McKeen's Final Ranking, Top 15

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King'sPawn

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McKeens has their final top 100 out. However, because it's a paid subscription, I can only relay the top 15:

1. Sidney Crosby
2. Jack Johnson
3. Anze Kopitar
4. Gilbert Brule
5. Bobby Ryan
6. Alex Bourret
7. Benoit Pouliot
8. Tuukka Rask
9. Marek Zagrapan
10. Brendan Mikkelson
11. Ryan O'Marra
12. Jack Skille
13. Cary Price
14. Martin Hanzal
15. Marc Staal

Talk about someone coming out of nowhere... How did Mikkelson suddenly become a top 10 draft... anyone?
 

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These rankings are ridiculous. Now Jack Johnson is back to number 2 and Ryan falls to number five.
 

borro

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King'sPawn said:
McKeens has their final top 100 out. However, because it's a paid subscription, I can only relay the top 15:

1. Sidney Crosby
2. Jack Johnson
3. Anze Kopitar
4. Gilbert Brule
5. Bobby Ryan
6. Alex Bourret
7. Benoit Pouliot
8. Tuukka Rask
9. Marek Zagrapan
10. Brendan Mikkelson
11. Ryan O'Marra
12. Jack Skille
13. Cary Price
14. Martin Hanzal
15. Marc Staal

Talk about someone coming out of nowhere... How did Mikkelson suddenly become a top 10 draft... anyone?

Bloodlines? Mikkelson is Bill Mikkelson's son. He is a big guy and plays reasonably aggressive. I have no idea why the mercurial rise, but often such players max out their potential. I would not pick him over Staal.
 

Hiishawk

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Panasonic Youth said:
These rankings are ridiculous. Now Jack Johnson is back to number 2 and Ryan falls to number five.

Why? Because they are not the same as some other rankings? Should all the ranking services have the same players within a few places of each other? Wouldn't that be boring? It would also seem to imply that they are basing their rankings on the other ranking services, rather than what they REALLY think or know.
That's what many on this board do (by necessity) but it is not what one would expect of a ranking service.

And if you want to know why Mikkelson is now top 10 or why Pouliot is #7 or Johnson is back at #2 then pay the fee and read it. They WILL tell you the reasons why.
 

mymkovski

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I'm glad to see Staal isn't in the top 10...but I'm shocked to see Pouliot at 7.

This still doesn't solve my personal dilemma of who I'd rather draft..Brule or Johnson.
 

dem

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Someone with the Oilers (Kevin lowe?) was talking pretty glowingly about Mikkelson recently. I wouldnt be suprised if they took him that early... given they have the opportunity.
 

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steblick said:
Why? Because they are not the same as some other rankings? Should all the ranking services have the same players within a few places of each other? Wouldn't that be boring? It would also seem to imply that they are basing their rankings on the other ranking services, rather than what they REALLY think or know.
That's what many on this board do (by necessity) but it is not what one would expect of a ranking service.

I do expect some consistency between professional scouts. There has been no consistency to these rankings since the lockout, if anything they should have finalized the list once hockey finished last month. Watching the ranking vary so much doesn't really give us the fans a realistic idea of what to expect. Plus we have the draft lottery yet so the order could be even more screwed up than any rankings indicate.

I'm just clueless about this years draft and what to expect just like everyone else, it's madness.
 

Seachd

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Panasonic Youth said:
I'm just clueless about this years draft and what to expect just like everyone else, it's madness.

Exactly. Read Bob McKenzie's Top 30 article. Even the scouts of NHL teams have wildly varying opinions on most of these guys.

So how can you expect consistency when everyone thinks something different? It's going to make this draft that much more interesting.
 

King'sPawn

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steblick said:
And if you want to know why Mikkelson is now top 10 or why Pouliot is #7 or Johnson is back at #2 then pay the fee and read it. They WILL tell you the reasons why.

I did read the profile before I started this thread. Their explanation of his play as of late was interesting, but it didn't explain shooting up so many spots in the rankings. There is a Canada U-18 review that will be published July 8th, so it might explain more.

