Central Scouting Bureau's Ontario Hockey League Preliminary Rankings

Today, the Central Scouting Bureau released their preliminary draft rankings for the 2009 NHL entry draft. This is the first of three rankings by the CSB, and the only one divided by league.





Thus we have a top 25 skater list and a list of 7 goalies for the Ontario Hockey League.

Here is the list...

Skaters

1. John Tavares
2. Matt Duchene
3. Nazem Kadri
4. Peter Holland
5. Calvin De Haan
6. Zack Kassian
7. Ryan Ellis
8. Ryan O'Reilly
9. Taylor Beck
10. Michael Fine
11. Michael Latta
12. Ethan Werek
13. Tyler Randell
14. Garrett Wilson
15. Bjorn Krupp
16. Marcus Foligno
17. Taylor Doherty
18. Casey Cizikas
19. Jesse Blacker
20. Phil Varone
21. Matthew Tipoff
22. Alex Hutchings
23. Matthew Clark
24. Ben Chiarot
25. Simon Gronvaldt

Goalies

1. Edward Pasquale
2. Scott Stajcer
3. Chris Perugini
4. Alain Valiquette
5. Peter Di Salvo
6. Michael Zador
7. Brandon Foote

The full link at NHL.com to this list and to the other lists can be found here

To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of this ranking. There are some things I like and agree with such as Tyler Randell as high as he is. Same with Calvin De Haan's high ranking. I also like seing Pasquale as the number one goalie available.

However I've got a few real gripes with the list.

• At this point in the season, I just can't see how Ryan Ellis can be rated number 7. Yes he's slightly undersized, but the talent level is so high. If he's still top 3 in scoring by the end of the season, I'll eat my hat if he's the 7th OHL player taken in the draft.
• Not sure what Bjorn Krupp has done thus far to earn that high of a ranking. You want to rank him near the bottom of the 25, I have no problem with this because he's got some potential. But he hasn't scored a point since his first game of the season and at this point has virtually little two way game to speak of. Because of this, I can't see how he's any higher than Jesse Blacker who's been just as good defensively, but has shown a more well rounded game.
• The absence of Niagara Ice Dog forward Andrew Agozzino. I don't think I'm being a Dog homer in saying that Agozzino deserves to be somewhere on this list despite being undersized.
  
• The goalie rankings are just incredibly odd. Stajcer has been decent in limited action this year, although looked shaky in the Niagara game. But my real problem with the goalie rankings is the placement of Alain Valiquette and Michael Zador. How they even made this list is beyond me. Both have save percentages in the .850 range. Valiquette is actually a late 1990 so he's even got an experience advantage over a lot of these players. How Valiquette managed to get rated ahead of Peter Di Salvo and Brandon Foote is beyond me. Ditto for Zador over Foote. While Foote has been an enigma thus far, he's shown flashes of being the best on this list and is actually currently the 4th rated goalie by the International Scouting Service (ISS) for the entire NHL draft. His ranking in particular is the most head scratching to me. And not to be an Ice Dog homer again, but John Cullen has the 2nd best save percentage of any eligible OHL goalie (behind Di Salvo), and he's nowhere to be found on this list. Heck maybe CSB didn't even bother to come visit Niagara so far this year!

BTW, my own preliminary top 30 for the draft can be found here