Hockey Prophets

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Adam JiricekCzechia vs US (Hlinka-Gretzky 2023)7/31/2023Eating tons of penalty kill minutes.

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Brian Fogarty

Top Prospects: The NHL System Rankings

#7: Seattle Kraken

 

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Number of Ranked Prospects: 30

Number of Forwards in the Top 50: 3

Number of Defensemen in the Top 50: 3

Average Rank of Top 10 Prospects in Pool: 47th

Top Forward Prospect in The System: Berkley Catton (8th)

Top Defenseman Prospect in The System: Lukas Dragicevic (19th)

System Score: 4.75

 

Now in its fourth season of existence, the Seattle Kraken look like a team on the border of true respectability, both as an NHL team and as a prospect system. General Manager Ron Francis started building the club from scratch by quickly collecting and sprinkling young NHL talent among NHL veterans, and has since been adding more prospects and supplemental pieces to the structure of the team through the draft and waiver wire. Seattle's inaugural draft in 2021 yielded not only Rookie of the Year Matt Beniers, but also a full-time NHL defenseman selected 35th overall that year, Ryker Evans, and the team has used its twelve top-two-round draft picks in the last three seasons well. The Kraken made the playoffs in their second season (losing in the second round) and are currently a .500 team after the first third of the 2024-2025. They are a team on the rise with a lot of young talent developing and preparing to take the most recent expansion franchise to the next level.

Brian Fogarty

Top Prospects: The NHL System Rankings

#8: Chicago Blackhawks

 

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Number of Ranked Prospects: 39

Number of Forwards in the Top 50: 2

Number of Defensemen in the Top 50: 2

Average Rank of Top 10 Prospects in Pool: 55th

Top Forward Prospect in The System: Sacha Boisvert (15th)

Top Defenseman Prospect in The System: Artyom Levshunov (1st)

System Score: 4.5

 

The Chicago Blackhawks took a major step forward in their rebuild process when they drafted the generational talent Conor Bedard first overall in the 2023 draft. Bedard won the Calder Trophy as the NHL's top rookie player last season, and despite a relatively sluggish start to the  2024-2025 season--if 19 points in 26 games can be considered sluggish for a 19-year-old NHL player--he will be the franchise cornerstone for years to come. The key to Chicago's future success will be their ability to build a solid team around Bedard, and they seem well on their way to doing so. In the past three drafts (those under current General Manager Kyle Davidson), the Blackhawks have collected and used 12 first- and second-round draft picks (not including Bedard) to add a set of high-end prospects that give the team one of the best pipelines in the NHL. One of those players--defenseman Kevin Korchinski--already has a full season of NHL play behind him (note that he had been ranked 5th overall in the Hockey Prophets top defenseman prospect ranking before he graduated) or he, too, would be considered one of the best defensive prospects in the game.

Brian Fogarty

Top Prospects: The NHL System Rankings

#9: Columbus Blue Jackets

 

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Number of Ranked Prospects: 30

Number of Forwards in the Top 50: 2

Number of Defensemen in the Top 50: 2

Average Rank of Top 10 Prospects in Pool: 51st

Top Forward Prospect in The System: Cayden Lindstrom (4th)

Top Defenseman Prospect in The System: Denton Mateychuk (10th)

System Score: 4.5

 

Jarmo Kekalainen was the general manager for 11 of the first 26 years of the Columbus Blue Jackets' existence, and ran the team for almost the entire period of time during which the prospects considered in the current ranking were acquired (save the 2024 draft overseen by current GM Don Waddell). Under Kekalainen's guidance, the Blue Jackets drafted multiple key NHL players including several selected after the first two rounds (including Oliver Bjorkstand 89th, Elvis Merzlinkins 76th, Vladislav Gavrikov 159th, Markus Nutivaara 189th). In the top rounds, they found key players such as Adam Fantilli, Kent Johnson, Yegor Chinakov, Kirill Marchenko and David Jiricek.

