The Leafs are just one point ahead of the 30th

placed team in the league, the supposed #1 goaltender is in the AHL on a

conditioning stint, and Toronto was just shutout by the Wild last night. Now

seems like as good a time as any to revisit the 2016 Draft where the Leafs own

two first round picks, and eleven picks total.

It’s also a good time to start looking at the draft rankings

since December provides a pretty good baseline for what are about to be

significant changes to everyone’s draft order. With the World Juniors and Top

Prospect games coming up, the players at the top of the draft are about to

shift significantly. Even those who won’t be attending may be impacted by

having teammates in the tournament and could be playing a larger role over the

next month.

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In short, now is the time to start daydreaming about how the

Leafs find away to end June with Auston Matthews and Alex DeBrincat in their

system.

The Consensus

If the image at the top wasn’t particularly clear, hopefully

this table is a bit friendlier when it comes to determining what the current

consensus is for upcoming draft. Using the

rankings from ISS Hockey, Future Considerations, MyNHLDraft, HockeyProspect.com,

Craig Button and Sportsnet I’ve come up with a consensus ranking.

I have excluded Bob McKenzie’s rankings because it was only

a top ten list with some honourable mentions at this point, but will add his

January rankings when they happen.

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Corey Pronman’s rankings have also been excluded because

they were completed in September, and as you will see below, two months of

draft year hockey can cause a lot of movement in where a player is ranked.

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There are a few things worth noting from the consensus

rankings:

The obvious thing that sticks out immediately is that there

aren’t any takists willing to absurdly rank anyone other than Auston Matthews

first overall. That’s disappointing in a way, but makes good sense.

The interesting thing that sticks out is that after Matthews

there are four other players who are all being considered for the second

overall spot, 3 wingers and a defenseman. While personally I would lean towards

Chynchrun because of the importance of a defenseman compared to the wing,

Chynchrun is a player who seems to be sliding in the rankings, though no one is

willing to bump him from the top five.

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Other than what looks like a consensus top five, Michael

McLeod of the Mississauga Steelheads was the only player to receive top five considerations.

He’s been one of the fast climbing

players in the rankings over the past couple of months and could have a strong

December when Erie and London see their rosters depleted for the World Juniors.

In total, 17 players received some consideration as a top 10

pick with Logan Brown of the Windsor Spitfires sitting the lowest of them in

consensus at number 20. This is incredibly good news for a team like the Leafs

that there is this level of depth in the draft, as the Penguins pick at this

point doesn’t look like it will be particularly late in the first round. The

idea of walking away with a top five pick and someone who could have easily

gone in the top ten would be a tremendous win for the organization.

There are 19 players who are consensus top thirty. Charlie

McAvoy while ranked out of the top 20 is the last one to sneak onto the list.

The encouraging thing about this is that there were 44 players in total that

received top 30 consideration from these six scouting outlets, and that

certainly increases the value of the Leafs high second round pick. Someone like

Sean Day or Dmitri Sokolov who has seen their stock fall since the start of the

season would easily be available when the Leafs pick in the second, and it’s

highly likely that someone like Brett Howden or Chad Krys could slide as well.

The Movement

The most interesting thing about draft rankings is the

constant movement. Last season I did some googling back to see how different

rankings were at the start of the season, the midpoint of the season, and

compared them to the final rankings from the couple of outlets I thought to do

this for. This season I’m attempting to be more proactive, as it’s interesting

to see how things change to more that is seen of each of these players.

It still shocks me that Alex DeBrincat hasn’t found his way

into the top ten lists of any scouting services, but you can see where he’s

slowly but surely climbing up the lists.

The Mississauga forwards Nylander and McLeod have certainly

benefited from exposure this season, while players like Asplund, Sokolov, and

Mattson have had scouts slowly fall out of love with them.

Here are a few of the changes we’ve seen so far this year…

HockeyProspects.com





So far this season nobody has published more rankings than

Hockeyprospect.com and it’s resulted in having ten new names on their list

since August, their new second overall moving up from the initial 8th

overall ranking, and DeBrincat going from unranked to 16th overall.

Nylander and McLeod were also initially out of their rankings but have moved up

to 13th and 14th overall respectively.

Max Jones who was initially a top five selection has slide

to 18th, and at one point Logan Brown dropped 23 spots in a month

before stabilizing at the bottom of the list.

None of this is a knock on the Hockeyprospect.com rankings,

which are actually the ones I most indentify with, but the monthly variance is

important to note as people often get accused of inflating value post World

Juniors, when it’s clear that these lists are in a constant state of evolution

throughout the year.

