Saturday, June 22, 2013

2013 Draft: An Oilers Organizational Bias




The NHL draft rankings I put out each year are made to reflect my opinion of the overall "best player available" listed without organizational bias.  The list below is not that list (although for handy comparison purposes, I do show my BPA rankings beside each player).


Basically, on the list below, I rank the prospects in the order of preference I have towards the Oilers selecting them in the draft. It's based upon how I feel each player would potentially help the Oilers organization, and likely give them the most overall value.

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

2013 NHL Draft Rankings



First, I always like to note what this is, and what it is not. This is a ranked evaluation/projection of how much I feel each prospect could come to impact winning at the NHL level, without organizational bias. This is not a mock draft, although I may choose to post one at a later date.

Some things to note: I have very few (if any) viewings on most of these players. I read about prospects in magazines, read about them on line, watch some highlights of some of the players, and listen to what many of the sports television or radio programs have to say about them. I do watch some WJC games, some games from other Jr. international tournaments, as well as some Memorial Cup and other CHL games. This very much from afar.

I would also like to note that I made markedly less time to work on the rankings this year, due to how late the playoffs are going and a change in the date of my vacation time, for family reasons. I have, however, put together a decently deep list, with many names listed late that I feel have the potential to be quality players given some good developmental breaks.

I've ranked 108 players. Why 108? They all came up on my radar and interested me.

I may post an updated, final rankings with some minor adjustments in the days before the draft, but with all that in mind, here are my current rankings, less than three weeks from draft day:

Tuesday, January 22, 2013