Button's 2012 top-30 (October)

[ottawah]

Coming from Ottawa with season tickets I get to see Ceci all the time. Its nice to see him move up Buttons list. It is hard to say if its good or bad for him to not generate more talk. It may be better for him to be an after thought in the D draft for 2012, which I find sort of odd.

I still contend there are few better skaters than him at D (remember him getting back on the Swedish forward to stop the break at the U18? Made up two strides in less than half the length of the ice, penalty not withstanding.) Size wise for the top 15 d men he has the strongest build, and is only about an inch shorter than the tallest (Reinhart). Last year he was considered one of the very best defenders in the O, and took his offense to a new level in the new year and is averaging over a ppg this year. Plus he has an extra years experience, but is not much older than many of the other D men due to a very late birthday. He is perhaps (other than Murray) the most NHL ready dman in the draft due to his size, experience and style of play.

But somehow these days it seems steady with few mistakes is not worthy of draft talk.

But all in all, he will go first round, and after that it is all a crap shoot. I was talking to someone who claimed he was a scout (everyone seems to think they are these days) and his assessment was that he sees Ceci as a 3/4 dman in the NHL. the upside of a 1/2 is not really there, but he also said there is practically no downside. Considering how many first round busts there are, even in the top 10, you think a sure fire 3/4 D man would interest people, but they seem to shrug him off with "Good, but probably not great".

 

[leoleo3535]

I can't believe that the only "scouting" group to even acknowledge that Tim Bozon exists is HockeyProspect.

Bozon has 12 points in 11 games.
Leads all WHL rookies with a +9
He is 5th in WHL rookie scoring
He is 1st in assists by a rookie with 10

As a comparison fellow countryman N. Niederreiter put up the following in his 1st 11 games:
11 points in 11 games and was a +6

 

[DangerMan]

I can't believe that the only "scouting" group to even acknowledge that Tim Bozon exists is HockeyProspect.

Bozon has 12 points in 11 games.
Leads all WHL rookies with a +9
He is 5th in WHL rookie scoring
He is 1st in assists by a rookie with 10

As a comparison fellow countryman N. Niederreiter put up the following in his 1st 11 games:
11 points in 11 games and was a +6

In the one view I haven gotten of the Blazers this year, Brendan Ranford stole the show, Schaber and Colin Smith were really good. Madaisky was a beast on the back end. Bozon and Lipon, even though they were highly touted in the game, were pretty quiet. The Blazers have a pretty good team this year and very deep on forward. It will be interesting to see if he gets a look from the Swiss U-20 team this year. Thanks for the heads up, I'll keep tabs on Bozon from here on out.

To be fair on Nierderreiter, he made a lot of his hay at the U-20s in his draft year as well being, by far, the best player on that Swiss team.

 

[R S]

I can't believe that the only "scouting" group to even acknowledge that Tim Bozon exists is HockeyProspect.

Bozon has 12 points in 11 games.
Leads all WHL rookies with a +9
He is 5th in WHL rookie scoring
He is 1st in assists by a rookie with 10

As a comparison fellow countryman N. Niederreiter put up the following in his 1st 11 games:
11 points in 11 games and was a +6

To be fair, many groups (FC included) haven't put together a complete list since the season started that ranks all the eligible players.

Don't worry, when FC comes out with our rankings at some point, Bozon will be there...maybe even as our top forward from the WHL.

 

[Mark Edwards]

I have watched several games with Craig Button this season. We took in a game in London together (Soo) so we had plenty of time to chat along our drive from Toronto to London. I can tell you that Craig will not list players he has not seen, so if you see a player excluded it's probably because he has not seen him. The best part about Craig is you can have great debates with him. He and I are on the same page regarding some players (Ebert is an example) and we have good friendly debates over others (Kea comes to mind as a recent one as I saw Craig at an Oshawa-Sag game).

Early lists flat out suck to do but I was asked by a private contract to produce them monthly this year, so we are doing so. As an example: In our pre-season list I had to make a decision on Maata. I was forced to use a contacts opinion and we ranked him high. I have since seen him play live 7 times including last night. We have dropped him in each ranking.

As we even out our viewings of various prospects the lists obviously get better. Our November rankings are released just before a Q trip for me next week. Once I complete that trip if gives me more info to debate with our Q scouts before our December rankings. FYI, it's a very weak crop in the Q this year. I'll be taking in Halifax at Quebec and Drummondville & a game in Blainville.

I think many people may be surprised when the draft rolls around. Plenty of 'hyped' players are not performing all that well right now. At the same time, a few guys are starting to make names for themselves.

