That is why we're awful at making these lists. Any type of information released about a player and we jump on it and they get a big boost compared to other prospects. If we don't hear anything then we just forget the player exists.
Wood was picked 60 spots higher than Bell in 2013 yet Bell was put in the 12th spot while Wood wasn't even included. The scouting staff clearly liked Wood better than Bell but we had no idea why. All we knew was that Bell had been a highly rated prospect before getting in a car accident, missing a year, and then changed positions.
There is also a huge bias in draft position that lasts for years. Burlon had no redeeming qualities in 2013. He was a mid-bottom pair AHLer with no hope of being an NHLer yet he finds himself at 9th on the list mainly because he was a 2nd round pick.
The good news is that we're getting better. Josh Jacobs dropped out of the list after two years of poor play. He'd probably still be in the top 10 if we were doing this in 2013.
But Bell had put up far superior results and was older. I wasn't voting then, but I think I would put Bell above Wood for similar reasons. Sometimes teams draft guys like Wood and they don't even turn out to be professional hockey players. The Devils drafted a guy in the 7th round a few years back out of prep school who quit hockey his freshman year of college. Of course, it turned out that 5 years later, Bell is the one out of professional hockey and Wood's in the NHL, but I'm not going to go on chalk or who the Devils think is better - I'm going by who I think is better. I'm going to rank Sharangovich over Bernard - I ranked him significantly over Bernard in the survey at All About The Jersey, actually, for the same reasons. I'd rather have a 20 year old forward who put up 3rd line results in a men's league over an 18 year old D with minimal numbers. Of course Sharangovich could wash out of the AHL and Bernard could have a solid season in the Q next year and then they'd be flipped (or Sharangovich could be off the list entirely) - that's just how it is with tracking young players. It's very inexact.
I agree about guys like Burlon and Jacobs and the bias of draft position, but you're also kinda talking out of both sides of your mouth here when you talk about how people hew too close to draft position but also rank Bell over Wood. But yeah, guys hang around on lists like this a little too long.
Haha Bell. Remember Myles Bell? I used to get him confused with Wood all the time and would be like ''Are you guys on heavy ****?'' whenever I would see someone say ''Miles Wood can become a pretty good NHL player one day'' because I thought they were talking about Bell.
Didn't Bell score like a bunch of goals in the ECHL? He was a sniper and made the all star team in that league. Now that I look him up, he only scored 10 goals in 41 games in the ECHL. I thought it was like 20 goals or more or something like that? He wasn't even as good as I had remembered.
Bell started out real hot in the ECHL and it looked like he was going to be called up to the AHL any day, but then he basically stopped scoring or doing anything and then that was it for his pro career in North America.
