Hockey’s Future Top 50 NHL Prospects, 11-20

[Holly Gunning]

http://www.hockeysfuture.com/article.php?sid=6827

Click to read more...

 

[john g]

Let the complaints begin

Again, very appreciative of the work thanks

 

[Newfie Bruin]

Ver pleased with Stuarts Ranking but IMO Toivonen is higher on the Prospect List

 

[Fighter]

Didn't expect Mikko Koivu so high...

 

[Bill McNeal]

Haven't said anything yet, as I was waiting to see where all the Habs prospects ended up. With Kastitsyn finally ranked, my voice must be heard!

Nice work guys! A lot of hard work obviously went into knowing you'd get A LOT of complaints. No complaints from me, though. I believe 4 Habs prospects in the top 50? Makes me happy. I'm surprised we had one in the top 20 (Kats). Figured our talent pool was more depth than top end talent.

Again, nice work, and anxiously waiting 1-10.

 

[Duff88]

Great work guys!

Stuart deserve to be that high, I always liked the guys (Even if he was drafted by the Bruins )

Kastsitsyn at #12 is great, Brown is a little low, but that's just my personnal opinion.

Again, awesome work!

 

[in the hall]

inconsistencies.. line mates richards and stewart get major hype from the same tourney they each shined in all while dawes who had the better tourney, better and much more impressive year gets left in the dust not even cracking the top 50

 

[Epsilon]

inconsistencies.. line mates richards and stewart get major hype from the same tourney they each shined in all while dawes who had the better tourney, better and much more impressive year gets left in the dust not even cracking the top 50

That's because Dawes is not that good an NHL prospect, and the WJC isn't the Holy Grail of prospect evaluation some like to make it out to be.

 

[punchy1]

I am not going to dispute anyones rankings of prospects because that is an excersize in futility. Even NHL scouts get it wrong all of the time so truly, all of it is simply nothing more than an educated guess. Some of it more educated than others is all. HF does a fine job of ranking the lads, as fine as anyone else does.


My problem is some of the editorials or opinions that are used underneath the listed players. I have found one that is simply a work of fiction in that it is a statement that is totally the opposite of what the facts would show.


They say under Denis Grebeshkov "While the Los Angeles Kings are not blessed with great defensive depth in their system, they do have at least one rearguard" and then some other stuff about Denis.



This is totally wrong because, in fact, the Kings actually DO have great depth in their system where defencive talent is concerned.

The Kings have Loads of NHL caliber defencive depth in their system and I find it interesting how this is overlooked so very often.




Over the past couple of years the Kings have developed the following defencemen and if you want their stats, I will be happy to list them. They will certainly astonish some of you unfortunately as they are quite solid and very talented.


***In the System still (yet to graduate to the NHL) the Kings have the following.


Aron Rome, A big talented offencive defencemen who has been significantly better in both ends of the ice than several of his higher ranked over aged junior bretheren.
He is 6-2 and 210lbs. This year for SwiftCurrent he has 43 points and 152 penalty mins. His coach says he is one of the top defencive talents he has ever coached and that he is an excellent physical defenceman. I reckon he is simply being overlooked as many of the Kings defencemen were by the pundits and yet, turned out to be brilliant anyways.


Richard Petiot, A hard hitting highly touted NCAA player who partner, a certain very highly ranked defenceman who was a top ten draft pick last year said "Richard is one of the hardest hitting, best postional defencemen I have ever seen. I wouldn't be as far along in my game if it wasn't partly for him". I take that to mean that along with what his coaches and allot of other NCAA pundits that his talented pairing mate feel he is very talented and should "at least" be considered as an NHL caliber prospect. He is 6-4 and 215 pounds. He hits like a train (his coachs words) and you lot have him listed as "a future 3rd defenseman for the kings" and "very comparable to Aron Miller". Miller is brilliant and a number two on most teams (when he don't have a cold or a hangnail) so I would have to say that Petiot should be considered an NHL caliber talent. As much as anyone should.


Denis Grebeshkov, I reckon you lads hit him on the head. He looked brilliant in his time with the Kings this year and in his one poor showing, his d mate was the worst player on ANY NHL ice that day. grebs is the business.




We have two others who are a step below but, if you have a peek at what the Kings have done in picking and developing solid NHL defencemen over the past couple of years, you will see where I feel we get a little shorted in this area and why I find it unfair.




***We have developed the following NHL defencemen over the past couple of years.

Of the young who are still stepping back between the minors and the NHL but have done rather well are;


Tomas Zizka, 6-2 216lbs. He layed 15 games with the Kings this year when we were injured more than usual and had 5 points. It took him about 6 games to get used to the NHL speed and style of game but after that, he looked every bit as good as many of our established NHL defencemen.

