Prospect Info: 2018 HFDevils Prospect Rankings #9

[Zippy316]

Rank	Player	Draft POS	Vote %	2017 Result	2016 Result
1	Ty Smith	2018 #17	83.6	Nico Hischier	Pavel Zacha
2	Michael McLeod	2017 #12	59.6	Michael McLeod	Michael McLeod
3	Joey Anderson	2016 #73	56.2	Steven Santini	Steven Santini
4	Jesper Boqvist	2017 #38	31.2	John Quenneville	John Quenneville
5	John Quenneville	2014 #30	40.2	Blake Speers	MacKenzie Blackwood
6	Reilly Walsh	2017 #78	64.6	Yegor Rykov	Joseph Blandisi
7	Brett Seney	2015 #157	41.2	T - MacKenzie Blackwood	Miles Wood
8	Jeremy Davies	2017 #193	50.3	T - Jesper Boqvist	Josh Jacobs
9				Joey Anderson	Blake Speers

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Remaining eligible prospects:

Xavier Bernard
Brandon Gignac
Matt Hellickson
Mitchell Hoelscher
Cam Johnson
Eetu Pakkila
Nikita Popugayev
Kevin Rooney
Akira Schmid
Gilles Senn
Colton White

Added Chainey

Click to read more...

 

[RememberTheName]

Speers add Hellickson

 

[Emperoreddy]

Sissons? Man I don’t know.

 

[Devils Dominion]

Talvitie, add Hellickson

 

[Beastdog75]

Voted for Blackwood again, add Gignac

 

[Cheddabombs]

Zetterlund for me. A few guys are pretty close but there's still a clear margin for me between him and the others.

Add Gignac

 

[OmNomNom]

@ek93 @ZekeA

need your input here - debating currently with @Triumph over the concept that Bing players are (biasedly) ranked much lower than NCAA/CHL prospects, due to Bing's shitty season this past year.

but specifically Mackenzie Blackwood. does he deserve to be behind said NCAA/CHL players? or is he as terrible as Triumph says, and deserves to be below even 4th round picks

 

[Blender]

Zetterlund add Hellickson.

 

[Billdo]

Studenic but I feel a guy like Zetterlund or maybe even Talvitie has more buzz.

 

[Zippy316]

Speers for me here.

He had a rough past season but I don’t see what Zetterlund has done that surpasses what Speers did.

 

[EnglishDevil]

Zetterlund add Hellickson

Hard to choose between a lot of the remaining guys, especially the forwards. Think Zetterlund & Talvitie are the next best ones though.

 

[Cheddabombs]

Speers for me here.

He had a rough past season but I don’t see what Zetterlund has done that surpasses what Speers did.

Well, what has Speers done? It's really hard to compare CHL production to overseas.

 

[Darkauron]

Speers had a really bad year again this year. He has not shown much to be rated over any other players imo. The Fab seems like he will be better imo

 

[Triumph]

I don't think there's much difference between any of the skaters right now. I said Bastian but really it could be anyone at this point - Zetterlund had an okay year, but it's very hard to talk about 18-20 year olds playing in men's leagues where none of them have even decent results.

Talvitie had the opposite problem, he beat up on a league where future NHLers seldom play.

A year will go by and the choice will look obvious, but at this juncture it's not obvious at all.

 

[My3Sons]

Well, what has Speers done? It's really hard to compare CHL production to overseas.

No that’s actually easy. Being great in an overseas men’s league is more impressive than actual NHL success.

 

[ek93]

@ek93 @ZekeA

need your input here - debating currently with @Triumph over the concept that Bing players are (biasedly) ranked much lower than NCAA/CHL prospects, due to Bing's ****ty season this past year.

but specifically Mackenzie Blackwood. does he deserve to be behind said NCAA/CHL players? or is he as terrible as Triumph says, and deserves to be below even 4th round picks

I might be the wrong guy to ask, since I really dislike Blackwood from an on-ice standpoint, so I feel I might have some bias when I say that he was pretty bad all year.

With that being said, the team around him was horrible. The massive drop-off in MBW's numbers from Albany in 2016-17 to Bingo last year would help your case I think. In my mind, there's really no other conceivable way a player would drop off that much on his own. He also looked very good in the ECHL playoffs, so for those reasons, I'm willing to give him another chance next year before I really lose hope.

I do think that a lot of the prospects would be rated higher if the supporting cast in Binghamton was good, or even decent. A lot of the stat lines from last season are extremely underwhelming and I do think a lot of it had to do with how bad the rest of the team was, so I would definitely agree with you there. Most nights the team was borderline unwatchable, but it is absolutely not because the prospects lack talent. I am still holding out hope that we can add some late veteran scoring down here to help the young guns along the way this season.

