Welcome to my look at the top prospects within NHL organizations.



Like with my breakdown into the farm systems of each NHL team, these rankings are based on thousands of hours of research, spanning many trips to rinks across the hockey world, watching a lot of video, analyzing player’s production, and discussions with scouts, coaches and executives. While I seek input from many sources, these are solely my opinions and will deviate from NHL sources, even significantly in some instances.



These rankings also have minor tweaks from the analysis I published in August going through each team’s farm systems, given that seasons have already started for some players, I’ve attended some prospect camps and I’ve incorporated those viewings into these rankings.



My preference is for highly skilled players with upside. I look for prospects with speed, skill and intelligence. Skating is a little more important to me in forwards than defenders,...