Craig's List: Lots of talent after Patrick, Hischier

[Mr. Guru]

His March Ranking

http://www.tsn.ca/craig-s-list-lots-...chier-1.702428

[Bass56]

Thanks for sharing Guru! Tolvanen will be the steal of this draft if he is taken that high; kinda like when Forsberg was taken 11th rather than in the top-3 or even the top-5. I agree the the 2012 draft was D-heavy early on so that could have explained why Forsberg slipped but Tolvanen is a special kid nonetheless; I know I will be gunning for him in the first round of my draft!

[Axeman33]

Thanks for sharing Guru! Tolvanen will be the steal of this draft if he is taken that high; kinda like when Forsberg was taken 11th rather than in the top-3 or even the top-5. I agree the the 2012 draft was D-heavy early on so that could have explained why Forsberg slipped but Tolvanen is a special kid nonetheless; I know I will be gunning for him in the first round of my draft!

Keep in mind, Craig's List isn't his mock draft. Craig's List is his ranking of how he sees players long term and their NHL potential. He comes out with his mock draft closer to the actual NHL draft. With Button ranking Tolvanen at 13 here, that means, as a scout, he likes 12 other players more than Tolvanen for their long term potential. That's simply his opinion as a scout per se, not how he see's the actual draft going down.

[Jouko-Pouko]

Once again Button has some very interesting rankings, like putting Martin Necas at #3, Cale Makar at #5, Nick Suzuki at #10 and Kailer Yamamoto at #14... And at the other end, Michael Rasmussen at #16, Owen Tippett at #20, Maxime Comtois at #48 and Nicolas Hague at #55 seem a bit low for me. Button seems to really like small offensive players instead of bigger, more physical players. But I'm definitely not saying he's wrong, just that I found those rankings pretty interesting.

Great to see one of my personal favorites, Miro Heiskanen, being ranked #11 on that list. I still don't understand how ISS doesn't have him in their top-31. Everyone else is having him pretty much as the 3rd best D-man available.

Button should have someone spell-checking his list. For example, it's Juuso V?lim?ki, not Jusso. And it's Aleksi Heponiemi, not Aleksei. That's my only complaint about his list.

[forsbergfan]

i'm seeing an interesting pattern in button's rankings. the players that lots of people are starting to lower in their rankings, button has them WAY lower than anyone else. and the players that are slowly rising in other rankings, button has them WAY higher than anyone else...

comtois has been falling all season long.
hague is also falling (although sportsnet still had him quite high, but they seem to be behind in getting their draft rankings more on par with reality based on some of their other rankings!).
I was just listening to a podcast (sorry, I forget if it was on dobberprospects or thedraftalanlyst) and I wasn't very impressed with the scouting report on tippet.
button's got popugaev in the 60s, and he's another guy who most rankings have as a first rounder, but he's been slipping.
Rasmussen at 16 isn't a big deal. I've seen plenty of rankings with him around there. and now with his wrist injury, he's much more likely to go around that point than higher anyways. button did have him at 8 in his mock draft.
necas and makar have been rising a lot over the past 3 months, so no surprise that button loves them. he compared necas to claude Giroux, and says that makar reminds him of erik karlsson. with Arizona, Detroit and new jersey all picking high and I assume going after D, i'd be surprised if makar doesn't go very high.
regarding tolvanen, yes, he would be an absolute steal at 13 (button had him at 12 in his mock draft), and I fully expect him to go top 10, but when you look at the guys ranked ahead of him, they are all very deserving of those spots, and it's quite close with all those players after the top 2. anyone who rants about how horrible this year's draft is should look no farther than tolvanen being ranked at 13 (and it not being a stretch). no generational talent, but plenty of top 6 forwards, and few top pairing dmen and a bunch of other top 4 dmen. and the deepest pool of goalies in recent memory.
button just has the guts to take some of the trends that everyone is seeing, and to take it farther than anyone else. many others will rely on their previous rankings when devaluing a player (or the opposite), but he doesn't. for example, everyone loved hague at the beginning of the year. but he has been falling recently due to the holes in his game, but he's only gonna fall a few spots at a time in most rankings. but button just puts him where he sees him, disregarding anything that happened previously.
the only two players who's rankings I didn't like were Robert Thomas and erik brannstrom. those guys are gonna be going much higher than they were ranked (54 and 45 respectively).

[pharling]

Craig Button joined us on the DobberProspects Podcast to discuss his March Craig's List, his top 50 prospects and scouting.
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http://www.dobberprospects.com/dpr14/