NHL. Remember though that any career can be sidelined- even the good Canadian prospects- and so all prospects are just that- prospects. If a team drafts one or two NHLers per year, it is widely regarded as a job well done.

In 2008, the Islanders look to have drafted six players with legitimate shots at NHL careers...that is, they have the talent to make it- though we're not sure how good they will be.

And right there, in the jump from the first paragraph to the second, is where your line of reasoning falls apart, and reveals the blithe optimism at its core. As you note, if you draft 1 or 2 NHLers per year, it's a good job (Actually it isn't, it's an average job). But, an NHLer is not the same thing as "a player with a legitimate shot at the NHL". In fact, getting one or two of the former out of six of the latter would be pretty normal.

If we're going to include players who are already in the NHL, then we obviously have a completely different discussion than the present one, so let's not mix things up.

If three years from now you have ten players in your lineup who are presently one of your prospects you can call me , well, whatever you want. I will myself post a topic titled ISLES FANS ARE RIGHT AND I AM A BLITHERING FOOL. But until then, it's tough to escape the clear impression that there is a level of hysterical optimism among Islanders fans regarding their prospect pool that simply defies all realism.

 

[oil slick]

"Depth" is overrated, and a balanced prospect pool is a pointless criterion. Nobody is going to get more than 5 or 6 players out of their current prospect pools, and once you're past the top 50-75 guys, the odds are slim.

I agree completely. The chances of more than a handful of players from each team actually making a difference at the NHL level is so small, who cares if it's 3 forwards vs. a defensman and 2 forwards? It really doesn't matter very much.

And even if they do make the NHL, half of the players people list in order to justify great prospect depth can be easily replaced with free agents like Asham or Malhotra -- guys that tend to sit around for weeks of free agency anyways.

Kabanov (-0.15) = Eberle

This has to be one of the more crazy comparisons I've read. Kabanov might have similar top end talent, but the chances of him completely busting are so much higher. The guy's character is a train wreck... maybe he'll get things sorted out, but to just ignore his history is so stupid -- it's completely tied to his value as a prospect.

 

[cheesed-off*]

Incredible as it may seem to you, I am not ctually making an appraisal based on rabid fan sentiment one way or the other. I don't even have a favorite team, and have no particluar feelings one way or another about the Islanders. As far as I can see, the Islanders simpply do not have more than three - or at most four, if you include Kabanov - really good prospects. Many other teams seem better off than that to me.

"Depth" is overrated, and a balanced prospect pool is a pointless criterion. Nobody is going to get more than 5 or 6 players out of their current prospect pools, and once you're past the top 50-75 guys, the odds are slim. Nobody is going to get a balanced input of goalies, different kinds of defensemen, wingers, centers, scorers and checkers. What you can generally hope for is an impact player or two, never mind of what kind, and a few support guys who won't come made to order either.



Oh, right - I'm just riding the hype train, whereas you have this arcane insight that tells you there's going to be players who are the Islanders 12th best prospect but will be impact players in the NHL because you've watched them at the prospects camp and they have all this great promise? You're right, I am assuming that the only players who have a really high likelihood of becoming good players in the NHL are those who currently have a high reputation as prospects. And the reason I do so is that this is how experience suggests that things work.

First-rounders? Sure, other than Maxim Goncharov, Jeff Petry, Marco Scandella, Matt Hackett, Tomas Tatar, Jeremy Morin, Viktor Stalberg, Jake Allen, Brad Marchand, Danny Kristo, PK Subban, Patrick Wiercioch, Robin Lehner, Steve Bozak, Eric Tangradi, Evgeny Grachev, Derek Stepan, Travis Hamonic, Drayson Bowman, Shawn Matthias, Jacob Markstrom and Patrice Cormier, every player I mentioned was a first-round pick.

In the HF Organisational ranking of April last, the Isles placed 20th. In the last THN FW, they were 8th - and that is not actually a prospects ranking but a ranking of performance at the past four drafts, including NHLers Tavares and Bailey. Neither is the bible, but on the other hand, either can lay claim to a good deal more authority than you or any number of posters in this thread. So clearly, it is not a self-evidently preposterous notion to argue that the Islanders prospect pool isn't among the five or ten best in the NHL.

I'd like to say a few things about this post.

First, it is one of the sweetest beatdown posts I've seen on these boards without resorting to name-calling, stupid arguments, pedantry, etc.

Second, I wish I had this kind of response to every conflict situation in my life. Man, I would be KING of the WORLD, putting people in their place left n right.

Third, you speak great English for a Norweigian.

Fourth, I am a bit drunk, so tomorrow I may be 'meh' about all this.

 

[cheesed-off*]

Fifth, I see that the way you arranged the quotes, it looks like someone else said what you actually said.

This is either brilliant strategy, or pure dumb luck.

I don't know what to make of you Qvist, but I do know that your name reminds me of Daniel Tarnqvist, and like my feelings for Daniel, while my first reaction today was that you are brilliant man, just brilliant, I will probably wake up tomorrow and think that you are 'meh'.

 

[cheesed-off*]

WTF does the Habs need a goalie prospect for? They're settled with Price for a decade and a half, if they want to. And the Habs are 5-10, in my opinion. And so are the Rangers.

Yeah, ok Tarnqvist - you should have said "WTF do the Habs..."


Bubble = popped.

 

[cheesed-off*]

Well, I believe in having different types of players. To me Hall, MPS and Eberle are quite simular. Oilers lack defence prospects and not sure about their goalie prospects. That's why they aren't in my top5.

What's with with all these people from Norway today?

Anyway, this post only started at 'meh' and immediately went down to the bowels of WTF-dom.

Similar player? You mean that they all glide around on a thin film of water on a sheet of frozen H2O under a metallic blade attached to a boot, moving a vulcanized rubber disc around until it can be deposited in a net?

 

[cheesed-off*]

Nucks are much better at actually drafting, but due to lack of picks not the biggest pooling of players.

Not top 10 team by any means in prospect pools. On the strength of Hodgson, Schneider and Schroeder probably top 15 somewhere though.

Well, top 30 for sure, dude.

 

[cheesed-off*]

you cant possibly be serious about that, the isles are already at the point of there rebuild where their goal is making the playoffs
the oilers have a few years left of drafting in the top 5

Would you care to make a bet on that?

I say in 2 years, the Oilers will be a playoff team.

I am willing to bet CAD 1,000 on this.