As always, it's fun to watch it unfold.

cheers

It's interesting the fact that from 18th to 30th, there's only one player outside the OHL (Oscar Dansk) and nearly the half of the list is from OHL (14/30). At ISS, 12/30 are from OHL. If we put in front the numbers, we can see that they are pretty similar:

Button & ISS
OHL: 14/30 - 12/30
Europe: 6/30 (5/6 SWE + 1/6 FIN) - 5/30 (4/5 SWE + 1/5 RUS)
WHL: 5/30 - 5/30
QMJHL: 3/30 - 2/30 (Bussières)
USHL: 2/30 - 6/30 (Matheson, Skjei, Schmaltz and Kerdiles)

It seems that ISS take more into consideration the USHL than Button, who fixes more at the top leagues. At this moment, both list ranks players from the same leagues. What are the chances of players from other leagues, like Cristoval Nieves or Jujhar Khaira? We can see players from another countries like Czech Republic (Tomas Hertl), Slovakia, Switzerland, Germany or Denmark?

 

[Mark Edwards]

I know for fact that Button uses himself. He told me this very clearly. He may chat with coaches etc.. (like we all do) but otherwise he is just traveling around scouting and offering his opinion back to TSN. And we all know by now that Bob uses his network of scouts and since Craig is now on staff it's safe to say that they chat.

McKenzie and Button essentially use the same scouts

Probably better to say that Dumba has been a consensus Top 10 than Top 3

 

[Mark Edwards]

We are high on Bozon. I seldom do interviews you see on our site (we have people who are much better at it than me) but I do have one on one chats with many of the prospects, some by phone, others in person and sometimes both. Two examples so far are Bozon, who I spoke to for about 20 min and Girgensons who I had a long phone chat with and then spoke to him again recently in Ann Arbor. Both players would rank high in my all time "prospect" chats.

I can't believe that the only "scouting" group to even acknowledge that Tim Bozon exists is HockeyProspect.

Bozon has 12 points in 11 games.
Leads all WHL rookies with a +9
He is 5th in WHL rookie scoring
He is 1st in assists by a rookie with 10

As a comparison fellow countryman N. Niederreiter put up the following in his 1st 11 games:
11 points in 11 games and was a +6

 

[Mark Edwards]

I have been very high on Ceci going back to minor midget. We ranked him way up our list from the get go and he is holding his ranking.

Going back to my earlier Button posts, Craig and I spoke at length about Ceci when he asked me who I liked on D from the OHL. Craig told me he liked him quite a bit as well.

Coming from Ottawa with season tickets I get to see Ceci all the time. Its nice to see him move up Buttons list. It is hard to say if its good or bad for him to not generate more talk. It may be better for him to be an after thought in the D draft for 2012, which I find sort of odd.

I still contend there are few better skaters than him at D (remember him getting back on the Swedish forward to stop the break at the U18? Made up two strides in less than half the length of the ice, penalty not withstanding.) Size wise for the top 15 d men he has the strongest build, and is only about an inch shorter than the tallest (Reinhart). Last year he was considered one of the very best defenders in the O, and took his offense to a new level in the new year and is averaging over a ppg this year. Plus he has an extra years experience, but is not much older than many of the other D men due to a very late birthday. He is perhaps (other than Murray) the most NHL ready dman in the draft due to his size, experience and style of play.

But somehow these days it seems steady with few mistakes is not worthy of draft talk.

But all in all, he will go first round, and after that it is all a crap shoot. I was talking to someone who claimed he was a scout (everyone seems to think they are these days) and his assessment was that he sees Ceci as a 3/4 dman in the NHL. the upside of a 1/2 is not really there, but he also said there is practically no downside. Considering how many first round busts there are, even in the top 10, you think a sure fire 3/4 D man would interest people, but they seem to shrug him off with "Good, but probably not great".

 

[canary]

