2018 THN Future Watch
- Thread starter Brodeur
- Start date
Satanphonehome
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- Jan 4, 2015
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Digital download is out.
Sabre prospect edges Canuck for top spot.
Sabre prospect edges Canuck for top spot.
Hey, man it is on Zinio. It wasn’t on it earlier when I asked that question, but it is now. If you don’t have an account already you can make one. The digital copy is 2.99 on there.
Zinio link: The Hockey News
Oddly, it's $2.99 thru their app but $2.33 thru their website. I know there'll be some folks who refuse to pay money, but I've spent $2.33 on worse things. If anything, I hope the thread doesn't degenerate into posts asking for their team's top 10.
Haven't had a chance to read the entire issue yet, but it looks like The Hockey News polled eleven scouts. Mittelstadt was the only prospect who was in the top 5 on all the surveys; Six scouts had him as the top guy.
So if anything, that's a reminder that the rankings can vary greatly within the top 10. So I can imagine the rankings are all over the place as you get further down. Let's try not to get too upset if a prospect is ranked a little bit lower than you think he should.
Oddly, it's $2.99 thru their app but $2.33 thru their website. I know there'll be some folks who refuse to pay money, but I've spent $2.33 on worse things. If anything, I hope the thread doesn't degenerate into posts asking for their team's top 10.
Haven't had a chance to read the entire issue yet, but it looks like The Hockey News polled eleven scouts. Mittelstadt was the only prospect who was in the top 5 on all the surveys; Six scouts had him as the top guy.
So if anything, that's a reminder that the rankings can vary greatly within the top 10. So I can imagine the rankings are all over the place as you get further down. Let's try not to get too upset if a prospect is ranked a little bit lower than you think he should.
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Lion Hound
@JoeTucc26
If you're talking about physical copy, it's out now but it might depend where you're at. Here in California, it seems like it shows up on store shelves a couple weeks after folks in Canada initially spot it.
The digital version is cheaper and available now, so I usually go for that nowadays.
Its printed and stitched and sent out from where I work and that was done last week. If it isn't on shelves now, it won't be long.
Ana Crusis
Registered User
Hawkster58
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Fantomas
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- Aug 7, 2012
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I read this thing every year just to get a sense on the industry-vetted consensus, which is useful.
The player profiles are, as usual, terrible. Really generic stuff, with boring quotes from executives. They don't even bother quoting scouts anymore, because those opinions risk being interesting.
College players are underrated because many of them are not signed. Their stocks are kept deliberately low for that reason.
The player profiles are, as usual, terrible. Really generic stuff, with boring quotes from executives. They don't even bother quoting scouts anymore, because those opinions risk being interesting.
College players are underrated because many of them are not signed. Their stocks are kept deliberately low for that reason.
tigervixxxen
Optimism=Delusional
The Avs section is written by the worst beat writer with no quotes from anyone, so don't believe much of that. The top 100 I could complain about but I'm sure many fanbases can. It's still a read I look forward to.
Fantomas
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- Aug 7, 2012
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Although an obvious sign of journalistic laziness, a blurb without an executive's quote is (moderately) better to me. There is nothing less useful than a carefully phrased quote from the player's team GM.
tigervixxxen
Optimism=Delusional
That would be an improvement over what we typically get is never any comments about the players from the organization.
StatisticsAddict99
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- Feb 24, 2017
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Or the people who made the rankings couldn’t give a damn about the Jets so much that they missed a 21 year old leading scorer in the AHL amongst all Defensemen... Yeah, I’m pretty sure they don’t give a damn...
StatisticsAddict99
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- Feb 24, 2017
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Lol, Vesalainen not in the Top 50... That’s horrible. As a Jets fan I feel bad I spent over 20 cents on a magazine that doesn’t do the research on any of the Jets prospects...
