Friday, January 13, 2023

2023 NHL Central Scouting Midterm Rankings

NHL Central Scouting has released their first official draft ranking for 2023. Let's see how the OHL players were ranked. In total, 55 were listed. I'll be releasing my own midseason rankings very shortly (likely by the end of the month). See below for some commentary on these rankings.

Skaters:
1. Colby Barlow (10)
2. Quentin Musty (11)
3. Calum Ritchie (17)
4. Oliver Bonk (18)
5. Beau Akey (25)
6. Cam Allen (29)
7. Carson Rehkopf (31)
8. Andrew Gibson (32)
9. Hunter Brzustewicz (33)
10. Quinton Burns (37)
11. Coulson Pitre (41)
12. Brad Gardiner (43)
13. Ethan Miedema (45)
14. Ondrej Molnar (48)
15. Luca Pinelli (49)
16. Carey Terrance (50)
17. Tristan Bertucci (51)
18. Alex Pharand (54)
19. Matthew Mania (62)
20. Cooper Foster (74)
21. Easton Cowan (75)
22. Owen Outwater (76)
23. Denver Barkey (84)
24. Konnor Smith (87)
25. Matthew Soto (88)
26. Ethan Hay (90)
27. Luke McNamara (92)
28. Nick Lardis (96)
29. Florian Xhekaj (103)
30. Cole Brown (105)
31. Matthew Andonovski (115)
32. James Petrovski (116)
33. Matthew Mayich (122)
34. Blake Smith (123)
35. Nic Sima (133)
36. Spencer Sova (136)
37. Djibril Toure (156)
38. Alexis Daviault (169)
39. Anthony Romani (170)
40. Chris Barlas (171)
41. Angus MacDonell (172)
42. Joey Willis (174)
43. Calem Mangone (176)
44. Marco Mignosa (191)
45. Donovan McCoy (192)
46. Lucas Moore (207)
47. Bronson Ride (210)
48. PJ Forgione (214)
49. Wyatt Kennedy (216)
50. Valentin Zhugin (219)
51. Adam Zidlicky (220)

Goaltenders:
1. Charlie Robertson (12)
2. Nathan Day (14)
3. Charlie Schenkel (23)
4. Zach Bowen (29)

For the full list, see here.

Comments:

1. When we compare this to my own rankings (nearly solidified) the following players would be ranked higher by me: Carey Terrance, Luca Pinelli, Matthew Mania, Denver Barkey, Joey Willis, Easton Cowan, Nick Lardis, Angus MacDonell.

2. When we compare this to my own rankings (nearly solidified) the following players would be ranked lower by me: Oliver Bonk, Brad Gardiner, Cooper Foster, Konnor Smith.

3. This list looks similar to what I expected it to look like given NHL Central Scouting's track record. I expected guys like Barkey, Willis, Lardis, etc to be lower. I expected Bonk to be ranked quite high. The only real surprise for me is Carey Terrance. He's the type of player that NHL CSS typically really likes. I think they're underrating him because of the quality of the team he's playing on and subsequent production deficits. Similarly, the fact that so few OHL players ranked highly is not surprising. At this point, I'd set the over/under at 3.5 for the number of OHL players selected in the first round this year.

4. Good to see Spencer Sova ranked. I think he's the top re-entry guy from the OHL currently. I'd even be more aggressive with that ranking than 136. A bit surprised to see Linus Hemstrom not on the list. I think he deserves to be. 


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