A Spin on the Top 100 for the 2006 Draft

[Brock]

In Microsoft excel, I managed to enter some data for about 123 players eligible for this years NHL entry draft. That data entered being the rankings for these players by THN, Mckeens, CSB and ISS (the ones given by THN). I then averaged each players score out to come up with a top 100 for the upcoming draft.

Hopefully this is ok in terms of guidelines with copy enfringement, because I'm not giving out the exact rankings of those agencies, but an average score for those 4 together that I have obtained. If not, then moderators can feel free to delete this I guess.

Back to the rankings...Essentially a couple issues came up. In regards to CSB, their rankings are divided up to North American vs. Euro for their skaters. So this poses a slight problem in terms of ranking because it influences scores because a guy like Phil Kessel is ranked number 5 on CSB NA, where as Yuri Alexandrov is the number 4 european, so this inflates or deflates their scores slightly because it's not quite where other agencies have them tabbed. But I felt that this problem works itself out to an extent as both north american and euro players have their scores influenced equally. At least it didn't seem to skewer the rankings severely.

The other concern revolves around goaltenders, where it gets even more complicated. CSB ranks their goaltenders seperate from their skaters, but also divided up by NA/Euro. ISS also has their goalies ranked seperately. So this did tend to inflate the goaltending rankings overall. However, I kind of liked the way the rankings ended up without trying to overcome this problem because every NHL draft goaltenders end up getting taken higher then we anticipate usually.

Anyway enough with the background, here is how the top 100 turned out.

1. Erik Johnson
2. Jordan Staal
3. Niklas Backstrom
4. Jonathan Toews
5. Phil Kessel
6. Peter Mueller
7. Derrick Brassard
8. Jiri Tlusty
9. Jonathan Bernier
10. Michael Frolik
11. Bryan Little
12. Kyle Okposo
13. James Sheppard
14. Bob Sanguinetti
15. Chris Stewart
16. Nigel Williams
17. Ty Wishart
18. Riku Helenius
19. Leland Irving
20. Michael Grabner
21. Cory Emmerton
22. Ivan Vishnevsky
23. Alexander Vasyunov
24. Ondrej Fiala
25. Mike Forney
26. Ben Maxwell
27. Ryan White
28. Yuri Alexandrov
29. Joe Ryan
30. Jesse Joensuu
31. David Fischer
32. Jhonas Enroth
33. Nick Foligno
34. Mark Mitera
35. Codey Burki
36. Semen Varlamov
37. Chris Summers
38. Cal Clutterbuck
39. Patrik Berglund
40. Tomas Kana
41. Claude Giroux
42. Blake Geoffrion
43. Ben Shutron
44. Artem Anisimov
45. Mike Weber
46. David Ruzicka
47. Tony Lagerstrom
48. Vladimir Zharkov
49. Tomas Marcinko
50. Trevor Lewis
51. Brian Strait
52. Joe Palmer
53. Bryce Swan
54. Francois Bouchard
55. John Armstrong
56. Jamie Mcginn
57. Michal Neuwirth
58. Matthew Corrente
59. Bobby Hughes
60. Jan Mikael Juutilainen
61. Brady Calla
62. Kevin Montgomery
63. Billy Sauer
64. Andrei Popov
65. Reto Berra
66. Ryan Hillier
67. Carl Sneep
68. Simon Denis Papin
69. Matt Beleskey
70. Theo Peckham
71. Mike Ratchuk
72. Igor Makarov
73. Niko Hovinen
74. Oskar Osala
75. David Kveton
76. John Degray
77. Dennis Persson
78. Robert Nyholm
79. Mathieu Carle
80. Jonas Ahnelov
81. Joonas Lehtivuori
82. Igor Zubov
83. Andreas Nodl
84. Martin Latal
85. Eric Gryba
86. Ryan Flynn
87. Michael Caruso
88. Nikolai Kulemin
89. Riley Holzapfel
90. Kevin Armstrong
91. Jeff Petry
92. Benjamin Breault
93. Timo Seppanen
94. Jaime Mcbain
95. Eetu Heikkinen
96. Robin Figren
97. Bud Holloway
98. Derrick Lapoint
99. Ryan Turek
100. Brad Marchand

Hope that many of you find this interesting. I mostly did this for my FHL sim league drafts but figured I'd post it as well.

