|
It was bound to happen. The folks at Central Scouting talked themselves into rating Tyler Seguin as the #1 North American forward, putting him ahead of long-time favorite Taylor Hall. This isn't too surprising; the two are relatively close in ability, and an object in motion draws the eye more than a stationary one. Hall has been the top-rated prospect for this year's draft class for several years; it's easy to forget how good he is and give the edge to Seguin, whose stock has been rising steadily over the last year. He's had to improve, just to catch up to where Hall started. So is Seguin likely to have a better career than Hall?
The Projectinator says no. It pegs Hall at a 10YE score of 0.95, and Seguin at 0.80. This means it projects Hall to have a career similar in value to players like Patrick Marleau, Jason Arnott, and Owen Nolan, while Seguin compares to Keith Primeau, Jeff O'Neill, or Jeff Friesen. There's nothing wrong with either of those groups, but Hall has a small but noticeable edge. This shouldn't be surprising either. Both Hall and Seguin put up 106 points in the OHL this year, but Hall did so in six fewer games. Seguin is two months younger and one inch taller, both of which are slight advantages for him. But the Projectinator looks beyond just the most recent performances of the two players. It remembers that in 2008-09, Hall scored 90 points in his age-16 season, while Seguin managed “only” 67. This is a significant advantage for Hall, and that's the main reason the Projectinator gives him the nod.
But as hard as it may be to believe, there's much more to this year's Entry Draft than Hall vs. Seguin, even if we look only at CHL and USHL players, which are the only players the Projectinator is calibrated for at present. We have a number of interesting European skaters coming out of the Q and elsewhere, we have the typical collection of underrated small forwards, we have a widly overrated US Under-18 Development Team program, and we have a pair of large-sized defensemen from the WHL that the Projectinator likes better than the scouts do. Wait, what? Alex Petrovic and Dylan McIlrath, you're from a rare breed indeed.
We'll start with the goaltenders, and we'll look at them seperately from the skaters, since that's what the pros do. Although they can rate forwards and defensemen against each other, they are apparently unable to do the same with goaltenders. The Projectinator is designed to do just that, but let's not rub it in. Besides, there's at least one good reason to evaluate goaltenders separately, which we'll get to after the table.
Player Position League 10YE Rank CSS Rank
Calvin Pickard G WHL 1.08 1 1
Mark Visentin G QMJHL 0.79 2 4
Maxime Clermont G QMJHL 0.77 3 11
Mathieu Corbeil-Theriault G QMJHL 0.65 4 6
Brandon Anderson G WHL 0.65 5 n/a
Adam Brown G WHL 0.64 6 n/a
Kent Simpson G WHL 0.61 7 3
Cam Lanigan G WHL 0.6 8 7
Philipp Grubauer G QMJHL 0.59 9 10
Tyler Bunz G WHL 0.55 10 8
J.P. Anderson G OHL 0.51 11 18
Jack Campbell G USHL 0.51 12 2
Note that the CSS Rank is the player's rank among CHL and USHL players, according to the CSS final rankings. Any player not evaluated by the Projectinator is left out.
Forget Hall and Seguin, the Projectinator thinks the best CHL player at this year's draft is actually Calvin Pickard. He's ranked #1 among North American goaltenders by the professional player-rankers, but does he really project to be this good? A 10Y score of 1.08 is in Martin Brodeur territory. Should Pickard go first overall come June 25th?
I would hesitate to make my first pick a goaltender based on the Projectinator's rankings. Goalies are notoriously difficult to project from their junior performance, and that is reflected in the Projectinator's results. Although the goalie rankings are designed to minimize the error between the 10Y score and the estimated 10Y score (10YE), there is one problem as mentioned above. The average error for the goaltender 10YE scores is much higher than the average error for forwards or defensemen. From the data set used to develop the projections (age-17 players from 1989 to 1998), we have:
Position Average 10YE Average Error Error Coefficient
G 0.29 0.17 0.56
D 0.28 0.08 0.30
F 0.27 0.09 0.33
This indicates that the average error for goalies is about twice that for skaters. Goaltenders are therefore much more risky than skaters, and one must be very careful when spending one's 1st overall draft picks. Those don't come around very often, and should be used wisely. I would say Hall is a better choice, but given the relative paucity of quality skaters this year, Pickard should still go quite high.
Clearly the Projectinator doesn't think nearly as much about Jack Campbell as the scouts do. You'll see that's a trend among players from the US Development Team program when we look at the skaters, which we'll do now.
