Welcome to the 2014 edition of “Top Shelf Prospects”. As we have gone through the Summer of 2014 I featured a team-by-team look at the top prospects in the NHL. You can find all the articles here. You can also find the 2014 Draftees in our extensive NHL Draft preview, where players were reviewed and ranked prior to the 2014 NHL Draft. For those wondering, the cut-off for what is or isn’t a prospect is typically about 50 NHL games played (including playoffs) or being 25 years old. These are not hard or fast rules though, and I may make some exceptions depending on the circumstances.
As we continue in our top shelf series, the next step is to look at what each team has in the pipeline in our NHL organizational prospect rankings. This will be done in 3 parts, with 10 teams included in each section.
A reminder that if you click the team name you will be taking to that franchise’s TSP page, which has scouting reports on their top 3 prospects; a sleeper prospect (4th round or later pick) and links to reports on any 2014 draft picks reviewed by LWOS.
Organizational Prospect Rankings (30-21)
The first thing we note is that in three years of doing these organizational rankings, they have never been tougher to rank. It seems that there are more and more solid prospects that we like this year than ever before. Even teams in the low to mid 20s on this list would get good letter grades for their prospect lists.
2014 Top Pick Conner Bleackley immediately becomes the team’s top prospect. He’s a good two-way player, but there are questions on whether he brings enough offence to be in the top 6. Prior to the draft, the top prospect was Chris Bigras, another good all-around player with questions about his ultimate upside. Round out the top four with Duncan Siemens who struggled in his first year in the AHL, and Joey Hishon who continues to work to recover from a devastating concussion, and you have a whole lot of question marks, without any huge ceiling players.
We must remember that most teams here include prospects from the 2009-2014 Drafts. In that group for the Avs; Matt Duchene, Gabriel Landeskog, Ryan O’Reilly, Nathan MacKinnon, Stefan Elliott, and Tyson Barrie have all gone over 50 NHL games and those are considered graduates in our rankings. The Avs have a great young team at the NHL level, so it only makes sense that their prospect cupboard is bare.
The Kings have won two Stanley Cups and have gotten big contributions from players like Tanner Pearson, Tyler Toffoli, Alec Martinez, Jake Muzzin, Jordan Nolan, Kyle Clifford, Slava Voynov, and of course Drew Doughty along the way. The system below the NHL level needs to be rebuilt, but with the way the youngsters are thriving in the NHL, Dean Lombardi has plenty of time to build depth, as the majority of youngsters are already with the team.
Coming through the pipeline Nikolay Prokhorkin and Brayden McNabb are the best bets to bring help to the Kings in the near future, while Valentin Zykov, Nick Ebert, Derek Forbort, Adrian Kempe, Roland McKeown and the rest of the 2014 Draft class are more long term projects.
The Rangers system is lacking blue chip talent at all positions, and the depth is hit and miss depending on the position at this point. This is a team that has moved prospects and picks in recent years to acquire players like Rick Nash, Martin St. Louis, and others; and you had to know that eventually it would catch up to them. Up front Danny Kristo will battle Jesper Fast and new signee Kevin Hayes for an open spot on the roster. Ryan Haggerty is expected to make the jump to the AHL after a good junior year at RPI. Meanwhile prospects like Cristoval Nieves, and Adam Tambellini have struggled to put up points in the NCAA, though Tambellini had a decent year in the WHL after jumping. The best forward prospect after fast might be Anthony Duclair who had a 50 goal 99 point season in the QMJHL. He is undersized, but a real speedster. Another talented forward, Pavel Buchnevich will spend another year in Russia, at least. Swedish centre Oscar Lindberg spent his first year in the AHL, and projects as more of two-way player.
On defence, Brady Skjei is the Rangerst overall prospect but still in the NCAA. Dylan McIlrath looks like an NHLer, but a third pairing defenceman. Conor Allen is reaching make it or break it age, and looked decent in a short stint with the Rangers last year. There isn’t much else there though other than projects. The goaltending also lacks a high end prospect. Overall there are no blue chip players in the system, and whil depth isn’t bad up front, but the blue line and goaltending need help. The Rangers must find a way to restock the cupboards soon, but grabbing Hayes via free agency, was a good first step.
When we look at Carolina we must consider that Jeff Skinner, Justin Faulk, Elias Lindholm, and Ryan Murphy are all 22 or younger but have all played over 50 NHL games and as such they are to be considered graduated for this series. That said, they are still very much a part of the Canes future. As for the prospects who make up this ranking, the Canes still do have one stud in Haydn Fleury, but the overall low ranking is due to the fact that there after Fleury there just is no blue chip talent in the system. Amongst their top talent, its full of darkhorses and projects right now. Looking at the Canes system we see Victor Rask, Brock McGinn, Brett Pesce Phil DiGiuseppe, Erik Karlsson, Jaccob Slavin, Warren Foegel, Lucas Wallmark, Danny Biega, and Trevor Carrick. Sheer numbers mean that there may be some NHL players out of that group eventually, but all of those players have huge question marks right now, and its hard to find a possible high end talent there. Overall the Canes best position is in goal with Daniel Altshullier and Alex Nedeljkovic.
