Buffalo Sabres fans are enjoying their temporary hold on the 30th place rank in the NHL standings. Today, the Sabres are one step closer to drafting one of two generational players should they win the NHL draft lottery.
It comes as no surprise at all that Erie Otters super center Connor McDavid and Boston University center Jack Eichel are the number one and number two respective players eligible for the 2015 NHL Draft. McDavid returned from his broken hand in time to play an integral scoring role on Team Canada’s gold medal winning squad at the recently concluded IIHF World Junior Hockey Championships in Toronto. McDavid started the short tourney slowly after he busted his knuckle in a fist fight with an opponent on Veteran’s Day. He missed six weeks of Erie Otters game action but you wouldn’t know it based on the way that he has been playing the past four weeks. McDavid’s game hit its crescendo when his teammates needed him the most in the WJC gold medal game. McDavid has scored 60 points on 21 goals and 39 assists.
Eichel also showed well at the WJCs. He was Team USA’s best and most consistent player. The Americans were prematurely eliminated from the tournament. Eichel returned to his Boston University team and has ben lighting it up.
NHL Central Scouting has released its 2015 midterm prospect rankings of the top North American players available for the 2015 NHL Draft.
Director of NHL Central Scouting Dan Marr shared with NHL.com the rationale behind selecting McDavid #1 in the CSS midterm rankings:
"Central Scouting has a philosophy for ranking players which is very subjective and it's not always easy to reach a consensus especially when discussing such elite caliber [players], but our consensus vote at midterm is that Connor McDavid is ranked ahead of Jack Eichel," he said. "McDavid possesses a natural quickness, an ultra-quickness if you will, in all areas of his game that sets him apart from the pack. Whether it's skating quickness, speed and agility or his hands, passing and shooting, or his anticipation, awareness and reaction time; all these components of his game are performed with a quickness that at times is truly amazing, and that ability places him in the company of [Wayne] Gretzky and [Sidney] Crosby.
"The club with the first overall selection will ultimately have the tremendous opportunity to select one of these two super prospects and both clubs will come out winners for years to come."
I have no problem at all with the top five rankings.
I love Hanifin's rock solid effort for Team USA at the WJCs. He's this year's Aaron Ekblad as he is the #1 D prospect. Hanifin models his game after Drew Doughty.
"The Law Man" Crouse was a tower of power for Team Canada at the WJCs and has been a leader of men for his Kingston Frontenacs this season.
In any other NHL Draft, Dylan Strome may be the top one or two ranked forward. He has sick skill and is a pleasure to watch play. He doesn't mind growing up in McDavid's shadow in Erie, in fact, its helped his development because while all of the TV cameras are on McDavid, Strome just goes about his own business of filling the net with pucks and making great plays.
Here is the CSS Top 30 List:
1 MCDAVID, CONNOR 2 EICHEL, JACK 3 HANIFIN, NOAH 4 CROUSE, LAWSON 5 STROME, DYLAN
_____________________________________________________________________ 6 WERENSKI, ZACHARY 7 MARNER, MITCHELL 8 ZACHA, PAVEL 9 BARZAL, MATHEW 10 PROVOROV, IVAN 11 ZBORIL, JAKUB 12 MEIER, TIMO 13 MERKLEY, NICHOLAS 14 CONNOR, KYLE 15 CHABOT, THOMAS
_________________________________________________________________________
16 CARLO, BRANDON 17 CHLAPIK, FILIP 18 HARKINS, JANSEN 19 BITTNER, PAUL 20 SPRONG, DANIEL 21 SVECHNIKOV, EVGENY 22 GREENWAY, JORDAN 23 ROY, JEREMY 24 DeBRUSK, JAKE 25 ROY, NICOLAS 26 KONECNY, TRAVIS 27 WHITE, COLIN 28 BOESER, BROCK 29 NOVAK, THOMAS 30 BRISEBOIS, GUILLAUME