He will be in the NHL next season and will be another of several that the Kings have produced under the radar the last few years who are better than average.


Tim Gleason, I won't babble on about Timmy as we didn't draft or develope him but I will say that he is brilliant and NOT on our NHL team yet due to numbers. Another of the overlooked reasons that I fancy the Kings have gobs of depth on D.







*** Recently graduated who are making a name for themselves.


Joe Corvo, in 71 games Joe has 25 points and is +8. He missed a couple of years of developement but came in and has established this year that he is as good or better than as any two way defencemen (I should say #4 5 types) in the game. Remember this is his first full year and second year as a pro.


Lubomir Visnovsky, He is absolutely the business. He were another of the defencemen we drafted and developed who has gotten little attention even though he is a brilliant player. He were the rookie leading scorer among defencemen his draft year, had an average, not bad, average, second year and has been nothing short of amazing this year. He sat due to injury for a bit but who hasn't on the Kings? 26 years old. 29 points. +9. The stats don't come close however to showing how grand a defenceman he is. Dead steady eddie.



Thats 5 young defencemen in the Kings system who are NHL caliber or better (talented beyond the average) and two that are early in their careers who have come through the Kings sytem who were both thought to be below average (outside of noteworthy) and yet, are very good NHL defencemen.


Here are a couple other defencemen the Kings developed who are doing well in the NHL during this same timespan. I only list them to prove the point that the players I have listed above have a better than average shot at doing very well in the NHL as the Kings do a better than average job at picking, developing and producing NHL caliber defencemen.


Andreas Lilja. A bit overaged but playing well with the Florida Panthers (last I heard). He were a Kings pick who broke in with them and after learning the NA game, were sent to Fla and is still in the NHL.

Martin Strbak. Another who the Kings picked, developed and ended up dealing who is doing very well for his NHL team.


There are a couple of others (Timonen etc) who the Kings drafted that are doing well on other teams during this time span that also help prove my point that the Kings are doing a better than average job at developing solid young defencemen and that they are actually pretty well loaded up with talented young defencive prospects.

 

[PEli*]

It's nice to see Parise in the 11th spot. Makes me pretty happy the Devils were able to pick him up at 17th overall last year.

Thanks for the list, guys and girls.

 

[Hossa]

I am not going to dispute anyones rankings of prospects because that is an excersize in futility. Even NHL scouts get it wrong all of the time so truly, all of it is simply nothing more than an educated guess. Some of it more educated than others is all. HF does a fine job of ranking the lads, as fine as anyone else does.


My problem is some of the editorials or opinions that are used underneath the listed players. I have found one that is simply a work of fiction in that it is a statement that is totally the opposite of what the facts would show.


They say under Denis Grebeshkov "While the Los Angeles Kings are not blessed with great defensive depth in their system, they do have at least one rearguard" and then some other stuff about Denis.



This is totally wrong because, in fact, the Kings actually DO have great depth in their system where defencive talent is concerned.

The Kings have Loads of NHL caliber defencive depth in their system and I find it interesting how this is overlooked so very often.




Over the past couple of years the Kings have developed the following defencemen and if you want their stats, I will be happy to list them. They will certainly astonish some of you unfortunately as they are quite solid and very talented.


***In the System still (yet to graduate to the NHL) the Kings have the following.


Aron Rome, A big talented offencive defencemen who has been significantly better in both ends of the ice than several of his higher ranked over aged junior bretheren.
He is 6-2 and 210lbs. This year for SwiftCurrent he has 43 points and 152 penalty mins. His coach says he is one of the top defencive talents he has ever coached and that he is an excellent physical defenceman. I reckon he is simply being overlooked as many of the Kings defencemen were by the pundits and yet, turned out to be brilliant anyways.


Richard Petiot, A hard hitting highly touted NCAA player who partner, a certain very highly ranked defenceman who was a top ten draft pick last year said "Richard is one of the hardest hitting, best postional defencemen I have ever seen. I wouldn't be as far along in my game if it wasn't partly for him". I take that to mean that along with what his coaches and allot of other NCAA pundits that his talented pairing mate feel he is very talented and should "at least" be considered as an NHL caliber prospect. He is 6-4 and 215 pounds. He hits like a train (his coachs words) and you lot have him listed as "a future 3rd defenseman for the kings" and "very comparable to Aron Miller". Miller is brilliant and a number two on most teams (when he don't have a cold or a hangnail) so I would have to say that Petiot should be considered an NHL caliber talent. As much as anyone should.


Denis Grebeshkov, I reckon you lads hit him on the head. He looked brilliant in his time with the Kings this year and in his one poor showing, his d mate was the worst player on ANY NHL ice that day. grebs is the business.