But I posed the question because they must have seen something; I was wondering if anyone else had seen something special about him and could explain it before I bothered McKeens with a query of my own :)

These rankings certainly are interesting to talk about. Isn't McKeens the only scouting service right now who currently ranks Rask ahead of Price as well? Seems like Price has been getting many more props as of late.
 

Kirk- NEHJ

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Panasonic Youth said:
I do expect some consistency between professional scouts. There has been no consistency to these rankings since the lockout, if anything they should have finalized the list once hockey finished last month. Watching the ranking vary so much doesn't really give us the fans a realistic idea of what to expect.
I'm just clueless about this years draft and what to expect just like everyone else, it's madness.

The rankings aren't for the fans; it isn't about fulfilling yours or anyone else's expectations. It isn't about consistency among professional scouts, either. As the old saying goes, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," and where one team may absolutely love what Ryan O'Marra brings to the table, another team may see him entirely differently and have him well down their respective board.

Teams, like the various independent scouting sources out there, rank the players differently. You'd be surprised at how different a team's list is from the Central Scouting rankings that are published each year. NHL scouts may use the Central list as a baseline, but how much stock they place in it differs from club to club. I can tell you for a fact that the Boston Bruins don't place much emphasis on the Central listing at all. They may use it to identify certain players that they may not have seen much, but they aren't going to move prospects up or down the board based on what the CSB says about them.

If you think that all of the scouting services should agree or that the rankings should mirror one another, you are mistaken. Certain players, such as Sidney Crosby for example, are no-brainers- universally seen as the best player available. But after that, there is no way you can say that every team views Jack Johnson or Bobby Ryan or Benoit Pouliot in the same light. One guy might be 2nd on one club's list, while on another, he could be 7th or 8th. Scouts get paid to view the players and make an assessment, but just because the kid gets mondo hype on the HF Boards does not mean that every scout should love his game, too.

If any of the services like Red Line or McKeen's or what have you had predicted Blake Wheeler would be the 5th pick in 2004 before the draft, they would have been ridiculed without end on these boards, because Wheeler simply was not *publicly* ranked anywhere near the top of the draft last year. The Phoenix Coyotes proved that perception is not reality, and they obviously had him much higher than the others, right or wrong.

The draft is about the teams, not the fans. It never ceases to amaze me when fans get on these boards and boldly declare what the NHL teams will or will not do. Few outside of the teams themselves, have a clue where they view the players and how they have them ranked. This is all part of the process- to prevent other clubs from knowing their intentions so they can try and secure the player they covet. Some teams are very open about who they like prior to the draft, and some teams guard their wish list and desires like Fort Knox. Most will deliberately engage in deception plans to mask their true intentions. For example, it is often the case that if a scout/team talks extensively about a player, they have no intention of drafting them. They will talk that player up in hopes that someone else takes him. OTOH, when you ask a scout about a player and he has little to nothing to say about him, then there's a good chance that they like that player. That's a red flag for me, and the kind of response I got when asking Scott Bradley about Martins Karsums a week before the draft.

These are lessons I have learned from covering the NHL draft each year since 2000.
A lot of fans simply do not understand how the draft works. They actually believe that the Central list is gospel, and because it is released to the public and team lists aren't, is really the biggest resource they have to go on. But, don't make the mistake of believing that the CSB ranking is the end-all, be-all of the draft. You'd be shocked at how much of a disparity there is between the final CSB rankings and the average NHL team's draft board.

CSB, NHL scouts, Red Line, McKeen's and whatever other sources are out there- there is going to be disparity because not everyone sees the pecking order as cut and dried as many of us might.
 

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Kirk- NEHJ said:
The rankings aren't for the fans; it isn't about fulfilling yours or anyone else's expectations. It isn't about consistency among professional scouts, either. As the old saying goes, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," and where one team may absolutely love what Ryan O'Marra brings to the table, another team may see him entirely differently and have him well down their respective board...

