You can follow me on Twitter @ShackTS
We’ve officially reached the dog days of summer, and the inaction around the league has been pretty noticeable besides the Stone and Ceci contracts. With that in mind, I wanted to do what Silver Seven Sens and other sites do every summer: rank the prospects. I won’t be doing “Top 25 Under 25,” but instead I’ll just be ranking players who I’d still consider prospects.
There are several players that have played games in the NHL, but even Nick Paul (who has played 36) is still more or less a prospect. Obviously someone like Thomas Chabot has exhausted his eligibility since he played almost the whole year, and there weren’t really any other close calls in terms of calling someone a prospect or not. I tried my best to balance a player’s ceiling with his closeness to being NHL ready, as sometimes one can matter more than the other.
Without further ado, here are the 21st-25th ranked prospects in the Senators system:
Just missed the cut: Filip Ahl, Angus Crookshank, Jordan Hollett, Miles Gendron, Joey Daccord.
25th: Parker Kelly, C, Prince Albert, 19
I went back and forth here between Kelly and Ahl, but decided to go with Kelly in the end. Obviously at 25 you aren’t going to be talking about quality prospects and we’re splitting hairs here, but these players still have a small chance to be depth players.
Kelly was signed as a free agent this year, and put up 59 points in 69 games with the Raiders in his D+1 season. Obviously that isn’t a great mark, but it looks better than some other Senators prospects like Ahl. Ahl looked like a decent pick at the time, but when he came to the WHL in his D+2 season, he had just 48 points in 54 games on an elite Regina team, so I’m giving the edge to Kelly here.
Kelly is essentially a free late round pick, so that’s at least nice that they got him for nothing. His ceiling seems to be a bottom-six role player, and even if he gets a cup of coffee in the NHL that’ll be a success.
24th: Jack Rodewald, RW, Belleville, 24
Rodewald is up there in age, but he’s proving himself to be a capable enough AHLer. He scored 25 points in 62 games this year and had 27 in 66 games the previous year, so he isn’t going to move the needle too much, but there’s a chance that he could stick on a fourth line in the NHL. The fact that he’s already played in 4 NHL games still makes him semi-interesting, even if it’s unlikely that he’ll be in the league for a long time.
I wouldn’t get excited about him, but he’s a name worth mentioning because he may get a few more games next season in Ottawa if he plays well in Belleville.
23rd: Andrew Sturtz, RW, Belleville, 24
Sturtz could be exactly like Rodewald but he’s slightly more exciting because he hasn’t played a full season in the AHL yet so there’s a chance that he over-performs. Sturtz is a strangely built player, standing 5’8” but weighing 185 lbs, and he also has a bit of a local connection by playing for the Carleton Place Canadians for two seasons. He played very well for Penn State University over the past three seasons, and was over a point per game in the last two. However, he’s also turning 24 and was older than almost all of his competition, so his stats need to be taken with a grain of salt.
For reference, in his draft year he was in the GOJHL and was only 28th overall in points per game. Nevertheless, despite the unlikeliness of him panning out just like Kelly and Rodewald, it only cost money to acquire him, and there’s no downside to seeing what he can do. You can never rule out the possibility that a player is a late bloomer, and his first season in the AHL will be telling.
Hopefully Sturtz can at least show some scoring ability with 30 points or so, because if not, he’ll fall off this list pretty quickly due to his age.
22nd: Markus Nurmi, RW, TPS Turku, 20
Nurmi was the last European player drafted by the Senators as he was taken in the 6th round of the 2016 draft. At 6’4” and 178 lbs, he obviously has intriguing size which the Senators love. Since being drafted, he’s been a forgotten prospect and hasn’t really done much to get the attention of fans. His D+1 season was a slight improvement on the previous year by notching 28 points in 27 games in the Jr. A SM-Liiga, and his D+2 season was another step forward with 21 points in 51 SM-Liiga games.
For comparison, top prospect Jesperi Kotkaniemi put up 29 points in 57 games, but he’s also two years younger. Nurmi was 7th amongst U20 forwards in points per game in the SM-Liiga, so that looks good enough but nowhere near as good as someone like 2017 1st rounder Kristian Vesalainen who had 43 points in 49 games.
The fact that he is now playing in the top Finnish league is a good sign, and there’s a good chance that he could be coming over to North America after the 2018-19 season. Nurmi had a decent showing at the last WJC by getting 3 points in 5 games, although he still wasn’t one of their standout players.
He is still interesting enough to follow, but I wouldn’t put him in the same tier as other young Senators forward prospects. If he can take another leap forward this year though, that could change things.
21st: Kevin Mandolese, G, Cape Breton, 18
Mandolese was taken 157th overall in the 6th round, although most scouting resources had him projected to go either in the 4th or 5th round, so I definitely like the pick. It’s hard to properly evaluate goaltenders from the QMJHL and SV% is essentially useless with goalies getting drafted, which is why I can’t cite his numbers during his short career to say why he’s a good pick.
He posted an .884 SV% in 37 games, which was 32nd out of 44 goalies. That’s not good, but a lot of times goaltenders numbers will drastically improve after they are drafted. Furthermore, it’s hard to not be intrigued by him when you see tweets like this at the draft:
He’s by no means a top goalie prospect, but he’s just another guy to keep an eye on.
Stay tuned for the 16th-20th best prospects in the Senators system!
Ottawa Senators Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»