By HF the website: Erik Christensen
By HF the boards: Ryan Whitney
HF the website has Christensen ranked behind such borderline NHL'ers as Michel Ouellet and Matt Moulson. I know the Penguins' farm system is deep, but there's no way there are 15 better prospects than Christensen. It's also odd that Maxime Talbot is ranked #6 on the Pens' prospect list while Christensen is down at #16. I love Talbot, but his upside is that of a third liner. A very good third liner with John Madden potential, but still a third liner. Christensen, meanwhile, has the ability to be a top 6 forward right now and center a scoring line on virtually any team in the NHL in a few years.
Erik's stats so far: 14 games, 4 goals, 3 assists, +7, 15:02 ATOI
Pay particular attention to the +7. He leads the team in +/- and only 3 other forwards are in the positive - Ziggy Palffy with a +3, Lasse Pirjeta with a +1 and Michel Ouellet with a +1. Pirjeta is only on the ice for about 9 minutes per game and Ouellet played 3 games before being sent back down to the AHL.
As for Whitney, anytime a discussion of top defensive prospects comes up on these boards, Whitney seems to get overlooked. Yes, we know Phaneuf is incredible and Meszaros has been a very nice surprise, but Whitney currently leads all rookies in ice time with an ATOI of 24:07 (by comparison, Phaneuf is 21:40 and Meszaros is 13:38) and has scored 9 points in 14 games. I'm not saying he's better than Phaneuf, but he does deserve mention right alongside him when we're talking about stud rookie defensemen.