Are you talking about Vilen? You mean top 10 in the prospect pool or top 10 in the league? If it's the latter I'd love to read your thoughts!
He isn`t top-10 prospect overall) Is he top-10 D prospect? It is a very optomistic view. Top-10 defensive D prospect? Very reasonable. But very hard to estimate, different defensemen play in different situations, play against different competitions, their defensive situations are very different and the cost of mistake is very different. And defensive IQ, positional game is very important for defenseman, you can`t be like forward - dumb, lazy and lose half of your zone, but still be very effective, because you have skating and shot. What Vilen faced and what junior level defensemen faced we con`t compare. We can compare tools only, if both are good in defensive zone control, gap control, escaping and puck battles.
I would say Vilen is very intriguing prospect with Marino\Siegenthaler ceiling. We need to watch him more to understand how good he really is. And of course he needs time to develop more, face more harder situations and study how figure them out, And only when he eventually understands - or does not understand, we will know how good he really is.
Tools are there, good defensive IQ for his age\level are there. I like him and I have him higher than Casey. I was happy after draft and we have disputes about his pick with Steve. But with defensemen it`s harder to project. Not as hard as with goalies. Overall I really like to have him. Good defensive defensemen brings win to you, cost less and needs to protect our future and actual QB`s like Hamilton, Hughes, Nemec and Casey. Hope Nemec will be good enough to make every work we ask. But even if he will be good enough on the both ends, anyway you need to have good partner for Nemec when he is with the puck\under pressure, both(Nemec and his partner) will face serious competition.
And I`m still not a fan of saving Bahl\trading Okhotiuk, I clearly understand and know something from the NJ kitchen(I'm talking nonsense, fictions, from where I could. really?) that desired outcome should be different, but in Meier trade you pay with everything before red line. Grier liked better prospects Shakir and Okhotiuk more, than Holtz and Bahl. And when we lost the depth of left defense, I hope Vilen will compensate for losses. And I`m rooting for him. Like I do for Orlov and Karpovich. Vilen is closer to be NHLer. BTW Orlov and Karpovich are very good left D prospects(not because they are from my lovely "axis of evil" but because I like their tools and their game). The way the Devils recruit left defenders is fascinating.
I will not tolerate any Arseni Gritsyuk disrespect.
People are making the same mistake three years in a row.