I don't think I'm going out on a limb when I say that Bob McKenzie is probably far more plugged in than Mark Edwards. It is certainly your prerogative though if you would rather take his word for it. The good news is our all of questions will be answered in just three days.
There seems to be some confusion between mock drafts and rankings of players based on evaluations of their long-term prospects as NHL players.
McKenzie's list is a mock draft list based on input from 10 NHL scouts.
To quote the man himself:
"It’s always worth pointing out a few things about the nature of the TSN rankings.
This is not a subjective evaluation of which prospects TSN believes will be the best NHL players in time. That job belongs to the NHL scouts and various independent scouting services.
TSN rankings are a forecast of how high or low a prospect is likely to be chosen on draft day. That forecast is obtained by polling 10 NHL scouts, compiling their ratings into a consensus ranking."
I've subscribed to HockeyProspects.com's service for a number of years. Mark Edwards and his team do original scouting and prepare a list of who they think will be the better NHL prospects, in time. They aren't trying to predict the draft order.
Magua can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think his list is a mock either. He's not trying to predict who will picked when on Friday and Saturday. Like Mark Edwards, he's giving us his list of how he rates the quality of the available players as NHL prospects.
Craig Button does mock drafts for TSN and he also produces "Craig's List" which ranks prospects based on who he thinks will be the best NHL player in several years time. There can be big variances in these two lists. For example, his most recent mock draft has Veleno going at #15, but his personal opinion is that Veleno is the 28th best player (on a long-term basis) in the draft.
While McKenzie has great contacts, and his list is a good read, don't read too much into it. It's just a mock draft.
