Tuesday, January 19, 2016

2016 NHL Central Scouting Midterm Rankings

Past the halfway point of the season now, NHL Central Scouting has updated their rankings for 2016.

Here's a look at how the OHL players fared. A total of 67 were ranked (highest I've seen in years). And of course, if you wanted to compare, here's my midseason top 50.

Skaters
1. Matthew Tkachuk (1)
2. Jakob Chychrun (2)
3. Alex Nylander (3)
4. Olli Juolevi (5)
5. Michael McLeod (6)
6. Mikhail Sergachev (10)
7. Max Jones (11)
8. Logan Brown (14)
9. Nathan Bastian (19)
10. Alex Debrincat (20)
11. Logan Stanley (23)
12. Tim Gettinger (28)
13. Boris Katchouk (32)
14. Jack Kopacka (33)
15. Taylor Raddysh (34)
16. Will Bitten (42)
17. Sean Day (43)
18. Jordan Kyrou (45)
19. Markus Niemelainen (46)
20. Ben Gleason (53)
21. Keaton Middleton (55)
22. Adam Mascherin (57)
23. Victor Mete (58)
24. Travis Barron (60)
25. Givani Smith (63)
26. Cole Candella (65)
27. Stepan Falkovsky (79)
28. Noah Carroll (80)
29. Connor Bunnaman (81)
30. Cliff Pu (83)
31. Christopher Paquette (87)
32. Riley Stillman (88)
33. Jordan Sambrook (90)
34. Dmitri Sokolov (91)
35. Brandon Crawley (96)
36. Nicolas Mattinen (103)
37. Konstantin Chernyuk (104)
38. Dante Salituro (106)
39. Kyle Maksimovich (111)
40. Cam Dineen (117)
41. Alan Lyszczarczyk (119)
42. Domenic Commisso (123)
43. Anthony Salinitri (126)
44. Jonathan Ang (137)
45. Tye Felhaber (139)
46. Drake Rymsha (143)
47. Nicholas Caamano (148)
48. Austin Osmanski (153)
49. Ben Hawerchuk (159)
50. Brandon Saigeon (160)
51. Hayden Verbeek (164)
52. Luke Kirwan (166)
53. Justin Murray (171)
54. Ondrej Kachyna (173)
55. Luke Kutkevicus (180)
56. Christian Mieritz (182)
57. Max Kislinger (194)
58. Zach Poirier (199)
59. James McEwan (202)
60. Justin Brazeau (207)

Goalies
1. Joseph Raaymakers (4)
2. Dylan Wells (5)
3. Tyler Parsons (6)
4. Evan Cormier (7)
5. Troy Timpano (14)
6. David Ovsjannikov (23)
7. Stephen Dhillon (25)

For the full list, head over to NHL.com to check out (HERE).

My thoughts:

1. Biggest discrepancies between my list and NHL CSS.
Higher:
Noah Carroll (+22)
Jack Kopacka (+20)
Riley Stillman (+19)
Ben Gleason (+16)
Konstantin Chernyuk (+14)
Nicolas Mattinen (+13)
Tim Gettinger (+12)
Chris Paquette (+11)
Jordan Sambrook (+11)
Boris Katchouk (+10)
Lower:
Cam Dineen (-21)
Dmitri Sokolov (-19)
Tye Felhaber (-16)
Michael Pezzetta (-14) - only player in my Top 50 not on the CSS list
Jonathan Ang (-13)
Zach Poirier (-13)
Nicholas Caamano (-12)
Adam Mascherin (-10)

2. The trend lately has been to drop Jakob Chychrun in the rankings, and I'm glad to see that NHL Central Scouting didn't do that (I was actually worried he'd be lower). His season this year hasn't been as good as last, but he's looked way better since Sarnia has improved the offense around him and I think he'll have a really good second half of the season. Still the best defender from the OHL available.

3. I am absolutely befuddled by the Cam Dineen ranking. We've got an OHL rookie who leads the entire league in defensive scoring and you're telling me that there are 17 better defensive prospects from the OHL ALONE? It's more than stats too. Watch North Bay play and he drives their offense. He's also already improved defensively and is starting to see PK time under Stan Butler. The size isn't terrific, but what makes similarly average sized defenders like Ben Gleason, Victor Mete, and Riley Stillman better (and don't get me wrong as I like all three of those players too)? We've been starting to see Dineen up near the early second in rankings of late (Craig Button's comes to mind), so this is a shock. Can't agree at all.

4. I'd love to hear the reasoning behind some players being quite high despite relatively poor showings in the first half (Carroll, Kopacka, Gettinger, Paquette). I believe in the potential of these players, but the on ice performance doesn't justify the ranking at this given time. Several other players who were highly touted coming into the season have been punished for their slow starts (Felhaber, Saigeon, Sokolov). What makes them different? Again, I think that represents inconsistency.

5. Among the goaltenders, Stephen Dhillon's is also very shocking to me. Netminder with great size who has performed very well in a small sample size this year. Has some areas to improve upon, but I'd say he's a heck of a lot closer to the likes of Wells and Cormier, than he is to David Ovsjannikov (no offense meant to him).

6. Overall, it's good to see the OHL dominate these rankings. 7 of the first 11. 19 of the first 46. Those are pretty good percentages. More evidence that this is a great year for the Ontario Hockey League when it comes to the draft.


8 comments:

Anonymous said...

How would you rank Jakob Chychrun in comparison to Ekblad, Hanifin, Jones, and Nurse?

Brock Otten said...

Great question.

All are great defenders. It's hard to rank them because we're comparing 4 NHL defenders to an OHL defender. So I'll try to rank them simply according to how they looked as draft eligible defenders.

In that case, I think Hanifin and Nurse are behind him. Hanifin doesn't possess the same kind of offensive potential, and Nurse was more of a raw product at that point.

I think his draft seasons compare pretty well to Ekblad and Jones. Quite frankly, I think a lot of how I'd rank him here would depend on how well Sarnia does in the playoffs this year. Both players had significant playoff runs in their CHL careers and established themselves as terrific leaders in the process.

If you held a gun to my head to my head and made me rank them based on how I think they'll look 5-10 years form now. I'd go...1) Ekblad 2) Chychrun 3) Nurse 4) Jones 5) Hanifin

Anonymous said...

Thank you for your response.

Unknown said...

Hey Brock I love your site and greatly respect your knowledge...keep up the great work. Question on Cychrun....do you think he is NHL ready next year or would he be better off returning to the OHL?

Brock Otten said...

Appreciate the kind words.

I think Chychrun needs another year in the OHL. He's a very physically mature kid, but I"d love to see him continue to gain confidence in his ability to move the puck and work the powerplay before he makes the jump to the next level. I also think it's important for him to prove he can stay healthy at the OHL level first (after an injury plagued MM year and then rookie year in the OHL). He's been healthy all this year, but I'd like to see him post consecutive injury free seasons in junior before moving on (for the sake of his shoulder).

I'd be shocked if he's not back next year. The year after that, well that's a different story.

Anonymous said...

New List

http://www.hockeyprospect.com/2016-nhl-draft-hockeyprospect-com-january-top-60/

Anonymous said...

Michael McLeod looked okay in the All Star game very fast against elite players however you would think he would have more points in the OHL. I think Dubois is a better player from the Q.

Anonymous said...

Auston Matthews
Patrik Laine

Jesse Puljujarvi
Matthew Tkachuk

Jakob Chychrun
Pierre-Luc Dubois
Olli Juolevi
Alexander Nylander
Clayton Keller
Michael McLeod