We have two others who are a step below but, if you have a peek at what the Kings have done in picking and developing solid NHL defencemen over the past couple of years, you will see where I feel we get a little shorted in this area and why I find it unfair.




***We have developed the following NHL defencemen over the past couple of years.

Of the young who are still stepping back between the minors and the NHL but have done rather well are;


Tomas Zizka, 6-2 216lbs. He layed 15 games with the Kings this year when we were injured more than usual and had 5 points. It took him about 6 games to get used to the NHL speed and style of game but after that, he looked every bit as good as many of our established NHL defencemen.

He will be in the NHL next season and will be another of several that the Kings have produced under the radar the last few years who are better than average.


Tim Gleason, I won't babble on about Timmy as we didn't draft or develope him but I will say that he is brilliant and NOT on our NHL team yet due to numbers. Another of the overlooked reasons that I fancy the Kings have gobs of depth on D.







*** Recently graduated who are making a name for themselves.


Joe Corvo, in 71 games Joe has 25 points and is +8. He missed a couple of years of developement but came in and has established this year that he is as good or better than as any two way defencemen (I should say #4 5 types) in the game. Remember this is his first full year and second year as a pro.


Lubomir Visnovsky, He is absolutely the business. He were another of the defencemen we drafted and developed who has gotten little attention even though he is a brilliant player. He were the rookie leading scorer among defencemen his draft year, had an average, not bad, average, second year and has been nothing short of amazing this year. He sat due to injury for a bit but who hasn't on the Kings? 26 years old. 29 points. +9. The stats don't come close however to showing how grand a defenceman he is. Dead steady eddie.



Thats 5 young defencemen in the Kings system who are NHL caliber or better (talented beyond the average) and two that are early in their careers who have come through the Kings sytem who were both thought to be below average (outside of noteworthy) and yet, are very good NHL defencemen.


Here are a couple other defencemen the Kings developed who are doing well in the NHL during this same timespan. I only list them to prove the point that the players I have listed above have a better than average shot at doing very well in the NHL as the Kings do a better than average job at picking, developing and producing NHL caliber defencemen.


Andreas Lilja. A bit overaged but playing well with the Florida Panthers (last I heard). He were a Kings pick who broke in with them and after learning the NA game, were sent to Fla and is still in the NHL.

Martin Strbak. Another who the Kings picked, developed and ended up dealing who is doing very well for his NHL team.


There are a couple of others (Timonen etc) who the Kings drafted that are doing well on other teams during this time span that also help prove my point that the Kings are doing a better than average job at developing solid young defencemen and that they are actually pretty well loaded up with talented young defencive prospects.

Fantastic post. I'll speak to Gleason in particular because I've always been quite high on the kid. His lack of hockey sense was quite over-rated, and I was in fact dissapointed with his lack of running around offensively, becuase I expected an offensive dynamo withno concern for his own zone. Every time I saw him, I noticed more his defensive positioning and his willingness to play physically than his offensive upside. That being said, he's a great skater with a hard shot, but I don't know if he'll be a great offensive defenceman at the NHL level, but he's going to be a heck of a top 4 d-man. Smolinski's been good, but I wish Gleason was willing to sign with the Sens, becuase we probably wouldn't have dealt him for Smolinski if that were the case.

Personally, I think Gleason could easily be better than Grebeshkov, although that's not a knock on Grebeshkov.

 

[ZombieMatt]

Good work on the list.

I won't put my own comments because this is the one I disagreed with the most, but in fairness I'm sure that the committee which prepared this put in much more time than I have.

I think that perhaps this may be good advice to those who disagree with the rankings. If you see someone higher or lower than you would expect, perhaps it would be a good idea to take a deeper look at these guys. A good number of people have put a good amount of time into the preperation of the list and almost certainly have seen more of the players being ranked combined than one individual.

Anyhow, good job with the list.

 

[Debrincat93]

great work, but makes me think that im a little surpised theres no Babchuk in the top 20 so far, i never thought of him in the top10, and i know he's better then most of the defensemen already listed so im i guess really looking forward to seeing the rest...

also heard the wings had a few guys on the list, so i guess grigorenko made the top10 again?

also kinda suprised to not see kahnberg make the list anywhere yet

 

[Teemu]

Babchuk is top 10? nice. Even i didnt think of him THAT highly.

 

[Mizral]

Wow. Obviously you writers are going to expect criticism, and while I appreciate the effort, I can't help but feel this is one of the worst Top 50 lists in years.

Mikko Koivu? Andrei Kastsitsyn that high? Mark Stuart ahead of Hannu Toivonen? These are some incredibly strange and ballsy predictions. Particularly the Koivu pick - in the 40's - 50's spot I could understand, but holy geez, the 17th best prospect in the world?