In addition, it seemed like guys were being thrown all over the lineup on any given night. One player who I can't remember (I think Speers) got juggled around the lineup so much in the latter part of the season that it's no wonder he couldn't develop any chemistry with anybody when he was playing with two different guys every night.

In general, last year was just a mess down here, and yes, I do believe a lot of it had to do with how bad the team was in general. If you put some of our prospects on the Toronto Marlies, you would have a lot of different results.

 

[NJDevils17]

Clicked Bastian but meant Zetterlund. Add Bernard.

 

[Zippy316]

Well, what has Speers done? It's really hard to compare CHL production to overseas.

Good but not great OHL production. Made the Devils out of training camp although he looked really out of place. Made the Canada WJC team.

Zetterlund's numbers overseas to date are not much different than what Speers accomplished in that same timeframe, in my opinion.

I see the argument for Zetterlund over Speers, but I think Speers is getting unfairly treated for a poor Binghamton team. Speers also played that utility forward role in Binghamton moving around in multiple positions on multiple lines in different roles all year which isn't easy especially on a bad team.

No that’s actually easy. Being great in an overseas men’s league is more impressive than actual NHL success.

Playing a fourth line role and scoring 3 goals and 4 assists in 35 games is hardly 'being great in an overseas men's league.' Boqvist has an argument for that, but Zetterlund hasn't done much to stand out aside from being ripped in Devils media videos. Not that it's a bad thing though, but he's merely just been on the path you would expect so far.

 

[My3Sons]

Good but not great OHL production. Made the Devils out of training camp although he looked really out of place. Made the Canada WJC team.

Zetterlund's numbers overseas to date are not much different than what Speers accomplished in that same timeframe.



Playing a fourth line role and scoring 3 goals and 4 assists in 35 games is hardly 'being great in an overseas men's league.' Boqvist has an argument for that, but Zetterlund hasn't done much to stand out aside from being ripped in Devils media videos. Not that it's a bad thing though, but he's merely just been on the path you would expect so far.

I was making a snarky comment about the Nucks/Sweden fans who went on and on last season about how Pettersson’s record setting season in Sweden was justification for him going first overall in a redraft ahead of Nico despite Nico actually succeeding in a first line role in NJ. Not sure why that bothered me so much but I probably should have been clear in my prior post. I realize Zetterlund had a nice season but nothing earth shaking.

 

[Emperoreddy]

The thing is the AHL guys legit did have a bad year, and in a ranking like this you have to take that into consideration. I mean how could you not?

That doesn’t mean all those AHL prospects are doomed, and the younger guys who haven’t turned pro are guaranteed to be better.

These rankings are arbitrary for the most part, and we need to draw lines somewhere. Good seasons in lower leagues over terrible/injured seasons in Bingo is one way to do that.

 

[nugg]

Fabian. I give up on Akira, add Xavier.

 

[devilsblood]

Sissons? Man I don’t know.

I feel like we are in dart board time.

Bastian add Bernard.

 

[devilsblood]

The thing is the AHL guys legit did have a bad year, and in a ranking like this you have to take that into consideration. I mean how could you not?

That doesn’t mean all those AHL prospects are doomed, and the younger guys who haven’t turned pro are guaranteed to be better.

These rankings are arbitrary for the most part, and we need to draw lines somewhere. Good seasons in lower leagues over terrible/injured seasons in Bingo is one way to do that.

Ya so do you prefer meh production in europe or meh production in the AHL?

I went the latter. Certainly murky waters.

 

[Oneiro]

I think Speers will surprise.

If he was someone who lived and died by his tools, I'd be more willing to write him off. But one bad year is not enough for me to write off what we saw in him initially.

 

[OmNomNom]

Good but not great OHL production. Made the Devils out of training camp although he looked really out of place. Made the Canada WJC team.

Zetterlund's numbers overseas to date are not much different than what Speers accomplished in that same timeframe, in my opinion.

I see the argument for Zetterlund over Speers, but I think Speers is getting unfairly treated for a poor Binghamton team. Speers also played that utility forward role in Binghamton moving around in multiple positions on multiple lines in different roles all year which isn't easy especially on a bad team.



Playing a fourth line role and scoring 3 goals and 4 assists in 35 games is hardly 'being great in an overseas men's league.' Boqvist has an argument for that, but Zetterlund hasn't done much to stand out aside from being ripped in Devils media videos. Not that it's a bad thing though, but he's merely just been on the path you would expect so far.

this ranking is more of "who's exciting to you" as opposed to "who will make the NHL"

so hard to gauge when we don't have a unified standard of judging