If you have any other questions, feel free to post them.

Click to read more...

 

[Kirk- NEHJ]

Nice list, Brock, but how do you justify having Jonathan Bernier ahead of Kyle Okposo?

 

[Brock]

Nice list, Brock, but how do you justify having Jonathan Bernier ahead of Kyle Okposo?

Kirk, this isn't my personal list actually. As explained, it's a list compiled averaging out the rankings of various scouting agencies. Bernier up that high was just the way it worked out, because of an inflation due to the CSB.

If this were my own personal list, there would be many changes (Okposo being higher just one of them). However, I could actually see Bernier going relatively high, perhaps even as a top 10 selection. He's a real solid goalie and if a team really likes him ahead of several other goalies, I could see him going that high. Goalies are so hard to predict.

 

[Dr.Sens(e)]

Nice Brock. It's funny, but I did a similar kind of ranking, however I multiplied the CSB Euro rankings by 2 (based on a rather loose assumption that about half the Euro's will be taken versus NA) and then multiplied each of the goalie rankings by 10, given you won't see more than a 3 or 4 goalies taken per round on average. It comes out rather similar just the same (although goalies like Bernier and Helenius drop a bit).

And it's good to have your rankings for our draft in two weeks so I know whether I need to trade up in front of you!!!

(just kidding of course, I know you'll have your favorites that defy these rankings, some by quite a bit no doubt).

 

[Amadeus]

Brad Marchand is terribly underrated. IMO he'll go in round 2.

 

[Kirk- NEHJ]

Kirk, this isn't my personal list actually. As explained, it's a list compiled averaging out the rankings of various scouting agencies. Bernier up that high was just the way it worked out, because of an inflation due to the CSB.

If this were my own personal list, there would be many changes (Okposo being higher just one of them). However, I could actually see Bernier going relatively high, perhaps even as a top 10 selection. He's a real solid goalie and if a team really likes him ahead of several other goalies, I could see him going that high. Goalies are so hard to predict.

Ah, my bad- I was guilty of not reading your entire post. My apologies...

 

[Rookie Chargers]

Great minds think alike. I did something similar in a sim league for the coaches draft, please don't ask. Picking 17th I got my 8th ranked coach, got my man you can say. I understand where your idea is coming from.

 

[clay]

Berglund not in the top 30? How does that work?

 

[MN_Gopher]

I see Ryan Flynn lots now. But IMO Micheal Carmen is better. Both played u18 and both will be gophers next year too.

 

[Brock]

Berglund not in the top 30? How does that work?

Because according to the THN, the ISS has Berglund ranked 102. That severely effected his average ranking.

 

[Rookie Chargers]

Because according to the THN, the ISS has Berglund ranked 102. That severely effected his average ranking.

Also his rise has been in the last week or so. Gone by the 37th pick.

 

[Rmac22]

Brad Marchand is terribly underrated. IMO he'll go in round 2.

No question. I have to think his stock has gone way up since the Memorial Cup.
I hope JFJ took notice when he was there.

 

[inferno98]

This is a great compile and a great look at another type of mock draft

 

[NYR469]

Because according to the THN, the ISS has Berglund ranked 102. That severely effected his average ranking.

your info is wrong...iss draft guide has berglund #21

and when using CSS rankings how did you adjust for the fact that NA skaters, NA goalies, Euro Skaters and euro goalies are on separate lists meaning that they have 4 guy ranked #1??

 

[The Mars Volchenkov]

I've seen Jamie McBain going first round in a lot of mock drafts and would like to see the Sens take him, but you have him at 94. What don't you like about him?

 

[Kirk- NEHJ]

and when using CSS rankings how did you adjust for the fact that NA skaters, NA goalies, Euro Skaters and euro goalies are on separate lists meaning that they have 4 guy ranked #1??

It's hard to do.

