ISS Top 15 for January

[Ken McKenna]

ISS Top 15 for January

At the request of ISS, we will post individual threads for each of the ISS articles. This one is for the January article, which can be accessed by clicking the link above. Enjoy!

Click to read more...

 

[Vikke]

Bäckström > Bryan Little.

 

[Spetzky]

No way!

do I notice a little bit of bias here?

 

[EagleBelfour]

Wow, from a untouchable 1st to 3rd in a couple of month .... Does anyone know why Kessel is behind Toews?

 

[Hiishawk]

There are a lot of draft newbies on this site who make player & ranking-number associations waaaay too early and stick with them waaay too long with waaay too much hubris. It's normal for many posters on HF to hear that, say, Bobby Prospect is rated at #4 at the beginning of the draft year and this number sticks in their brains with the same type of certitude as the fact that Germany is in Europe. "No way Bobby Prospect drops out of the top 5 in this draft!" they will say in early October.

Then, Bobby Prospect has a mediocre tournament or two and he gets downgraded by the scouting agencies as they get a better balanced read on his talent- as is natural. The first ratings agency that shows Bobby's drop to, say, 12th are called a "bunch of biased idiots who haven't seen Bobby enough" (or thereabouts) by these posters who still have Bobby's #4 ranking engraved on their minds- even though it was the same agency they are criticizing now who had Bobby at #4 and thereby helped create the initial association several months back. "No way is Davy Fastriser (who they have mentally pegged at #18 for the last six months but who the agency now has at #8) a better prospect than Bobby", comes the rallying cry.

BUT (wait for it) two months later, when their own personal rankings come out, there's Bobby Prospect at #13. And Davy at #9. "No way Davy Fastriser drops out of the top 10" comes the new cry...

 

[Fredrik]

Excellent post Steblick.

I also believe people take these lists way too seriously. The lists are just these agencies opinions and I may or may not agree with them. It's no big deal if I think someone is over- or underrated. Hey, they probably saw more of him than me anyway.

EDIT: That being said, I'm still happy to see Bäckström rise. I have seen him a lot since he plays for my favourite club and I'm impressed. It's been a few years since a junior player was a key player for his SEL team but now it has happened again.

 

[Belizarius]

The final and true result is not the rankings or even the draft.
The true reality is when the prospect reach the NHL and has an impact.
The rest is like a lottery : you're gambling on a guy, just to be "the first" to say it's a future star, and just hoping he's going to be a star.

I don't mind seeing a guy droping from 5 to 15 or even 55 : the verdict will be several years later when this guy will be in the NHL and not another one chosen in the 1st round.

These rankings are just some help, to focus on youngsters, to follow them all year long (or their stats at least!). These rankings help to make a little list of potentially interesting prospects per position for your team. And at draft day, your team will chose another guy.

Still, it's funny to watch a player going up and down in the rankings months after months...