However, despite relative success in the draft, the Blue Jackets have struggled to translate player procurement into wins, and have made the playoffs only six times (five under Kekalainen). As such, Columbus has held a lot of lottery draft picks in recent years, and have built up a top-ten prospect system. 

Brian Fogarty

Top Prospects: The NHL System Rankings

#10: Minnesota Wild

 

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Number of Ranked Prospects: 34

Number of Forwards in the Top 50: 2

Number of Defensemen in the Top 50: 2

Average Rank of Top 10 Prospects in Pool: 75th

Top Forward Prospect in The System: Danila Yurov (28th)

Top Defenseman Prospect in The System: Zeev Buium (4th)

System Score: 4.5

 

The Minnesota Wild have never won a Stanley Cup, nor have they even played in a Cup Final. In fact, since the 2015-2016 season, the Wild have either missed the playoffs entirely or lost in the first round of the playoffs. An amazing aspect of the Wild's history is that they often have solid teams that are difficult to play against, but they just fall short at crunch time. A sequence of quality coaches has not been able to get the Wild over the top, nor have the four general managers in team history (the current GM being Bill Guerin, who took over from Paul Fenton in August of 2019). Guerin, a storied NHL player in his own right, looks to have the NHL squad on the right track and he has been building a quality prospect system to support them.

Since 2018, the Wild have used nine first round picks and a further 17 second and third round picks. Despite having made one of the Hockey Prophets' least favorite first-round draft picks in 2018 (Minnesota selected Filip Johansson 24th overall, a player that Hockey Prophets had ranked at 62nd and who has yet to play in an NHL game) and took a gamble on drafting the enigmatic Charlie Stramel 21st overall in 2023, the Wild have had some solid success with their early-round picks. Full-time NHL players and burgeoning stars Matt Boldy (drafted 12th in 2019) and Marco Rossi (9th in 2020) are the headliners, but the team has also used multiple picks to stock a prospect pool with several top players including a top-five defender drafted last summer.

Brian Fogarty

Top Prospects: The NHL System Rankings

#11: St Louis Blues

 

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Number of Ranked Prospects: 36

Number of Forwards in the Top 50: 2

Number of Defensemen in the Top 50: 1

Average Rank of Top 10 Prospects in Pool: 55th

Top Forward Prospect in The System: Dalibor Dvorsky (11th)

Top Defenseman Prospect in The System: Adam Jiricek (8th)

System Score: 4

 

The St Louis Blues retained only six first- or second-round draft picks during the five years from 2018-2022, and was able to extract only one true full-time NHLer with those six picks (Jake Neighbours, the forward drafted 26th overall in 2020). The team and long-time general manager Doug Armstrong was trying desperately to stay relevant as a Stanley Cup contender after their surprising run to the 2019 championship. However, by midway through the 2022 season all the signs of decay were too obvious to deny, and the team dived deep into rebuild mode. They traded NHL starters and started collecting draft picks, and by the end of the season they had three first-round picks in hand, and the team as a total has made six first- and second-round picks in just the last two seasons. With those picks the Blues were able to fortify their prospect pool with several high-quality young players to join some of their solid prospects already in the system. Two of those first-round picks allowed the Blues to grab two of the best hockey prospects--one forward and one defender--in the prospect world.

  1. Top Prospects: The NHL System Rankings - PHI
  2. Top Prospects: The NHL System Rankings - WPG
  3. Top Prospects: The NHL System Rankings - NAS
  4. Top Prospects: The NHL System Rankings - LAK
  5. Top Prospects: The NHL System Rankings - WAS
  6. Top Prospects: The NHL System Rankings - DAL
  7. Top Prospects: The NHL System Rankings - CAR
  8. Top Prospects: The NHL System Rankings - NJD
  9. Top Prospects: The NHL System Rankings - COL
  10. Top Prospects: The NHL System Rankings - BUF

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