Made Dan
Registered User
Agree with the top 9, but would put Nieves where Haggerty is. Still think Boo will put it together and have a strong year.
I will say this though: I think Ryan Graves is a getting seriously underrated by many. I'm really, really high on the kid.
GWOW,
I think you're not taking league quality into account enough.
Miller, Fast score in the AHL and Butcher in the KHL, but get little credit. Tambellini scores in juniors and does get credit.
Miller and Butcher offensive numbers in their leagues are truly rare for their age. Tambellini's numbers are a dime a dozen. People think his stats are impressive because they don't realize how common they are, even among future minor leaguers.
How am I not taking league play into account when I ranked all three higher than Tambellini and said Fast and Miller were NHL ready?
Tambellini plays in the WHL, which is generally regarded as a tough league. I'm not basing my assessment off his stats. I'm basing my assessment off how by seasons end, he was carrying Calgary and his linemate who was a lottery pick.
You can't dismiss that Tambellini led all WHL rookies in PPG. I know he's an over-ager and MSC and McColgan put up gaudy stats in the WHL, but Tambellini is a different player from those two.
He's a 6-3 center. He'll fill out, and he should go to Hartford. I was really down on him at NoDak but he really turned his season around by the way he carried himself in Calgary.
I wouldn't say the system is poor. We have a top defensive prospect in Skjei and several other likely NHLers in Allen and McIlrath. We have high end wing prospects in Buchnevich and Duclair and a ton of depth guys behind them.
We're just lacking a top center prospect. All of our prospects down the middle either have 2nd/3rd line tweener ceilings like Miller and Lindberg or they're high talent longshots like Tambellini and Nieves. A breakout season from Boo would go a long way toward solidifying our depth. I have to believe they'll focus on centers in the next draft though.
I don't know about that. Center is absolutely a big organizational weakness, but which teams that aren't perennial bottom feeders have a top center prospect? Most teams who have a good center prospect have ceilings close to Miller's.
If ever there was a year for me not to do this poll post-draft and instead of it post-preseason, this was the year. I really wish I'd waited.
In the future, I will do them post-WJC and then we'll wait to do them post-preseason. There will be no more summer polls, instead, we'll do early season poll and mid-season poll because that's when we wind up seeing the most of our top prospects.
Right in time for a Buch and Skjei 1-2 polling next year.
I think The Duke may shoot the puck right in your mouth for forgetting to mention him here.