Link to TSN

1. NAIL YAKUPOV Sarnia (OHL) Oct. 6/93 RW L 5'11/183 10 7 18 25 10
2. FILIP FORSBERG Leksands (SWE) Aug. 13/94 LW R 6'1/196 10 2 0 2 0
3. MATTHEW DUMBA Red Deer (WHL) Jul. 25/94 D R 5'11/175 8 3 2 5 10
4. ALEX GALCHENYUK Sarnia (OHL) Feb. 12/94 C L 6'1/197 0 0 0 0 0
5. MORGAN RIELLY Moose Jaw (WHL) Mar. 9/94 D L 6'0/198 9 2 7 9 0
6. MIKHAIL GRIGORENKO Quebec (QMJHL) May 16/94 C L 6'2/183 12 9 10 19 2
7. RYAN MURRAY Everett (WHL) Sep. 27/93 D L 6'0/199 9 3 3 6 15
8. GRIFFIN REINHART Edmonton (WHL) Jan. 24/94 D L 6'3/202 6 0 2 2 5
9. DERRICK POULIOT Portland (WHL) Jan. 16/94 D L 5'11/181 10 3 8 11 4
10. JACOB TROUBA US NTDP Feb. 26/94 D R 6'1/193 9 1 3 4 n/a
11. ZEMGUS GIRGENSONS Dubuque (USHL) Jan. 5/94 C L 6'1/197 6 2 4 6 10
12. PONTUS ABERG Djurgardens (SWE) Sep. 23/93 LW R 5'11/187 12 5 3 8 4
13. TEUVO TERAVIANEN Jokerit (FIN) Sep. 11/94 RW L 5'10/150 5 6 3 9 0
14. RAPHAEL BUSSIERES Baie-Comeau (QMJHL) Nov. 5/93 LW L 6'1/195 13 8 12 20 15
15. MARTIN FRK Halifax (QMJHL) Oct. 5/93 RW R 6'0/204 0 0 0 0 0
16. SEBASTIEN COLLBERG Frolunda (SWE) Feb. 23/94 RW R 5'11/169 8 3 3 6 4
17. LUDVIG BYSTROM MODO (SWE) Jul. 20/94 D L 6'0/176 8 3 5 8 37
18. JARROD MAIDENS Owen Sound (OHL) Mar. 4/94 LW L 6'1/175 11 5 3 8 2
19. SLATER KOEKKOEK Peterborough (OHL) Feb. 18/94 D L 6'2/183 10 2 5 7 13
20. CODY CECI Ottawa (OHL) Dec. 21/93 D R 6'2/208 9 2 8 10 2
21. OLLI MAATTA London (OHL) Aug. 22/94 D L 6'1/196 10 0 4 4 7
22. MICHAEL CLARKE Windsor (OHL) Apr. 29/94 C L 6'11/184 12 8 4 12 10
23. ANDREAS ATHANASIOU London (OHL) Aug. 6/94 C L 6'0/173 10 2 6 8 4
24. SCOTT LAUGHTON Oshawa (OHL) May 30/94 C L 6'0/179 11 1 5 6 15
25. BRENDAN GAUNCE Belleville (OHL) Mar. 25/94 C L 6'2/215 9 5 4 9 11
26. MATIA MARCANTUONI Kitchener (OHL) Feb. 22/94 RW R 5'11/191 4 1 1 2 2
27. NICK EBERT Windsor (OHL) May 11/94 D R 5'11/199 12 0 7 7 13
28. OSCAR DANSK Brynas (SWE) Feb. 28/94 G L 6'2/183 9 n/a 3.12 .897 n/a
29. TOM WILSON Plymouth (OHL) Mar. 29/94 RW R 6'4/195 6 0 5 5 20
30. ADAM PELECH Erie (OHL) Aug. 18/94 D L 6'1/198 2 0 1 1 4

Is that a typo?

 

[Phion Keneuf]

Is that a typo?

yes, he's barely over 6 feet

 

[R S]

Great stuff hp. You should post more.

 

[Mark Edwards]

Great stuff hp. You should post more.

Thanks. I wish I had more time. I'll try to stop by more often.

 

[Andy Dufresne]

It will be interesting to see if he gets a look from the Swiss U-20 team this year. Thanks for the heads up, I'll keep tabs on Bozon from here on out.
.

Bozon plays internationally for France. He'll undoubtedly be playing U20, whatever division France happens to be playing in this year. I think I read somewhere, a while back (can't find a link now) that his father is coaching their national junior team.

 

[nanzenkills]

Bozon plays internationally for France. He'll undoubtedly be playing U20, whatever division France happens to be playing in this year. I think I read somewhere, a while back (can't find a link now) that his father is coaching their national junior team.

Is his father former St. Louis Blue Phillippe Bozon?

 

[Purple hippo]

Bozon plays internationally for France. He'll undoubtedly be playing U20, whatever division France happens to be playing in this year. I think I read somewhere, a while back (can't find a link now) that his father is coaching their national junior team.

France plays in Division I B and his father is no longer the coach of U-20.

Is his father former St. Louis Blue Phillippe Bozon?

Yeah.

 

[McDNicks17]

Is his father former St. Louis Blue Phillippe Bozon?

Yup.