This is one of their lazier releases. Massive oversights in every league except the CHL (surprise surprise). The CHL double-overage obsession has to end at some point, as does “his dad played so rank him”. Kiviharju, Jiricek needed to be docked for not playing elite-level hockey before injuries. The Swedish rankings are lazy and seem to ignore the playoffs. Many of the later SM-Sarja kids have been vastly outperformed by other FYEs for more than half a season, but if they were watch-listed or ranked at midterm, they weren’t replaced. Saarinen was rough to watch many, many times. The Minnesota HS rankings are embarrassing. No Hirschfeld or Uhlenkamp but Javon Moore stays in the 40s after being invisible in the sectional. They crushed the NTDP almost across the board but held many CHL kids to different standards.
Levshunov has no business being ahead of Buium. Hemming got demoted for the SM Liiga playoffs while Artamonov was halfway decent against SKA.
Too many questionable decisions. They dropped kids with strong second halves, leadership traits, size, etc. How the hell is Hjalte Thomsen omitted after being so good all season, crushing the D1A WC, and at times 2nd line in the SHL but the overage C on shitty IKO Langus wasn’t? Langus is a good 200-foot center but is the fourth or fifth best player on his team and Kopac does all the creating on their line.
Shame the mainstream will eat all of these rankings up. Shady shit as usual. They need to make their meetings public on YT.