It also will help make sense of seemingly bizarre picks in

June, when someone on who looked to be a potential 3rd rounder goes

in the late first round, this monthly records will help identify that at one

point that player may have been considered much higher, and the team may have

done additional due diligence on that player to make them worth the risk over a

more consensus player.

Craig Button







Craig Button gets a lot of guff over his rankings, but I’ve

come to appreciate them a great deal. The fact that this is just one guy going

out and building a list himself while watching a ton of games is a unique

resource that TSN provides us with. The fact that Button also values puck

movement and scoring chances over grit and character also speaks to me.

The fact that Button’s list seems to be stabilizing rather

early is quite interesting, and makes me wonder what kind of impact the Canada

vs. Russia Series and World Junior announcements will have on his December

rankings, as these can often be significant modifiers.

Button was one of the first to buy in on Patrik Laine, and

Alexander Nylander, and he often goes against the grain on blue chip defensemen

so it’s not surprising to see that he’s losing interest in Chychrun and is one

of the biggest fans of Samuel Girard. He’s also the one of the first to include

Taylor Raddysh in his top 30, which may make him look rather smart in June as

it’s becoming clear that Erie is great at building offensive talent, and not

every point generated is because of Dylan Strome, or in last year’s case,

Connor McDavid.

Future Considerations

In September Future Considerations had a couple of names we

didn’t really see anywhere else. Nick Pastujov and Ryan Lindgren were quick to

fall off, but gave us some new names to keep an eye as not all of us devote the

same effort into tracking junior players.

October’s rankings gave us a few more familiar names, and November’s

list offers no real surprises, and the most consistent group with the previous

month with only DeBrincat replacing Brett Howden on the list.

ISS Hockey

ISS went the opposite route of Future Considerations, and

after being very consistent between their October and November rankings, their

December rankings added a number of new names at the bottom of the list,

completely reshuffled their top five, and had their most significant mover in

Kieffer Bellows.

As one of the longer term independent scouting services, it’s

not surprising that the list has some significant differences, and commits

itself to less radical movement.

It’s also interesting that they have included Nathan

Bastian, who previously I had only seen touted as a potential first rounder by Tom

Hunter of Today’s Slapshot having said this about him…

“If Bastian continues to play the way he has through the

opening six games, we will likely see his name creep up the mid-season draft

rankings. The Steelheads are going to be an exciting team to watch this season

and Bastian is going to be a big part of it. Being led by four dynamic draft

eligible players you can bet the Hershey Centre is going to be crawling with

scouts all year.”

While he could be benefitting from scouts in Mississauga

there to watch McLeod, Nylander, and Day, Bastian was predicted by Hunter to be

a climber, and that’s exactly what’s starting to happen.

MyNHLDraft.com





While not really a scouting service, MyNHLDraft.com has done

an excellent job of compiling draft data and turning it into something fun and

meaningful. They are already heavily influenced by consensus, and often

interpret team need when making their lists, but aren’t afraid to go against

the grain either.

You can see that in their higher than most ranking of

DeBrincat.

MyNHLDraft had a month of radical shifts with Gauthier,

Sergachyov, McLeod, Benson, Asplund, Steel, and DeBrincat all making

significant movement. It seems likely of all the groups used in the consensus

that MyNHLDraft is the most likely to be influenced by larger events like the

World Juniors and Top Prospect Game.

Sportsnet

Anytime there’s something associated with Damien Cox you can

always expect a hot take or two. Sergachyov coming out of the honourable mentions

to jump into 8th spot is certainly one of them, the top five order

is somewhat unique as well, and the names Pascal Laberge and Simon Stransky

only appear on this list.

Since it’s only the second month of rankings, you can’t

really identify any trends forming, but Kieffer Bellows at 6th

overall is certainly something to keep an eye on as it’s entirely possible that

he could become much more of a high profile prospect following the World Junior

Tournament.

While criticizing something with Cox’s name on it seems apropos,

I’ve got a soft spot for any list that includes a higher number of WHL players

on it.

What Next?

Now we wait for the marquee events to happen. We can expect

a sudden influx of European talent to start creeping into these lists, and awareness

for some of the Russians that truly fly under the radar.

We can expect a Bob McKenzie list, and probably a midterm

Corey Pronman list coming soon which will be added to the consensus rankings

and since those two lists are arguably the best ones out there, we can expect

the consensus to hold a lot of merit in the New Year.

We can also expect that there will be an increasing desire

in Leafs fans to know what’s going on with prospects. Right now, using the

standings and not factoring in any changes from the lottery or playoffs, the

Leafs would be picking 5th and 19th. Using the consensus

rankings that would give them Patrik Laine, and Kale Clague, so a talented

forward with size, and skilled defenseman. Not a bad outcome.