I understand what you're saying but at the same time if these popular rankings aren't for the fans then what's their purpose? I'd bet my car on it that the NHL scouts put liitle or no weight in these rankings simply because every teams needs are different. These rankings should be meant for the fans and to give them a general idea of which prospects are performing at what levels, NOT to indicate where they will be taken in the draft.

When I see Bob McKenzie say that Pulliout (sp?) is a probable number two while McKeen has him listed at seven, I'm left scratching my head wondering why their opinions differ so drastically.
 
Panasonic Youth said:
I understand what you're saying but at the same time if these popular rankings aren't for the fans then what's their purpose? I'd bet my car on it that the NHL scouts put liitle or no weight in these rankings simply because every teams needs are different. These rankings should be meant for the fans and to give them a general idea of which prospects are performing at what levels, NOT to indicate where they will be taken in the draft.

When I see Bob McKenzie say that Pulliout (sp?) is a probable number two while McKeen has him listed at seven, I'm left scratching my head wondering why their opinions differ so drastically.

Why shouldn't they differ so drastically? They're opinions after all. Why don't you make a list of the 10 best players in the NHL and I'll make a list and see how they compare. Do you think they'll look exactly the same? And this is with the benefit of comparing players in the same league and in games played against each other. Think how much more difficult it would be to do so with these prospects who are playing halfway across the world from each other, and trying to guess how they'll compare to each other in 10 years.
 

Kirk- NEHJ

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Panasonic Youth said:
I understand what you're saying but at the same time if these popular rankings aren't for the fans then what's their purpose?

To provide a different perspective from the Central rankings, which, for a time, was the only show in town to go on. To make money working in the business and perhaps set themselves up for a job with an NHL team someday? To give fans more insight, choices and better information than has ever existed thanks to expanded mediums such as the internet?

Panasonic Youth said:
I'd bet my car on it that the NHL scouts put liitle or no weight in these rankings simply because every teams needs are different.

Teams rarely draft for need. This is because most players drafted aren't going to play in the NHL right away. What is a need in 2003, may not be a need in 2005 or 2006, when the kid actually earns a roster spot. Most scouts will tell you that they draft the best player available. Who the best player is on that respective team's board is the fun thing to speculate about. But very few of us will ever find out why that team preferred Player A to Player B when their pick came.

Panasonic Youth said:
These rankings should be meant for the fans and to give them a general idea of which prospects are performing at what levels, NOT to indicate where they will be taken in the draft.

The rankings should be meant for the fans? I don't get it. Opinions are going to differ. That is true with anything, from politics to music to movies to what have you. How can you honestly sit there and think that all the scouts should have the same opinion on players? It just doesn't work that way. In hockey and in life.


Panasonic Youth said:
When I see Bob McKenzie say that Pulliout (sp?) is a probable number two while McKeen has him listed at seven, I'm left scratching my head wondering why their opinions differ so drastically.

Because certain people see different things when they view a player. Not every team sees a player as often or as many times as another might. Simply put, drafting is not an exact science. One scout may go to a game and Pouliot is dominant, scoring goals, hitting everything in sight and looking like a franchise-type of player. Another scout may go to a different game and Pouliot does little to nothing. How different do you think their opinions are going to be on him?

In a perfect world, scouts will attend every game of every player and have a gigantic sample size to draw from. Unfortunately, there aren't enough scouts in the world to make that happen.

In the end, I have to wonder what you want out of the draft. Once again, it isn't for the fans. Watch, observe and enjoy. Teams are going to like certain players and not like others. This is why players like Patrick O'Sullivan fall to the end of the 2nd round. On talent alone, he should have gone in the top-10. How boring would the draft be if every published scouting source said the same exact thing, and then all 30 NHL teams followed those pronostications lock-step down the line?

So much of the fun of the draft is seeing who the surprise risers and fallers are going to be. It happens every year. And honestly, few outside of the the organizations know why a club opts for Player A over Player B, even when it appears that Player B has a higher upside or better stats than A does. This is where opinion comes in, and it sounds like you want a nice, neat consistent matrix of how the draft is going to shake out. The top of the draft may end up looking pretty consistent, but as you go further down the line in the first round, things are going to change. That's just the way it is. And, just because the rankings vary from source to source doesn't mean one is right and the other wrong.

