These 15 guys, the order was just thrown together quickly

Jake Sanderson
Shane Pinto
Mads Søgaard
Ridly Greig
Tyler Boucher
Zack Ostapchuk
Alex Formenton
Jacob Bernard-Docker
Filip Gustavsson
Egor Sokolov
Tyler Kleven
Lassi Thomson
Leevi Meriläinen
Roby Järventie
Logan Brown

The top 2 won’t change but after that it becomes an opinion.

Just sharing a "concensus ranking" from another forum. This is based on a series of polls

Tim Stutzle, Josh Norris and Drake Batherson were considered graduated. Erik Brännström is still considered a prospect

1- Jake Sanderson
2- Shane Pinto
3- Erik Brännström
4- Tyler Boucher
5- Alex Formenton
6- Ridly Greig
7- Filip Gustavsson
8- Jacob Bernard-Docker
9- Egor Sokolov
10- Mads Søgaard
11- Logan Brown
12- Roby Järventie
13- Tyler Kleven
14- Lassi Thomson
15- Leevi Merilainen
16- Zack Ostapchuk
17- Angus Crookshank
18- Parker Kelly
19- Benjamin Roger
20- Vitali Abramov

Philippe Daoust, Oliver Johansson and Kevin Mandolese are being voted next. Daoust and Johansson will most likely be our biggest risers this season.

Also, Maxence Guénette and Carson Latimer are top notch skaters. Guénette just won the skating drills at the development camp

Personally would have Ridly Greig higher at #3 and Tyler Boucher at #8 after Egor Sokolov who might be rising in this very soon. Gustavsson would be #10 and Sogaard #9. These are the main differences with my own pool, except also Philippe Daoust and Oliver Johansson in the top-20 instead of Parker Kelly and Vitali Abramov.

I don't think people know/understand how freaking stacked this pool is. Many of the best young players (Stutzle, Chabot, Batherson, Norris, Tkachuk) are already on the team so it's not super heavy at the top but the number of NHLers we are ging to produce is insane, and not just marginal players but a lot of quality ones.

Just the #17 on this list is a blue chipper lol. The 19th OA pick from 2 years ago doesn't even make my top-15.

My issues with something like this is I see Greig as more of a 3rd liner and JBD as a top 4D . So Why is Greig higher ?

Sogaard should be ahead of Thomson IMO.

This list just cements the fact that Ottawa will be a cup contender within 3 years if they play their cards right

Because 3rd line for Ridly Greig is his absolute floor. It would take significant injury/mental problems to derail him out of a long NHL career. He is a blue chip prospect

It starts back from the draft. The only list I really care about is Bob McKenzie's list because it surveys real NHL scouts, it is not based on amateurs' opinions. On his list, Ridly greig was ranked 24th and 2020 was a pretty good and deep draft so it says he was already highly regarded by NHL teams. This was despite putting "only" 1.07 PPG in the WHL at 17 y/o (7th in PPG for U-18, just behind Neighbours and Wiesblatt). He's an August birthday so he was younger than most other guys though

Then during his 18 y/o season, he put 1.52 PPG. Unfortunately, the WHL season was very short due to covid but I believe with more time he would have done even better than that and separate himself from the pack and would have been only behind Guenther, Bedard and Neighbours who are also elite/high end prospects.

But before going back to the WHL, he played 4 games in the AHL and it's where I was really impressed. The first 4 against Laval were on TV here in Montreal so I could watch closely. Depiste being very young (18 y/o) and lacking strength (was about 160 lbs), he was the best Belleville player almost as soon as he stepped on the ice. You can see a "Shifts & Clips" about him here :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NBuSFFsM84&t=341s

Note that the team was really bad to start the season as the defense was just terrible (pretty much like in the NHL) so he was one of the only few bright spots with goalies (despite horrible stats)

Also check this article (requires subscription though).

https://theathletic.com/2817305/2021/09/13/senators-ridly-greig-wants-to-earn-nhl-job-in-camp-im-going-to-play-my-heart-out-every-time-im-on-the-ice/

Also, Sean Donavan in the current development camp : “He played super hard, so he just reminds me of Mike Peca. You don’t expect that at his size, but he gets in your face and is dirty.”


I can continue if you want. My evaluations are based on basically any info that you can find (less for recent draft picks though as it's a work in progress)




And if Melnyk pay all the bills required

If Greig becomes a top 6 player as well as Pinto, we are pretty much set

Guenette is extremely underrated btw. He’s very good

Yeah, followed him in the Q. He apparently won the skating drills in the development camp




We are already set

Of course there's going to be some question marks but as I see it, my 2 questions in the end are :

- How good our top two lines centers are going to be? Who will it be among Stutzle, Norris, Pinto and Greig

- Who is going to be the top-line RD who plays with Chabot? Zub or JBD? Don't see anybody else having a chance

But things change quickly, maybe boom and Ben Roger is Marc Methot reincarnation