Athletic’s Corey Pronman ranks his top U-23 players

[Northern Avs Fan]

Corey Pronman of the Athletic ranks his top U-23 players.

This is a projection on who he believes will have the best careers. It’s actually 155 players in total, but I’ll just post the top-25 here to discuss.

1. Auston Matthews
2. Rasmus Dahlin
3. Elias Pettersson
4. Alexis Lafreniere
5. Matthew Tkachuk
6. Andrei Svechnikov
7. Patrick Laine
8. Jack Hughes
9. Kaapo Kakko
10. Quinton Byfield
11. Quinn Hughes
12. Brady Tkachuk
13. Cale Makar
14. Miro Heiskanen
15. Tim Stutzle
16. Kirby Dach
17. Lucas Raymond
18. Pierre Luc-Dubois
19. Cole Perfetti
20. Robert Thomas
21. Nico Hischier
22. Milhail Sergachev
23. Trevor Zegras
24. Charlie McAvoy
25. Barrett Hayton

Click to read more...

 

[moropanov]

Heiskanen at #14 is ludacrious. Did he sleep through the playoffs?
#1 Heiskanen
#2 Pettersson
#3 Makar
#4 Matthews
#5 Q.Hughes

 

[Black Kevin]

LUCAS RAYMOND
AUSTIN MATTHEWS?
PATRICK LAINE

 

[JT Kreider]

Heiskanen at #14 is ludacrious. Did he sleep through the playoffs?
#1 Heiskanen
#2 Pettersson
#3 Makar
#4 Matthews
#5 Q.Hughes

Agreed. McAvoy at 6 too.

As a Rangers fan I can confidently say I do not take this list seriously with Laf and Kakko that high

 

[Krewe]

Heiskanen at #14 is ludacrious. Did he sleep through the playoffs?
#1 Heiskanen
#2 Pettersson
#3 Makar
#4 Matthews
#5 Q.Hughes

what is this supposed to be a list of

 

[CantLoseWithMatthews]

I understand there's obviously a lot of work that goes into ranking 150+ players and it's very difficult for one person, but it just looks so bad

 

[HotDish]

Am i the only one that thinks it is weird to rank players that haven't even played on NHL ice? I totally get the reason but how about you make a list of top u-23 NHL players. For all we know Cole Perfetti(just an example) never improves his skating enough to be a really impactful player or etc.

Can we really say Byfield is better than Quinn Hughes? Because Quinn Hughes looks pretty damn good.

 

[LeafGrief]

Who is Austin Matthews? Is he related to obvious #1 on this list, Auston Matthews, franchise player of the Toronto Maple Leafs?

Having Hughes, Makar, and Heiskanen all the way down around Brady Tkachuk is a bit of a wheeze.

 

[Emell]

Both Tkachuks above Makar made me laugh.

Oh, just noticed J Hughes and Kaako, too, lol. Wow

 

[serp]

Cool that the best player on a team that went to the finals is ranked behind 2 guys who had a very dissapointing rookie season and 2 guys who haven't played a single NHL game yet.

 

[Northern Avs Fan]

Agreed. McAvoy at 6 too.

As a Rangers fan I can confidently say I do not take this list seriously with Laf and Kakko that high

Laf should be high since it’s a career projection and he was a slam dunk number one pick.

Kakko is too high for me. I still think he’ll be a really good player, but I’d probably have him in the late teens.

Both Tkachuk‘s are also a lot higher then a would have them ranked too.

 

[Filthy Dangles]

The biggest thing that jumps out is Heiskanen at a mere 14, jesus. He's already a #1D and arguably a Top10D in the entire league.

I think he got #1 right, I think Auston Matthews will have the best NHL career, though I hope it turns out to be Laf.

Heiskanen at #14 is ludacrious. Did he sleep through the playoffs?
#1 Heiskanen
#2 Pettersson
#3 Makar
#4 Matthews
#5 Q.Hughes

Well your first two sentences were right, then you squandered it with those rankings.

 

[not a troll]

Just cancelled my Athletic subscription because of this awful list.

 

[serp]

The biggest thing that jumps out is Heiskanen at 14, jesus. He's arguably already a Top-14-ish NHL player.

Pronman allways didn't like him. IRC pre-draft in his mockdraft he didn't even have Heiskanen in the top10 .

 

[al secord]

No one does lists like Aust-ton!

 

[SomeDude]

what is this supposed to be a list of

The official list of "what have you done for me lately?"

 

[Unspecified]

Who? Never heard of her.

 

[strattonius]

The official list of "what have you done for me lately?"

Better than 'I have the potential and draft position to be rated this high'.

 

[Goulet17]

I have a few thoughts, but it does seem as though Pronman does not value young defenseman as much. Hughes, Makar, Heiskanen, and McAvoy all seem to low to me considering what they have shown at the NHL level.

 

[Hockey Stick]

Nick Suzuki would like to have a word with Mr. Pronman

 

[TomasHertlsRooster]

My favorite thing to do when I see these types of terrible lists is to try to find the absolute worst, most difficult to justify listing of one player above another.

For this one, I think my favorite is Robert Thomas over Charlie McAvoy.

 

[Rob Brown]

Heiskanen, Makar and Q. Hughes too low. I don't think any GMs would take J. Hughes, Kakko, Laine or the Tkachuks over them. All three are better than Dahlin, too.

Hart at 47 is an absolute joke as well.

 

[moropanov]

what is this supposed to be a list of

And what exactly is wrong with that list?

Four of the top five have dominated the playoffs and regular season; and Matthews is an extremely consistent goalscorer even though he's a playoff failure.

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

Heiskanen, Makar and Q. Hughes too low. I don't think any GMs would take J. Hughes, Kakko, Laine or the Tkachuks over them. All three are better than Dahlin, too.

Hart at 47 is an absolute joke as well.

The Hart ranking seems consistent with Pronman not being high on goalies in general. Unless I'm mistaken, he's left them off his rankings lists in the past entirely because he doesn't like the volatility of the position.

 

[strattonius]

2. Dahlin



11. Q. Hughes
13. Makar
14. Heiskanen





24. McAvoy


What have we been watching?