1) Generally speaking, I am not a big fan of prospect rankings. The nature of the beast is that too many of the comparisons are of the apples-to-oranges variety. With that said, I agree with those who have opined that the recently released ESPN rankings of NHL prospects are mystifying. ...
For instance, in ordinal rankings, they have the Flyers top four prospects as Travis Konecny (18th overall), Ivan Provorov (31st overall), Oskar Lindblom (46th overall), and Travis Sanheim (68th). From there, Shayne Gostisbehere, Robert Hägg and Samuel Morin were honorable mentions.
While Lindblom is an intriguing sleeper prospect who has improved by leaps and bounds over the past year --especially in the skating department -- I have not spoken to a single NHL scout who would presently rank the muscular winger above Sanheim. Ditto Konecny and Provorov; which is certainly not a knock on the NHL potential of the highly skilled and feisty forward Konecny but rather an affirmation of how highly regarded Provorov is as an NHL defense prospect.
No NHL team would have taken Konecny above Provorov as the "best player available" on the board in June. Less than two months later, nothing would have changed. Meanwhile, if there was a theoretical redrafting of the 2014 NHL Draft, there's no doubt Lindblom would go much higher than the fifth round. He'd probably go in the second round (which was the consensus of where he was pegged prior to a down year in 2013-14). Would he go higher than Sanheim, who has done nothing but continue to improve since the Flyers drafted him 17th overall last year? Absolutely not.
Keep in mind, though, that these rankings are just one pundit's opinion and it is tough to accurately rank players of different positions and projected roles on the same set of criteria. It often comes down to whom can be more comfortably projected to play higher in an NHL lineup at his respective position. That is closer to the bottom line basis of how the real-life scouting departments of NHL teams make their assessments in apples-to-oranges comparisons.
