Another year and another set of rankings. As always the reason I started tracking draft rankings is because I don’t watch any hockey outside of the NHL and really wanted to have a way to quickly see if a pick would be considered a value pick or perhaps a reach. It also gives me a way to familiarize myself with the various available players.
There are other sources out there but without enough of a sample size for my liking (often 5 to 10 at most). The rankings I’ve come up with always have at least 20 sources; most of whom are known to most hockey fans who research such things.
Seeing as this is my third go around; I decided to make my life a bit more miserable by not just limiting to prospects with 1st round rankings and instead going with 2nd round rankings as well. Provided I found a prospect ranked twice in the first two rounds; he is here. This I think gives any readers a better overall product as I was missing many a good player who just didn’t have first round love before. As a result the total has 93 players this year as opposed to 56 and 58 the prior two years.
Another caveat this year is that all research was done during the summer so I’m not using any “final” rankings sources that come out with this week or next. I found it’s mostly a waste as not much really changes but it’s certainly possible guys like Lucas Raymond get ranked higher by people now than he was this summer.
One last bit of housekeeping. The Red Wings have drafted 8 players off these lists the past two years with 7 of 8 being “value” picks and of course Seider being the one reach in terms of where the media and some scouts rank players. The only miss in the early rounds was Tuomisto who is partly to blame for the extended list. For all I know he had 2nd round love from people but under the old system was ignored without a 1st round ranking.
Anyway. Enough blabbing. Here’s the current list broken into handy full round portions.