Player Position League 10YE Rank CSS Rank
Taylor Hall F OHL 0.95 1 2
Tyler Seguin F OHL 0.80 2 1
Brett Connolly F WHL 0.78 3 3
Jordan Weal F WHL 0.77 4 24
Nino Niederreiter F WHL 0.69 5 12
Cam Fowler D OHL 0.66 6 5
Alex Petrovic D WHL 0.64 7 23
Dylan McIlrath D WHL 0.63 8 16
Ryan Johansen F WHL 0.63 9 10
Jeff Skinner F OHL 0.61 10 27
Kirill Kabanov F QMJHL 0.61 11 25
Joey Hishon F OHL 0.60 12 40
Tyler Toffoli F OHL 0.59 13 15
Petr Straka F QMJHL 0.56 14 20
Emerson Etem F WHL 0.54 15 8
Jerome Gauthier-Leduc D QMJHL 0.54 16 36
Greg McKegg F OHL 0.53 17 50
Konrad Abeltshauser D QMJHL 0.53 18 110
Brandon Gormley D QMJHL 0.52 19 6
Troy Rutkowski D WHL 0.52 20 35
Ryan Spooner F OHL 0.52 21 31
Matt MacKenzie D WHL 0.52 22 57
Ryan Martindale F OHL 0.51 23 21
Jakub Culek F QMJHL 0.51 24 38
Brendan Gallagher F WHL 0.51 25 112
Erik Gudbranson D OHL 0.50 26 4
Justin Feser F WHL 0.50 27 114
Alexander Burmistrov F OHL 0.50 28 11
Quinton Howden F WHL 0.49 29 17
Brooks Macek F WHL 0.49 30 67
Ivan Telegin F OHL 0.48 31 26
Geoffrey Schemitsch D OHL 0.48 32 88
Mark Pysyk D WHL 0.48 33 7
Mark Stone F WHL 0.46 34 84
Brad Ross F WHL 0.46 35 44
Derek Forbort D USHL 0.46 36 9
Austin Madaisky D WHL 0.46 37 42
John McFarlan F OHL 0.45 38 14
Devante Smith-Pelly F OHL 0.44 39 59
Steven Shipley F OHL 0.44 40 34
Curtis Hamilton F WHL 0.44 41 33
Andrew Yogan F OHL 0.44 42 46
Samual Carrier D QMJHL 0.43 43 124
Brandon Hynes F QMJHL 0.43 44 87
Austin Watson F OHL 0.43 45 13
Jaden Schwartz F USHL 0.43 46 22
Stanislav Galiev F QMJHL 0.42 47 18
Stephen Silas D OHL 0.42 48 45
Brendan Ranford F WHL 0.42 49 81
Michael Bournival F QMJHL 0.41 50 58
Nino Niederreiter, something of a darling from the 2010 World Junior championships, comes out as the top-ranked European North American player (if you follow me), a few spots ahead of Kirill Kabanov. Jordan Weal is #4 by this system, but 20 spots lower to the professionals; this is presumably due to the fact that he's only 5'8” tall.
What I notice the most this year is the ranking of USHL players. Either the Projectinator is off, or the scouts are off, but one of us is systematically misprojecting USHL players. Specifically, the scouts are quite fond of several US Development Program players, and the Projectinator simply does not share their optimism:
Player Position League 10YE Rank CSS Rank
Derek Forbort D USHL 0.46 36 9
Jonathan Merrill D USHL 0.32 85 19
Stephen Johns D USHL 0.28 103 28
Bill Arnold F USHL 0.30 95 29
Jarred Tinordi D USHL 0.32 88 30
Jason Zucker F USHL 0.23 120 37
Justin Faulk D USHL 0.24 118 41
Bryan Rust F USHL 0.28 102 63
Luke Moffatt F USHL 0.22 125 73
The Projectinator looks at these players, sees they played in the USHL and didn't put up remarkable numbers, and ranks them accordingly, secure in the knowledge that the USHL is not of the same calibre as the CHL. But perhaps it's not as far behind as it used to be; every player the scouts have rated from the USHL this year is rated lower by the Projectinator, often much lower, save one (Thomas Tynan), who's 5'9”. I suspect that both the Projectinator and the scouts have it wrong to some degree. The 10YE estimate for USHL players is probably a bit low, but the scouts probably let themselves dream a bit since these players don't play against the same quality of competition as Hall and Seguin do, for example. It's easy to overestimate someone's ability when you base your judgment on personal observation.
As always, it should be an interesting draft. Like last year, the discussion will be centered on which forward will go number one, but unlike last year's Tavares vs. Duchene talk, this one will be more than just a smokescreen. | 
0 comments have been left for this article. 
Conn Smythe Watch: Lundqvist Leads