We’ve been getting a lot of texts, emails, and phone calls over the last month or so from people who simply need to know “What does your top thirty look like? You folks have been doing all this research for prospect profiles and such, where are TLN’s rankings, huh?”

Well, the wait is over. It’s time to tip the hockey world on its head. [Not really. We actually put a lot of thought into these rankings, and they should be a good reference for the draft. I just wanted to sound tough.]

TLN has collected lists from our writers and, using some spreadsheet wizardry, compiled a prospect ranking that trumps all others. There were some interesting moments: Jon yelled at Justin for putting Strome ahead of Marner, Justin retaliated by kicking Jon off the site for a week, and then Shawn threw a lawnmower over a fence for seemingly no reason at all.

Things were tense, but we got through, perhaps even the better for it.

Close but didn’t make the cut

Here are some players who received top thirty votes but didn’t quite make the cut for our final list: Filip Chlapik (Charlottetown, QMJHL), Jacob Larsson (Frolunda, SHL), Nicolas Meloche (Baie-Comeau, QMJHL), Mitchell Vande Sompel (Oshawa, OHL), Mitchell Stephens (Saginaw, OHL), Blake Speers (Sault Ste. Marie, OHL), Jens Looke (Brynas, SHL), Paul Bittner (Portland, WHL), Aleksi Saarela (Assat, SM-Liiga), Noah Juulsen (Everett, WHL), Brandon Carlo (Tri-City, WHL), Ilya Samsonov (Magnitogorsk, KHL).

Keep in mind this isn’t a mock draft, we just asked our writers to provide their top thirty prospect rankings and five of them (Reis, Fisher, Capp, Steitzer, and yours truly) responded to have their lists merged into this beautiful ranking below. TLN will have a mock draft to follow in the days leading up to the draft, where things could look a little differently since speculation on team needs and preferences will start to come into play.

The List

As you can see, some interesting range in the high/low for a lot of the prospects, and don’t worry, everyone will be following up to defend their own rankings. The comments section might even get a little out of hand.

A few notes:

Mitch Marner, perhaps the most-talked-about potential target for the Leafs, didn’t receive a vote below 4th.

Colin White had the biggest range of votes, from 14th on one list to being left off another.

Crouse somewhat predictably had a wide range of votes, from 11th to 25th.

Of the players left off our list, none had a vote higher than 25th overall besides goaltender Ilya Samsonov, who received a vote for 24th.

Only three players who didn’t make the list received more than one top thirty vote, Paul Bittner, Filip Chlapik, and Jacob Larsson (two apiece).

Matthew Barzal is an interesting case, ranging from 3rd to 7th overall, and surely providing more fuel for debate around that first Leafs selection and/or potential trade-down scenarios. Ivan Provorov is nearly in the same camp, with a high of 4th. Seems like Leafs’ management aren’t the only ones who are big fans of his game.

Let us hear it

There’s no doubt this list will spark some more discussion among our own staff, and we definitely want to hear what you have to say as well.

Don’t like these rankings? Think someone is rated too high or low? Want to move Crouse into the top three? Let us know in the comments section. Heck, drop your own top thirty in there and let us see how it stacks up. We love to talk prospects, and we’ll continue to do plenty of it over the next 14 days.





