Rank the top 10 prospects in the world

Mine would be:

1.Brayden Schenn - still a top prospect, although his time is now
2.RNH - in terms of skill, he's second to none
3.Ryan Johansen - powerful, big pivot could be Columbus' 2nd line C - soon
4.David Rundblad - top rated D prospect
5.Nino Niederreiter - it's time for "El Nino" to join the Isles young top 6 and produce
6.Vladimir Tarasenko - oozes skill, character and has a sturdy frame to boot
7.Erik Gudbranson - a personal favourite, a shutdown D with snarl
8.Brendan Smith - scary vision and amazing hockey sense
9.Evgeny Kuznetsov - his stock has rocketed up
10a.Jonathan Huberdeau - everything you want in a top 6 forward
10b.Adam Larsson - basically everything you want in a top pairing D-man

Interesting list, I'd have to think about it. I would for sure include Granlund.

SDH89 wrote:Interesting list, I'd have to think about it. I would for sure include Granlund.

Yeah, I took him out at the last second for Kuznetsov.

I think The Oilers will regret not taking Larsson for a very long time.

NEELY wrote:I think The Oilers will regret not taking Larsson for a very long time.

Their lack of high end D prospects is almost laughable. To each their own I guess, perhaps they feel they can eventually move one of their high end Fs for a D.

Teams don't trade D men for the most part, they trade forwards. D men are always the most over paid UFA's, teams always over pay for them at the deadline (see Campoli, twice), and teams (winning ones) tend to build from the blueline out. Chicago, Boston, Detroit, while all have very good 2 way forwards, their power is in the back end.

Edmonton if they are lucky will turn into a Washington type team who can't even get passed the 2nd round. Only, Washington has 2 pretty good goaltenders and Edmonton has Dubnyk who may or may not be able to be a number 1 guy.

Not a fan of how Edmonton is being built. Defense wins championships and Edmonton has none. If and when they draft some decent D men the learning curve will be huge and at that point The Oilers will be expected to compete for the playoffs and a cup.

Oscar Klefbom is a very underrated d-man and was a solid pikc, but agreed.

My Top 10 would be this, although it is tough:

1. Ryan Johansen
2. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins
3. Brayden Schenn
4. Mikael Granlund
5. Jonathan Huberdeau
6. Adam Larsson
7. David Rundblad
8. Vladimir Tarasenko
9. Evgeny Kuznetsov
10. Gabriel Landeskog

Is your list based production potential? If yes, Larsson and RNH should be in the top 3 IMO, Huberdeau not very far behind. I'd be shocked if those guys are not 1st pairing D/top 3 forwards. And while I like Schenn and Niederreiter, I don't see them scoring more than 65/70 pts a year.
But if you're basing your list on impact on a championship team in the NHL, I would say 6/7 of those guys may be impossible to rank at this point. It's like debating who do you prefer, the Malkin in 09 or the Toews in 10.


I agree about Edmonton. Are they gonna pay RNH, Eberle, Hall and Paajarvi 5+ MIllion on long term contracts? Because they are not contending while those kids are still on entry level, that's for sure.

La Femme wrote:Is your list based on potential? If yes, Larsson and RNH should be in the top 3 IMO, Huberdeau not very far behind. I'd be shocked if those guys are not 1st pairing D/top 3 forwards. And while I like Schenn and Niederreiter, I don't see them scoring more than 65/70 pts a year.
But if you're basing your list on impact on a championship team in the NHL, I would say 6/7 of those guys may be impossible to rank at this point. It's like debating who do you prefer, the Malkin in 09 or the Toews in 10.


I agree about Edmonton. Are they gonna pay RNH, Eberle, Hall and Paajarvi 5+ MIllion on long term contracts? Because they are not contending while those kids are still on entry level, that's for sure.

It's quite subjective for sure. It would be based on potential + NHL impact basically. I like Huberdeau and Larsson as much as anyone else, but I feel they're still behind a couple of the more 'mature' prospects at this point.

If Huberdeau doesn't make the Panthers, I predict he's gonna win World Juniors MVP. I suspect Johansen is gonna make the CBJ team

NEELY wrote:I think The Oilers will regret not taking Larsson for a very long time.

Very interesting. You may well be right.

spader wrote:

NEELY wrote:I think The Oilers will regret not taking Larsson for a very long time.

Very interesting. You may well be right.

Meh, we'll see. What The Sens did with Karlsson/Cowen/Rundblad is, IMO, exactly the way to build a team. Pheonix and Florida are doing it that way as well. Florida and Ottawa are so similar in their prospect pools they may very well mirror each other for the next decade (although being in Florida they may do somethign stupid to attract fans).

NEELY wrote:

spader wrote:

NEELY wrote:I think The Oilers will regret not taking Larsson for a very long time.

Very interesting. You may well be right.

Meh, we'll see. What The Sens did with Karlsson/Cowen/Rundblad is, IMO, exactly the way to build a team. Pheonix and Florida are doing it that way as well. Florida and Ottawa are so similar in their prospect pools they may very well mirror each other for the next decade (although being in Florida they may do somethign stupid to attract fans).

I agree with the "build from the blueline out" method. It makes so much sense. Edmonton will be an interesting example of what happens when you try to build from the top line down. We'll see what they do with it, but there's no question that they need to bolster that blueline. We'll see how it shakes out.

Let's not sell Edmonton too short here, they have Hall + RNH + Eberle + MPS (this is where I'm sure they wish they had Cowen) + Gagner + Omark up front, they'll be trading a forward for a D at some point - and if not, they'll be able to spend all their UFA $$s solely on D and or a G.

Not to mention the guy they drafted this year Klefbom, he's quite good. They need to get proactive about their D and G soon, but not quite yet...next draft IMO, all D all the time.

I don't mean to be selling them short. I believe that building is best done from the blue line out, but I'm very interested to see how their method works (or doesn't work). I didn't mean to imply that I think they'll fail. I'm curious to see how Edmonton compares to Ottawa in the coming years, as each team has an opposite approach to drafting (seemingly).