he did 4 years ago in his 1st real NHL stint. so I don't think that's an argument you want to take.



It's not where you are drafted it's what you do with it.
Drafting at 18 isn't always the best evaluation of talent. It's why other leagues draft older. NFL is 20, NBA is 19, they want older years against better competition aka NCAA. Where the majority of players come from big conferences and it's basically the AHL for both those teams. The CHL and Euro leagues just aren't the same level of competition as the NCAA for other sports.

i don't think Hughes, Byfield or Dach will be on this list.
Wright will be close to the top if not on the top. There is nothing to suggest he isn't the real deal. He's the best prospect since Crosby.
Draisaitl should be listed as a center. And there is no doubt he's a top 10 one in 5 years.
Stuetzle is also probably a center in 5 years. But I don't know if he'll be a top 5. He's much like Barzal and if you don't think Barzal will be there in 5 years then he probably won't be either.
And when you leave guys like Barzal off for Hughes, then we are saying the ceiling is high to get to this list. Which is why I throw all 3 of those guys above out.

right, I mean his ceiling is PLD. If you are saying PLD isn't making the list, why should he.
I totally agree with that.
I honestly don't think he will even hit PLD level. But we'll see.
He has a lot of knocks against him. And the slow 1st step isn't helping him in a speed game. 6'4 is a lot to move. if you don't have the speed at 18-19 years old, you aren't going to have it in your 20s.

Ok pretty fair points, but "Wright is the best prospect since Crosby". Have you forgotten one Connor McDavid?

Point also debuted at 21, not 18.

Maybe likelier to see him end up closer to a Dylan Strome-type?

no I haven't. Wright is better. McDavid was and frankly still is very one dimensional as a player. It's his legs, his speed. Wrights game is so much more than that. It's his hands, you can't teach hand eye coordination. You either have it or you don't. Some people will never be able to catch, others will be able to snag everything even remotely around them. It's just a natural gift.
Wright has that gift. His hand eye is off the charts.

point turned 24 in may. He's been in the league 4 years. So that puts him at 20.
It's the age difference you want it to be. 1 year isn't going to make or break it. I can assure you of that. He struggles at 19 and you won't be expecting much better at 20.

I agree with the rest of the things that you said, but, just on this point, aren't those ages in place to suppress a players earning potential, and delay their initial trip into free agency? Similar to the NHL not allowing 18 year old North American's to play in the AHL? The NBA was actually talking about lowering the age back to 18, but decided to create a G-League "team" for players who wanted to skip the college route.

I disagree , especially a small player like Hughes could gain a ton of strength between 18-20.
Like I said I'm not completely agreeing Hughes will be better but not going to call bust after one year.

You can absolutely teach hand eye coordination. To think differently is absurd. To assume that Wright's hand-eye coordination (Or any other athlete) was just gifted to them without hours and hours of practice is laughable.

Hamilton, Pietrangelo, Spurgeon lower, Fox, McAvoy higher

Enter Shane wright

Well Wright is a generational talent that should come in and knock one of those guys down a bit (he'll have 3 seasons to establish himself and it wouldn't be a huge surprise if he had a McDavid level impact immediately), but all of them and Draisaitl are likely in the top 7. I really don't know about Hughes and Dach tbh, my final 3 would be Pettersson, Barkov, and Aho personally.

Kaprizov plays LW and Raymond plays RW. I think it's a stretch to say Fiala, Gurianov, and Tolvanen are gonna be top 10 LWs (Tolvanen especially, there's a better chance of him being a bust lol). If Stutzle stays at LW and doesn't transition to centre I think it's feasible he becomes a top 10 LW by 2025, but #2 might be a stretch, and I also don't think Laf will be the best by then either. Guys like Connor, Guentzel, Gaudreau, Landeskog, Forsberg, or Teravainen are more likely to be top 10 LWs, don't see Fiala or Gurianov being better than at least 4 of those unless there's a pretty steep drop off.

Raymond probably won't break into the top 10 RWs just because of how competitive it is honestly, and if he does he'll probably be 10th at best. Konecny, Nylander, Boeser, and Lindholm will be in the mix though, likely taking 3 of the spots occupied by Kaprizov, Draisaitl, and Tarasenko right now.

LD actually looks solid for the most part, but Clarke is RD and I don't think Chychrun's upside is that high. Power, Brannstrom, Rielly, and Romanov likely fight for those 2 spots. Hedman might be starting to decline by then too, especially if Tampa goes on a couple more deep playoff runs and he racks up some hard miles.

For RD remove Brannstrom and Spurgeon and probably Pietrangelo, add Jones, other guys in the conversation would be Clarke, Ekblad, Pulock, and Dumba.

Goalies look okay, I'm personally not the biggest fan of Blackwood though. I'd bet on a Murray bounce back, Korpisalo or Jarry continuing to grow, or one of Primeau or UPL taking over myself. 23 might also be a little young for Askarov to establish himself as a top 10 goalie but he's also elite and could break into the league at 20 or 21 if he comes over soon enough, so you never know.

it's to early to say. All I know is his game, his ceiling is PLD. I don't know if he's as physical as PLD though. PLD is a bull in a china shop.
He likes that role and he has the coach for it. I can't say Byfield will have that.
But people who think he's going to come in and be a skill guy are kind of kidding themselves. You have to have a quick 1st step in hockey to be that. To cut and start on a dime. To win the short foot race to turn it into a longer one. To change direction to get around guys.
He doesn't have that step by all accounts. His speed is straight line. Long stride. It's hard to move that fast as a tall guy on skates.
Just look at the guys on that list. Matthews, who is probably one of the slower one's is the biggest guy at 6'3, and he's more of a shooter than playmaker.
Everyone else there is 6'2 or under.
While people might not think 2 inches is all that much, there is a speed difference.
Longer legs means it's harder to push off faster. Unlike sprinting, how one gains speed is different. In sprinting Bolt, who's 6'5 gains speed over other guys by clearing more distance between his feet in his stride. Not by moving his feet faster. But in Hockey it's the exact opposite. You have to move your feet faster to push off to gain speed.
Which is why big guys tend to be slower in short distances but can make up for it in longer distances with their longer gets driving them.
Which is how Byfield skates.

The G league is a joke. They send them to the NCAA after multiple busts and immaturity.
The NCAA provides much improved competition compared to high school.
For every James and Bryant there was a guy who was a Darius Miles or DeShawn Stevenson.
It further complicated things when teams kept gambling on 18 year old and they felt it was a hazard to the game. The last year they drafted that young they were taking a slew of guys out of the 2nd round.

Which is why I have the caveat in there. But at this point he isn’t out performing Tavares at that age and I don’t have him in the top 5 either. Not to say that it means much. The kid is 16 and his development could go either way.

no you can't. if you could any average person could be as good. But they can't and to think otherwise is absurd. It's not a practice thing. There is no such thing as "muscle memory" or whatever you want to call it. You are talking about relays of neurons in a neural network. It's biological. You can't teach it. You can slightly improve it by creating new pathways, that's true for anything up to a point. But some people are born with more than others. Just like individual IQs are. Some people were born genius some aren't.

there is a difference between being a bust and a top 10 center.
My honest opinion is he's a winger trying to play center. But that's a different thing.

While you can gain strength, that really isn't the issue. If his size is the issue it's his height, and that's probably not changing.

Doughty will still be in the top 5 for every ranking until he retires lmao. How could you forget that.