Thursday, June 02, 2011

Early 2011 Top 30

With as little as there is to choose between some players, don't be too surprised to see some significant movement between this and my final list. I wouldn't find it terribly surprising if more research between now and the time of the draft sees some players move up and down, especially the players I'm less familiar with.

I have not included any detailed comments here, I'll be saving those for posts leading up to my final list and to the draft itself. That said, if you are curious why I have some players ranked in the positions I do (at this time), ask away and I'll do my best to answer!

Top 30:
  1. Couturier
  2. Nugent-Hopkins
  3. Huberdeau
  4. Strome
  5. Larsson
  6. Landeskog
  7. Hamilton
  8. Ryan Murphy
  9. Bartschi
  10. Zibanejad
  11. Khokhlachev
  12. Grimaldi
  13. Phillips
  14. Armia
  15. Puempel
  16. Rattie
  17. Beaulieu
  18. Scheifele
  19. McNeil
  20. Morrow
  21. Oleksiak
  22. Miller
  23. Brodin
  24. Namestnikov
  25. Siemens
  26. Rask
  27. Prince
  28. St. Croix
  29. Klefbom
  30. Noesen

9 comments:

slopitch said...

Good list overall. You math guys are really clinging to Coutourier at #1. I think there could be quite some movement in the 2-8 range and if the Oilers can sneak up and get a guy they like at 7 or 8 then I'd be real happy.

2 guys I can see moving up are Morrow and Oleksiak. McNeil at 19 would be great too.

Good list!

Peacecountry said...

I'm so torn on the top two. I really like a lot about SC's game. Size, faceoff ability ect. But I'm always nervous about players from the Q. On the flip side I like a lot of what I'm hearing about RNH but at times I wonder if scouts like to hop on the bandwagon too. I doubted the Oil last year when they picked Hall but a year later and I am very comfortable with the pick. So what do I know!?!

Neilio76 said...

I like SC at the top. I think people get dazzled at this time of year by hype. SC is a big, highly talented two-way player. He brings so much more to the table than the others. He is a complete player. I think in the long run he scores as much or more than RNH, as well as keeping more pucks out of his own net. That counts for something with me.

LMHF#1 said...

If trading to get two of the 6-8 spots would get us Landeskog and one of those D men, that would seem like a pretty solid plan.

I keep having this vision of Landeskog and Hartikainen flanking the toughest "third line" to play against in the league in a few years.

Dangerman said...

Wow, it looks like you, me and LT pimping SC. Its like being the guys crying in our beer while the party is going on. I'm not seeing many others pimping SC these days, I'm sure the RNH wagon is quite full now.

Blue Bullet said...

Interesting list as always speeds.

Showerhead said...

My first impression is that this list leans heavily on math, which is fine by me. Couturier at the top, Strome so high, Larsson so low - this list looks like one that might be genuinely predictive of long term NHL impact but maybe not so predictive of the actual order the names are called on draft day.

How long have you been doing these lists for, speeds? It would be fun to see how your record has been.

speeds said...

Showerhead:

I have been doing them since 2001, but I'm not sure ho far back I have records of my lists.

I have been planning to go back through them at some point and do a comparison, I think that will be a summer project.

Two posts that I am planning on getting out before the draft are:

- players I liked better than the conventional lists that turned out well, and

- the guys that did turn out that I didn't like as much at the time of their draft.

I can give you two examples off the top of my head of misranking players, I'll stay light on the details so I can write about them in the future posts, but I underranked Patrick Kane in 2007, he was #2 on my list in 2007. And I probably overrated (it's early, but i think it's fair to say, at this point anyways) Schroeder in 2009.

Showerhead said...

Definitely looking forward to those posts, speeds. So much so that I won't even ask who you had at #1 over Kane. (Oh, if Lupul hadn't scored against Calgary...)