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By The OilKnight 01/28/2020

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If you have followed me for awhile on social media, you’ll know I highly value what I call NHL translatable skills when it comes to scouting prospects. In particular, the most important to me are: Skating (speed/agility/acceleration), Smarts (also known as hockey IQ or hockey sense), Puck skills (stickhandling/creativity), Shot (release & accuracy), and Stats (production). I also lean heavily towards players with a high compete level. Some call it determination, work ethic or “motor”. If a prospect is a great skater, with a high hockey IQ, good puck skills & a relentless work ethic, odds are I’m going to be a fan of his game. Stats are important but typically I don’t care HOW MANY POINTS a player gets, I care more about HOW they get them. I use tiers in terms of production and work from there based on the translatable skills.
On the flipside, I also factor in Red flags in my analysis and penalize a player’s ranking accordingly. Let’s face it, not EVERY SINGLE prospect drafted in the 1st round all make it. Typically, if you go back over the years you can point to a few things that directly caused the player to fail at the NHL level. All the top prospects had skill & Junior production, but likely also had red flags that were underestimated or ignored. The red flags I look for: Lack of compete level (poor effort, lazy, loses too many battles), poor skating (including speed), poor decision making (low hockey IQ), Inconsistency (takes shifts & games off), and too much flashiness.
Now the last one is a much debated topic among draft enthusiasts. For me, NHL players are too good to fall for the behind the back, spin-o-rama, no-look passes that many prospects can get away with in Junior. Sure, it might work the odd time but it’s more likely a player like that will become a turnover machine – which drives coaches crazy and gets you stapled to the bench. So, skill & creativity is definitely a good thing, but too many unnecessary low percentage, high risk plays are a red flag for me because they don’t translate well to the NHL usually. Really, that falls under decision making. And I don’t care what anyone says, there is ABSOLUTELY a difference between a “Junior style game” and a “Pro style game”. Just because a prospect has a monster Draft+1 year doesn’t mean they are automatically going to succeed at the next level.
So that’s how I come up with these rankings. Keep those in mind when reviewing the list. I’m confident having viewed countless games in all 3 Major Junior leagues that most of these Top 31 will all be drafted in the first 2 rounds of the 2020 Draft. Again, this list isn’t necessarily where I think each player will be drafted in order but who ranks as the best prospects in terms of potential NHL impact down the road. Enjoy.
RANK | POS | NAME | LEAGUE | HT | WT | Movement (up/down) |
1 | LW | Alexis Lafreniere | QMJHL | 6’1″ | 192 | |
2 | RD | Jamie Drysdale | OHL | 5’11” | 170 | |
3 | C | Quinton Byfield | OHL | 6’4″ | 214 | |
4 | C | Marco Rossi | OHL | 5’9″ | 179 | |
5 | RW | Dawson Mercer | QMJHL | 6’0 | 179 | |
6 | RW | Jacob Perreault | OHL | 5’11” | 198 | |
7 | LW | Cole Perfetti | OHL | 5’10” | 185 | |
8 | C | Jan Mysak | OHL | 6’0″ | 176 | |
9 | LW | Vasily Ponomarev | QMJHL | 6’0″ | 176 | |
10 | RW | Tyson Foerster | OHL | 6’1“ | 194 | |
11 | LD | Kaiden Guhle | WHL | 6’3“ | 187 | |
12 | RW | Ty Tullio | OHL | 5’9“ | 161 | |
13 | RW | Jack Quinn | OHL | 5’11“ | 176 | |
14 | C | Seth Jarvis | WHL | 5’10“ | 172 | |
15 | LD | Ryan O’Rourke | OHL | 6’2“ | 181 | |
16 | C | Mavrik Bourque | QMJHL | 5’10“ | 165 | |
17 | C | Connor Zary | WHL | 6’0“ | 181 | |
18 | LD | Lukas Cormier | QMJHL | 5’10“ | 170 | |
19 | RW | Ozzy Wiesblatt | WHL | 5’10“ | 183 | |
20 | LW | Antonio Stranges | OHL | 5’10“ | 170 | |
21 | C | Jean-Luc Foudy | OHL | 5’11“ | 168 | |
22 | RD | Will Villeneuve | QMJHL | 6’1“ | 163 | |
23 | LD | Jeremie Poirier | QMJHL | 6’0“ | 192 | |
24 | C | Ridly Greig | WHL | 5’11“ | 159 | |
25 | LW | Jake Neighbours | WHL | 5’11“ | 201 | |
26 | RW | Jaromir Pytlik | OHL | 6’3“ | 196 | |
27 | RD | Justin Barron | QMJHL | 6’2“ | 187 | |
28 | RD | Braden Schneider | WHL | 6’2“ | 209 | |
29 | C | Tristen Robins | WHL | 5’10“ | 174 | |
30 | LW | Will Cuylle | OHL | 6’2“ | 201 | |
31 | C | Hendrix Lapierre*** | QMJHL | 6’0″ | 181 |
Other notables: Martin Chromiak, Brandon Coe, James Hardie, Luke Evangelista, Ethan Cardwell, Evan Vierling, Pavel Novak, Justin Sourdif, Connor McClennon, Lukas Svejkovsky, Ryan Francis.
*** Lapierre is injured having suffered his 3rd concussion in the last year. His status is still uncertain hence the ranking.
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