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Ranking Prospects Post-Matthews

Something I've been wondering about, but don't have the CBA know-how to sort out the legalese: How long a runway do we have on the 2016 draft picks in terms of deferring the decision to tender bona fide offers? I get the sense we have a larger proportion than usual of prospects who can develop playing against older professionals without taking up an SPC slot.

Normally, for 18 year olds out of Junior, it's two years before they re-enter the draft.

2016/7 picks and their upcoming leagues
Auston Matthews - NHL
Yegor Korshkov - under contract with KHL until 2018
Carl Grundstrom - under contract with SHL until 2018
Joseph Woll - NCAA
J.D. Greenway - NCAA
Adam Brooks - CHL (maybe AHL?)
Keaton Middleton - CHL
Vladimir Bobylev - under contract with KHL until 2018
Jack Walker - CHL (maybe AHL?)
Nicolas Mattinen - CHL
Nikolai Chebykin - MHL/KHL
 
PPP: 20. Tobias Lindberg
TLN: 15. Andrew Neilsen

I was originally pretty low on Neilsen when he was drafted in 2015, due to the knock against his skating. His numbers were also pretty weak, but that was probably more due to his team's general ineptitude. He really turned it up in this D+1 year and attributes it to the work he put into developing his first stride:
"I worked a lot on my first step and that allowed me to get open a lot more and be able to find those shot lanes, and even finding guys on the ice was a little easier this year."
Click to expand...

Raw speed is nice, but the game really opens up for those who know how to use their skating for separation (change of speed and direction) according to our skills consultant, Darryl Belfry.
 
PPP: 18. Josh Leivo
TLN: 13. Zach Hyman

Leivo's been on the T25U25 since the first in 2012, ranking at 21, 18, 8, 15, and now 18 again. At 23, he is eligible for next year's as well, provided he is still in our system.
 
PPP: 16. Jeremy Bracco
TLN: 11. Jeremy Bracco

Jeremy Bracco: Mitch Marner's understudy.
Let's see where he goes with a full season in the OHL and if he can put on some more separation speed and take more shots. The vision and hands are already there.

We have alignment again, two days in a row, with the bulk of the differences between the two lists from here on out likely to rest on the inclusion of Calder-ineligibles on the PPP list (Rielly, Carrick, Marincin, Rychel, Corrado).
 
Bracco was probably my favourite 2015 draft pick, aside from Marner which is too obvious. I would have been happy with him at 34 so the fact that we got him at 61 was a major coup as far as I'm concerned. He had a really good first season in the OHL, but was overshadowed by Marner's dominance. Here's hoping he has an even bigger D+2 season, especially since he's in line to play a much bigger role with Kitchener. And hopefully the US takes him to the WJCs this time.
 
So TLN's top-10 will consist of:

Matthews
Nylander
Marner
Brown
Kapanen
Johnson
Zaitsev
Soshnikov
Dermott
Timashov

(That's how I'd probably rank them)
 
CarltonTheBear said:
So TLN's top-10 will consist of:

Matthews
Nylander
Marner
Brown
Kapanen
Johnson
Zaitsev
Soshnikov
Dermott
Timashov

(That's how I'd probably rank them)
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Yeah...we need better defensemen.
 
CarltonTheBear said:
Nik the Trik said:
Yeah...we need better defensemen.
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Samuel Girard would have been #1 in my heart had we picked him.
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There's a pond in my dreams where Girard and Kylington are just passing the puck back and forth, just out of reach of a straining Yegor Korshkov.
 
CarltonTheBear said:
Bracco was probably my favourite 2015 draft pick, aside from Marner which is too obvious. I would have been happy with him at 34 so the fact that we got him at 61 was a major coup as far as I'm concerned. He had a really good first season in the OHL, but was overshadowed by Marner's dominance. Here's hoping he has an even bigger D+2 season, especially since he's in line to play a much bigger role with Kitchener. And hopefully the US takes him to the WJCs this time.
Click to expand...

That Franson-Santorelli trade, man... the Leafs really squeezed every ounce of value out of that low 1st, and then some.

Franson + Santorelli --> Leipsic + [1st (24th) --> Dermott (34), Bracco (61), Dzierkals(68)] + [Olli Jokinen --> Joakim Lidstrom + 2016 6th --> Nicolas Mattinen]
 
BTW: Kylington is #9 on the Flames' T25U25 this year. The Habs site hasn't gotten to Girard yet (they're only at #20 as of this post).
Girard is with the Predators, and I don't think they have a T25U25.
 
Nik the Trik said:
Girard is a Hab? When did I miss that?
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Whoops, my bad. Didn't check the draft list properly and assumed from another draft article. Girard is with the Preds.
 
Nik the Trik said:
TBLeafer said:
Because then why limit it at 25?  Why not assess our ENTIRE talent pool. That certainly broadens things.
Click to expand...

I answered that in the post you quote.
Click to expand...

In one respect you did answer it but you did not direct an answer to the meaning of the more recent question, namely, if broadening the pool under discussion is important enough to include regular NHL players merely because there are under age 25 (e.g. Morgan Reilly who is by no definition a prospect, he is a developing NHL player with several years in the league and zero chance of going to the AHL other than for reconditioning after an injury), then that principle should also lead to elimination of the arbitrary age 25 limit.

The bottom line is that it is PPP criteria that are flawed, not the criteria of commenters who want to discuss the ranking of legitimate prospects.  In that respect I do like the age 25 criterion but the question you were asked related to the rationale you applied of "broadening the pool" which frankly contradicts the assertion that the age limit is acceptable.
 
KW Sluggo said:
In one respect you did answer it but you did not direct an answer to the meaning of the more recent question, namely, if broadening the pool under discussion is important enough to include regular NHL players merely because there are under age 25 (e.g. Morgan Reilly who is by no definition a prospect, he is a developing NHL player with several years in the league and zero chance of going to the AHL other than for reconditioning after an injury), then that principle should also lead to elimination of the arbitrary age 25 limit.
Click to expand...

I really don't know why you wanted to bump this after a month but it's not a question of importance, it's a matter of accurately summing up the amount of, for lack of a better word, potential in an organization. It's trying to get a read on where a team will be a few years from now based on the talent within the organization or to get a gauge on the unrealized potential within an organization based on the players within an organization. In either situation a player being in the NHL or not is immaterial to the discussion. Trying to predict where the Oilers will be in 2-3 years but eliminating consideration of Connor McDavid on the basis of him already being in the NHL is pointless. It's not informative or enlightening.

In that scenario you're not arriving at a meaningful ranking, you're just engaging in arbitrary rankings that rewards bad drafting as much as good drafting because the best drafting results in players making the NHL quickly.
 
PPP: 15. Zach Hyman
TLN: 10. Nikita Soshnikov

Zach Hyman and Nikita Soshnikov occupy the upper middle of our current depth chart of shift disturbers: Kadri (sort of, hybrid skilled center/mucky muck), Komarov, Hyman, Soshnikov, Martin, Grundstrom, Dzierkals. So long as Babcock is our coach, these guys are going to get spotlight time next to the likes of Matthews, Nylander, and Marner.
 
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