Hey guys,
Let me at least show myself here, as I'll be the new New York (not a Futurama reference) writer here until I'm ousted by you guys by popular vote
. Obviously, I have some big shoes to fill with Leslie moving on and I hope I can bring just some of the insight that she brought all this time. I had been covering the Dallas Stars here for the last eight or so years and when I saw the Rangers become available I jumped at the opportunity.
I already see lots of great feedback here which I'm happy to see.
Let me just take you through the process briefly (maybe not so briefly) for me...
First, I put eyes on everyone. If for some reason I can't because they play in Kazakhstan Jrs U18 league or something, I find people that have seen them and I pick their brain or ask for their video on him. So, that created the delay between me taking the beat and getting this top 20 posted. I watched film on everyone, hours on some. I needed to get familiar with them and I needed to lay the foundation in the flagship article going forward. Pretty much every second paragraph on these guys is a brief description of where their game is right now, so that there's no misinterpretation that I "stat grabbed" and moved guys accordingly.
My inexact science on this: I rank on the premise of, what I refer to as, "likely potential" - I rarely will go by "highest ceiling", which does happen on this site. Meaning, that, in theory, Player X could be more than just top six forward in the AHL, but I just don't see it happening in a likely course of events. I factor proximity to some degree, but really "likely potential" on a list of prospects makes the most sense to me. Some may disagree, and that's well within the realm of reality as well...
So the biggest indictment here is Dylan McIlrath. Candidly, I struggle with these guys that should have been NHL regulars already. I press internally to have guys graduated before they even hit the prescribed graduation hurdles that HF puts out. I did it in Dallas and I hope to make the same pushes here when I can. McIlrath is an NHLer, he is not a prospect. You guys all know what he brings because you watch the Rangers play. Players that play for the Rangers aren't prospects for me. Obviously, Alain Vigneault disagrees and therefore, I have to put him on the list.
Because of how I graded him, I think he's only going to be a third pairing talent in this league. That is how I think it shakes out. I just don't know about the puck skills and the lateral mobility to be a regular, true, second pairing guy in this league. And it's not because I think he's a bust, I even mentioned in the article (unless it was edited out) that let's ignore the hoopla and the controversy and stop comparing him to Cam Fowler and all that...and let's look at the season he had. I think he was just fine. But I also think he is just...fine. He doesn't strike me as exemplary. So, mathematically, I'm kind of stuck because I graded other players to have better "likely potential" than McIlrath. But the problem I run into is, if I'm required to put "sure things" first and everything else second...McIlrath becomes #1 or so. He's the only sure-fire NHLer really on the list. And even if I soften that logic leap a little, then he's not really a top 5 prospect for me. I do think Graves has higher upside and it's a list of prospects ranked on upside. Whether he makes the NHL or not is a matter for the courts, but my first order of sorting is "likely potential" and then I mess around a little bit from there...
So, that's my best explanation of why an NHL regular is below an undrafted free agent signing in Malte Stromwall. It would have been easier to go in there and slaughter McIlrath for having two points or whatever...but I think I gave him a pretty fair shake (maybe not?)...could he have gone higher? Definitely. Could he be top-5? Definitely. It just didn't fit in my personal metric for ranking. You're not wrong for sliding McIlrath to 8, or 6, or 3 or whatever. I can't place regular NHLers, I don't know how to do it. Nine years here and I can't figure it out still. So, for that I apologize.
For those that are into this kind of thing...#21 was Ryan Mantha. But honestly, this list trails off considerably towards the end. A lot of guys at the bottom are close. Nanne gets a nod for having the most skill out of anyone below Jensen I guess. Maybe exception to Bernhardt who can really shoot...
I'll be around, I'm happy to chat. Happy to vaguely justify my decisions. And just in general, happy to talk about hockey in general. I am an ice hockey coach at the collegiate level which sometimes leaks into my evaluations of players, hopefully not for the worst. Really looking forward to covering one of the league's premier teams and to interacting with a great community of fans here.