I used a similar system to build a numerical rankings list based on where the various scouting services had the players, and for the CSS rankings, I just used the numbers, which no doubt skewed the ratings in favor of Euro players and goalies.

If someone a lot smarter in math than I am comes up with some kind of formula to better account for the advantages that the goalies and Euros get for being on different, smaller lists than the NA skaters, then I'd love to see it.

 

[Kirk- NEHJ]

I've seen Jamie McBain going first round in a lot of mock drafts and would like to see the Sens take him, but you have him at 94. What don't you like about him?

McBain in the 1st round isn't going to happen. I've not seen him ranked anywhere near there by CSS, Red Line, ISS or anyone else.

He's on the rise after an excellent U-18 performance, but I don't think it's enough to get him into the top-30. I think his kudos for the championship run has contributed to him being a lot higher on mocks than he should.

Show me any NHL team that has him in their first-round and you can color me surprised.

 

[inferno98]

I've seen Jamie McBain going first round in a lot of mock drafts and would like to see the Sens take him, but you have him at 94. What don't you like about him?

Its a compile of averaged rankings, the guy who made it pretty much had no say where guys go he was just putting rankings together and averaging them out. He did not put johnson #1 or Marchmand #100, it was just the way it came out.

 

[Senor Rational]

That was pretty interesting

Thank you

 

[Brock]

your info is wrong...iss draft guide has berglund #21

and when using CSS rankings how did you adjust for the fact that NA skaters, NA goalies, Euro Skaters and euro goalies are on separate lists meaning that they have 4 guy ranked #1??

In the THN draft guide, they give out ISS rankings for players listed in the top 50 of their list, and according to that information, they have Berglund at 102. Maybe THN was using a non final ISS list? Who Knows.

And I didn't adjust it at all, as I explained in my original post. Dr. Sens says he compiled a similar list and used a formula to try and adjust for this difference, and it came out very similar. I had personally fiddled around with several ways of trying to adjust it, and didn't really like how it turned out. Such as multiplying goalie rankings by 10, as Dr. Sens did. And I felt that it ended up giving the goalies too little credit. After fiddling, I decided that it seemed to work out the best when it did not receive any adjustment.

Take it for what it is.

 

[monster_bertuzzi]

Proof that a good tournamet can help your stock (and hurt it as well with a bad one): Ben Maxwell and Ty Wishart.

 

[Anthony Mauro]

McBain in the 1st round isn't going to happen. I've not seen him ranked anywhere near there by CSS, Red Line, ISS or anyone else.

He's on the rise after an excellent U-18 performance, but I don't think it's enough to get him into the top-30. I think his kudos for the championship run has contributed to him being a lot higher on mocks than he should.

Show me any NHL team that has him in their first-round and you can color me surprised.

Just 18 more days to break out the crayons. You haven't seen him ranked anywhere near there by CSS, Red Line, or ISS but do they draft?

 

[Dr.Sens(e)]

In the THN draft guide, they give out ISS rankings for players listed in the top 50 of their list, and according to that information, they have Berglund at 102. Maybe THN was using a non final ISS list? Who Knows.

You might be right Brock, but I also have Berglund ranked #18 by ISS based on the TSN listing, which was released a few months ago. Given his performance at the U-18's, it seems unlikely ISS dropped him out of the top 100 based on that. Also, ISS's latest update that I saw had Berglund specifically noted as a "Riser", so my guess is you have an old ranking. Here are the links:
http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/feature/?fid=10631&hubname=
http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/feature/?fid=10684&hubname=

As a result of this difference, Berglund is in my top 20. He is #15 at Young Guns, #19 at the THN, #26 at McKeens at #8 Euro by CSB (which with my latest ranking I actually did a 4x multiple for Euros (making Backstrom #4, Frolik #8, Tlusty#12, Alexandrov #16 etc.). This gave Berglund a 32nd ranking overall by CSB. Of note, Steblick, whom I respect quite a bit, has him rated #19, which is included in my ranking. Where ever ISS has him ranked, I think it's pretty clear Berglund is a consensus first rounder at this point.