Of course we'll all have our opinions. That was mine We'll see how things work out in the final 10.

 

[thestonedkoala]

Agreed, Koivu should have slipped a few down the rungs and maybe even off the list. I like the kid but a lot of kids have past him since he got drafted. Move O'Sullivan up. Have you see what this kid has to play with? Good players but other than O'Sullivan, I don't think he has really played, this year, with any real knock-out forwards, defensemans but goalie can be argued.

And wow, I can't believe Harding is that high.

 

[Enoch]

I'm very disapointed to see that Timofei Shishkanov did not make this list (its still possible, there are 10 more to go......but realistically there is no way he is in the top 10). Fedor Tjutin is considered a prospect still? He has been with the Rangers for awhile now?

At least Suter made the top 10, even our writer cannot downplay him THAT much. Hopefully he beats out Phaneuf (although after the hype started by Pierre Mcguire was started at the WJC's.......I doubt he will).

 

[FlyersFan10*]

I'm a little disappointed. I thought that Jeff Carter and Zach Parise would crack the top 10. While they are both deserving of being in the top 20, I still think that the two of them should be in the top 10. And contrary to a previous poster who mentioned the WJC isn't the be all and end all when it comes to prospect evaluation, it does play a big role in defining make or break situations for prospects. It won't surprise me to see Ovechkin and the Czech (all what I know is that he is a forward and his last name starts with O) crack the top 10. I'm sure Sidney Crosby will probably be number 1. I'll be honest and state that those three mentioned don't impress me. There's just something in which players get built up with so much hype that very seldom do they deliver. The last player/s that I can think of who have delivered on the hype have been Heatley and Kovalchuk.

 

[Debrincat93]

I'm very disapointed to see that Timofei Shishkanov did not make this list (its still possible, there are 10 more to go......but realistically there is no way he is in the top 10). Fedor Tjutin is considered a prospect still? He has been with the Rangers for awhile now?

At least Suter made the top 10, even our writer cannot downplay him THAT much. Hopefully he beats out Phaneuf (although after the hype started by Pierre Mcguire was started at the WJC's.......I doubt he will).

well derek roy is on the list too and he's been with the sabres for a long time now as well... i guess its just how it goes

 

[Hossa]

I'm very disapointed to see that Timofei Shishkanov did not make this list (its still possible, there are 10 more to go......but realistically there is no way he is in the top 10). Fedor Tjutin is considered a prospect still? He has been with the Rangers for awhile now?

At least Suter made the top 10, even our writer cannot downplay him THAT much. Hopefully he beats out Phaneuf (although after the hype started by Pierre Mcguire was started at the WJC's.......I doubt he will).

On Tjutin, he played 25 games this year. That's still a prospect by HF's criteria, thus he was included.

 

[Coffey77]

Grigorenko's in the top 10?? He's only played a handful of games this year but I guess that didn't hurt his ranking. I think he's going in for surgery again in the summer. And then he will play for Lada Togliatti for another year. Remarkable that he even played at all this year.

I think Tyutin's still a prospect. I don't think he has played that many games with the Rangers.

 

[The Mighty Duck Man]

Getzlaf couldn't crack that? No offense, but he is definetely better than guys like Koivu. Hell, he's even better than the #15 rank, Mark Stuart. Parise's also should be in the top 10. Maybe Carter, too.

 

[gb701]

I have to go with Punchy1 on this one - the issue is not the ranking which is naturally subjective and we can all agree to disagree as we please. The problem is when fiction is disguised as editorial comment, as an effort to justify how wise the selections are. The example given by punchy is just one of many leaps from reality in this list.

 

[mcarrick16]

Mikko Koivu is extremely talented and I think that Koivu should be in the top 50 maybe not 17th but atleast top 25!!

next you will see he will prouve you rong!! Ruutu and Koivu have similar's stats in the SM-LIGA! Ruutu is better than Koivu i know but Mikko will be a excellent second line center similars stats like Scott Gomez

 

[Fedz]

Wow. Obviously you writers are going to expect criticism, and while I appreciate the effort, I can't help but feel this is one of the worst Top 50 lists in years.

Mikko Koivu? Andrei Kastsitsyn that high? Mark Stuart ahead of Hannu Toivonen? These are some incredibly strange and ballsy predictions. Particularly the Koivu pick - in the 40's - 50's spot I could understand, but holy geez, the 17th best prospect in the world?

Of course we'll all have our opinions. That was mine We'll see how things work out in the final 10.

I have to agree here. This is absolutely horrible. Andrei Kastitsyn should not be in the top 20, let alone 30. Mikko Koivu shouldn't even be on the list. Carter should be ahead of Parise.