According to ESPN prospect analyst Corey Pronman, yes they do. It was prospect week last week at ESPN and Pronman had three excellent articles, including his top 120 prospects for this upcoming season. He also ranked each team’s farm system and laid out every team’s top 10 prospects. You can find all three articles linked in the tweet below. Fair warning ESPN insider is required.
The key to the Blue Jackets high ranking was the elite talent they possess at the top of the system in Pierre-Luc Dubois and Zach Werenski. Dubois ranked as the eighth best prospect overall while Werenski was rated as the best defensive prospect coming in at 12th overall. The Jackets were one of just three teams (Toronto and Arizona) to have at least two prospects in the top 15.
Pronman did a really good job explaining why he has the Jackets ranked as high as he does, but personally four seems really high. The Jackets have a very strong group of five at the top of their system. After PLD and Weresnki, I think just about everyone who does a ranking have Oliver Bjorkstrand, Sonny Milano, and Vitali Abramov rounding out the top five in some order. All three ranked in the top 120, making the Jackets one of just 10 teams to have at least five prospects ranked. After that group though the system really falls off a cliff. Guys like Gabriel Carlsson and Paul Bittner have the draft pedigree but really haven’t displayed enough to be considered anything more than depth prospects.
There are a couple reasons though why I'm so pessimistic about the Jackets system. The first stems from the past. The last time the Jackets had a system this strong it was led by the
top prospect in all of hockey in Nikita Filatov. Filatov will always be the constant reminder of the risks that come with prospects. No matter how good a player looks as an amateur sometimes it just doesn’t work out. The other reason is the system could be so much better if the Jackets could pick players in the second round. I know this is something I've talked about many times before; you’re likely tired of hearing it, but look at those first five prospects. You have three mid to high first round picks and two players picked in the third round.
The frustrating part about it is there were many players that fell to the second round who I and others identified as very strong prospects. Looking at the 2015 draft the Jackets easily could have picked players like
Daniel Sprong and
Oliver Kylington in the second round. They were both players I was incredibly high on and would have added two more top 120 prospects to the system.
Even looking deeper in the draft the Jackets continue to make the same mistakes. A player like Kirill Kaprizov would have been a great pick late in the 2015 draft. Instead the Jackets went for another big bruising defencmen. Kaprizov would have made been another top 120 prospect. Adding those three players would have given the Jackets system a major boost and given them eight high-end skilled prospects. Then I think this system would be comfortably in the four spot and maybe even higher.
I will admit there is some missing the forest for the trees going on here. The Jackets despite some falters in the second and late rounds, have built a very strong group of prospects. They have five players who project to be good NHL players with the potential to be all-stars. Their depth maybe isn’t the strongest but they still have players who project to play in the NHL, albeit lower in the line-up. I still don’t agree with the fourth ranking, but it’s safe to say the Blue Jackets have one of the strongest systems in the NHL.
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