We won't know that for another five years or so- time enough for the players to make it as NHL players or not.
 
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Guy Flaming

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One scout I talk to often said it to me like this one time:

"I don't even look at Central's list. I don't get Redline or McKewan's, or whatever. I only know of ISS because you told me about it. The (NHL team name) doesn't pay me to base my opinions by reading everyone else's list; they pay me for my list."

Draft lists are like snowflakes; no two are ever identical.
 

Seachd

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Vinland said:
actually as they have not posted a new top 100 in 3 months I would guess as a paying person it is all a mystery
Yeah, it's finally updated. Very disappointed that it took them this long.
 

Hiishawk

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Panasonic Youth said:
I do expect some consistency between professional scouts. There has been no consistency to these rankings since the lockout, if anything they should have finalized the list once hockey finished last month. Watching the ranking vary so much doesn't really give us the fans a realistic idea of what to expect. Plus we have the draft lottery yet so the order could be even more screwed up than any rankings indicate.

Well I can tell you without hesitation that NHL scouts'/teams lists will vary AT LEAST by this much on their rankings. I once worked for an NHL team and I can tell you that some of our final rankings would have shocked posters on this board.
I would bet my first and second born that some team has Brule or Ryan in the 20's or Juraj Mikus as a top 8 pick. Happens all the time.

They are pro scouts yeah- but that hardly means consensus.
 

ZombieMatt

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steblick said:
Well I can tell you without hesitation that NHL scouts'/teams lists will vary AT LEAST by this much on their rankings. I once worked for an NHL team and I can tell you that some of our final rankings would have shocked posters on this board.
I would bet my first and second born that some team has Brule or Ryan in the 20's or Juraj Mikus as a top 8 pick. Happens all the time.

They are pro scouts yeah- but that hardly means consensus.

As can be expected, steblick is absolutely right. This past season I once asked two regional team scouts what they thought of the same player after both had seen him three times in the past few weeks.

One told me he felt the player could be the third overall pick.

The other told me the player was not in his top fifteen.
 

Bryanbryoil

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King'sPawn said:
Talk about someone coming out of nowhere... How did Mikkelson suddenly become a top 10 draft... anyone?

I believe that I read that Kevin Prendergast said that he skates like Coffey and that he can really move the puck, but he lacks Coffey's offense "who doesn't???". Based on that comment, IMO he would be a good fit for the Oil, as he could help to rush the puck up ice with speed.
 

Hiishawk

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Another thing to remember is that any scouting service's ranking IS based upon a consensus of their scouts. McKeen's is made up of several scouts so a player's placement in the rankings will naturally be a composite figure. I'm sure that the individual scouts at McKeen's will disagree with each other on many players and even on the final composite ranking.

When I was in the field I thought some of my fellow (same team's) scouts were waaaay out there in their assessments of certain players, and doubtless they thought that way about some of mine too. But that's precisely what the GM and DPP wanted- a variety of opinions from people with different perspectives. All of these were factored into the team's final final rankings (although the DPP's and GMs rankings counted for double, I believe).
 

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Panasonic Youth said:
I understand what you're saying but at the same time if these popular rankings aren't for the fans then what's their purpose? I'd bet my car on it that the NHL scouts put liitle or no weight in these rankings simply because every teams needs are different. These rankings should be meant for the fans and to give them a general idea of which prospects are performing at what levels, NOT to indicate where they will be taken in the draft.

When I see Bob McKenzie say that Pulliout (sp?) is a probable number two while McKeen has him listed at seven, I'm left scratching my head wondering why their opinions differ so drastically.
every draft goes like this, imo. even if they had ten identical lists - the top 30 would have some surprises. brent burns? blake wheeler? how can you predict that stuff? when it comes down to it, teams and scouts rank players different because they are different people themselves. one scout likes the heart and soul brule type, some people like the potential of benoit p., the next guy likes dmen first. its silly to blame a scouting organization for not matching up with others - they dont do it purposely, and they dont base it off other scouting groups. these discussions happen every year.
 
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