Tomas Hertl proved that he was a stud last year. Mirco Mueller proved that trading up to get him was worth it, and looks like a very good defender going forward. Nikolay Goldobin is a high talent prospect, with some defensive questions and size questions, who we really liked as a boom or bust type in this years draft. Thats a great start for any system. The problem? There just isn’t much beyond those players, a few projects, but no real high end talent. With the number of years that San Jose has spent near the top of the NHL standings, it is no surprise that the Sharks prospect pool is not as deep as some other NHL teams, as they have made late draft picks, or traded picks to improve their team at the trade deadline in recent years.
The Senators system was once one of the top systems in the NHL but has slipped a bit. This isn’t a bad thing for the team though, as the reason it has slipped is due to the heavy graduations over the last two years. Having their young players in the NHL and contributing is never a bad thing, and so the Sens should still be happy with that. However Brian Murray will need to spin his magic over the next couple years and restock the cupboards at the minor league level shortly. There is depth there, but there isn’t a lot of blue-chip talent right now as Curtis Lazar is the only blue chip prospect who hasn’t graduated already (reached 50 NHL Games). Mark Stone and Mark Puempel also have some good talent. The team needs to improve the prospect group on defence and in goal going forward, with Cody Ceci and Robin Lehner considered graduates.
The Wild graduated 5 forwards last year and also feature Nino Neiderreiter in the team’s top 9; so its no surprise that the top prospects remaining in the organization come from the blueline and in goal. Alex Tuch immediately becomes the team’s top forward prospect after being drafted. In terms of depth; Brett Bulmer, Mario Lucia, Zack Phillips, Kurtis Gabriel and Raphael Bussieres are a nice group of dark horse forwards. The defence is well stocked with Matthew Dumba, Gustav Olofsson, and new signee Christian Folin. In goal Darcy Kuemper is NHL ready and Kaapo Kahkonen is a solid long-term project between the pipes. The Wild may no longer be the number one prospect group in the NHL as they were in our 2012 TSP series, but we see those prospects up with the big club and helping in the NHL, and there is still some potential in the system.
Graduates Jon Merrill, Eric Gelinas, and Adam Larsson join with Damon Severson and Steve Santini to form the future of the Devils defence. Cory Schneider is the main man in goal now, but there are a number of prospects competing for the number two spot. We don’t see a Keith Kincaid or Scott Wedgewood ever creating a new Schneider/Luongo like situation though, they will likely top out as backups. Up front Stefan Matteau is a good, agitating winger who is learning discipline, while Reid Boucher is looking to translate his goal scoring to the NHL. A player to watch is Graham Black who has a great story. He fought through Graves disease missing over a full year of junior hockey. Wehn he finally beat it, he put up 97 points in the WHL last year and moves to the AHL with Albany this year. He’s been through a lot, and it would be great to see him in the NHL.
The Panthers have a stud in Aaron Ekblad, and this saves them from being ranked a lot lower. Michael Matheson is also a good prospect on the blueline, but this is a team where the graduates are the story of the future. Huberdeau, Barkov, Bjustad, Kulikov, Gudbranson, Olson, Hayes, the Panthers have the core of the future already at the NHL level. Ian McCoshen, Vincent Trocheck, Rocco Grimaldi and Kyle Rau provide some depth.
The Blues continue to crank out prospects year after year, despite finishing high in the standings (and drafting near the end of the round) year after year. They really have done a remarkable job in scouting and development. This continued in the 2014 Draft where we gave St. Louis an A+ grade for their efforts in grabbing 5 of our top 100 prospects. In addition to the 2014 picks, Jake Allen is NHL ready and Dmitrij Jaskin and Ty Rattie had solid first pro seasons. In the system we see some depth goaltender Jordan Binnington; and defencemen Tommy Vannelli, Jordan Schmaltz, Joel Edmundson, Janne Hakanpaa and Colton Parayko. The forward depth started to thin after Jaskin and Rattie due to the graduations of players like Jaden Schwartz and Vladimir Tarasenko in recent years, but was greatly replenished with Fabbri, Barbashev, and Letunov this year. Its this depth and the quality drafting that allows the team to give up a William Carrier and a bunch of draft picks and make a move for Ryan Miller without really hurting the future of the team all that much.
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