Vesalainen is one of the best U19 Goal Scorers and overall Scorers in Liiga history and isn’t even top 50(he should be atleast Top 15 off of that alone), Niku is leading the AHL in Points amongst all AHL defensmen and isn’t even Top 10 in the Jets system(isn’t even Top 100), Roslovic isn’t even a prospect(he’s had 27 games), Appleton isn’t even Top 100 and he’s one of the best playmaking Centers in the AHL.. If it was simply one mistake only that would be fine but I’m tired of the media sleeping and not giving Jets players and prospects the props they deserve for they’re outstanding performance, but they don’t because they don’t give a f*** about this franchise.
Vesalainen is one of the best U19 Goal Scorers and overall Scorers in Liiga history and isn’t even top 50(he should be atleast Top 15 off of that alone), Niku is leading the AHL in Points amongst all AHL defensmen and isn’t even Top 10 in the Jets system(isn’t even Top 100), Roslovic isn’t even a prospect(he’s had 27 games), Appleton isn’t even Top 100 and he’s one of the best playmaking Centers in the AHL.. If it was simply one mistake only that would be fine but I’m tired of the media sleeping and not giving Jets players and prospects the props they deserve for they’re outstanding performance, but they don’t because they don’t give a f*** about this franchise.
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Glass and Nylander seem a bit too high considering one couldn't make WJC lineup and the other has once again putrid stats in AHL (0,45ppg)
Nylander is way too high, but for whatever reason a bunch of places aren't dropping him due to WJC tournaments.
Don't think you can hold Glass not making the WJC team against him too much. A bunch of very good 18 year olds have been cut from Team Canada over the years. For example, Sean Monahan, Nurse, Max Domi, etc.
Just quoting from the issue:
"With the assistance of scouts, we identify the 10 in each organization with the best long term upside five-plus years down the road. Then with a master list of 310 A-listers, we ask our panel of scouts - one from each team is invited - to rank their top 60. Their opinions are distilled in a spreadsheet, and out comes our top 100 list of blue-chip NHL prospects."
I suppose it's easy to blame THN, but the writers don't come up with the top 10 list themselves. In past years the teams themselves would submit their top 10s, but it looks like they changed up in recent years. Circa 2010, they had 20+ scouts helping out. Now it looks like it's down to about a dozen.
One inherent problem with the list (and print media) is that some of the info can be outdated by the time it gets published. They compiled the list back in January after the WJC is completed, but wait until March to publish the info. So somebody like Roslovic might be considered an NHL regular now, but back in January he wasn't yet. In past years, we saw the opposite where a guy was in the NHL in January and thus was omitted but was back in the AHL by the time the issue was published.
Vesalainen is just outside the top 50. As I mentioned in a previous post, there was barely any consensus among the top 5 guys. So you can imagine how scattered the opinions are further down the list. The difference between 35 and 55 is probably a lot smaller than most people perceive.
....and I could have sworn the Jets were on the cover of this issue a couple years ago. And Winnipeg's pool was graded in the top 5 this year.
StatisticsAddict99
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- Feb 24, 2017
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35 to 50 might be a small gap but lik I said I don’t know how Vesalainen is not in the Top 15 with his current performance... Vesalainen is scoring at an incredible rate in Liiga...
Then you look at Niku, how the heck did they miss him? It’s not that hard to go the the AHL website and click stats... Niku’s name pops up at the top amongst defensemen so it’s not like he’s hidden or anything, then once they are done doing that it’s not to hard to look at his highlights and evaluate him. I gotta be honest, snubbing Vesalainen from the Top 20(let alone Top 50, who knows maybe they see something in Vesalainen that makes him less of a prize or maybe they didn’t put in the time at all) is pretty bad but it’s down right lazy to let Niku go over the top of they’re heads(they clearly didn’t have the time to give a shit about Winnipeg in this entire article)...
and for your argument that they where Top 5 before, that really doesn’t matter because when a team gets a high draft pick(#2) it’s gonna boost up they’re pool(and Winnipeg had a great pool before they got Laine), so that’s not really a fair argument(to say who cares because the Jets used to have a good pool and it’s clearly not as good enough as it was even though it would likely be better than any prospect pool at any time since 2010, that’s a very bad argument).
