Ranking Prospects 2019-2020

[Bender]

12. Jeremy Bracco

Marner-lite when drafted with an interesting skating quirk, and now a PP specialist whose path to the NHL is firmly blocked by Marner and Nylander. Unless our top-9 wings suddenly get really good at PK, there's no way Bracco gets into the 4th line either.

Kind of surprising he's fallen so far. Can't he get on the third line at some point? He put up great point totals last year, I think he might be able to help out the big team. We'll see how he does in camp.

[Frank E]

12. Jeremy Bracco

Marner-lite when drafted with an interesting skating quirk, and now a PP specialist whose path to the NHL is firmly blocked by Marner and Nylander. Unless our top-9 wings suddenly get really good at PK, there's no way Bracco gets into the 4th line either.

Kind of surprising he's fallen so far. Can't he get on the third line at some point? He put up great point totals last year, I think he might be able to help out the big team. We'll see how he does in camp.

According to the article, he's Seth Griffith 2.0.

Guys like this don't really have a place in today's structured game.

[herman]

12. Jeremy Bracco

Marner-lite when drafted with an interesting skating quirk, and now a PP specialist whose path to the NHL is firmly blocked by Marner and Nylander. Unless our top-9 wings suddenly get really good at PK, there's no way Bracco gets into the 4th line either.

Kind of surprising he's fallen so far. Can't he get on the third line at some point? He put up great point totals last year, I think he might be able to help out the big team. We'll see how he does in camp.

He hasn't fallen so much as he just doesn't fill the NHL squad's gaps. Kapanen was a similar player of arguably lesser skill in certain capacities, but has leveraged an asset (speed) to fill a niche the Leafs needed (PK). Johnsson was primarily a PP sniper coming up the Swedish system and under Dubas/Keefe transformed into a stronger skating puck hound and garbage goal scoring threat (Dubas likens him to Arvidsson). Engvall was a large PP shooter that has developed a two-way game off of his size and skating. If Bracco can add one + level element to his off-puck game, he's in. As it stands, Bracco is on track to being Seth Griffith'd.

Edit: Frank beat me to it.

The comments in the article are amazingly similar to some of our conversations here lol

[Deebo]

With 11 spots remaining on the list:

Locks to be on from last year:

Matthews
Marner
Nylander
Dermott
Kapanen
Johnsson
Sandin
Liljegrin
Moore

Probably off the list:

Timashov
Rasanen

My guess on the final 2:

Kerfoot
Robertson

(assuming herman's eligibility list is accurate)

[Nik]

If that's true about Bracco and his prospects for helping the Leafs out then it means the Leafs will have gotten effectively nothing out of the #61, 65 and 68 picks from the 2015 draft which is a bit disappointing. Especially after Dubas' hard work to trade down 15 times.

[herman]

11. Nick Robertson

Future Zach Hyman but with hands?!

[herman]

10. Trevor Moore

Big booty big booty big booty

[herman]

9. Timothy Liljegren

He played hard minutes for the Marlies as a mostly 19 year old and got the Focus on Defense training regimen. And by all accounts, his defense has improved significantly.

[CarltonTheBear]

9. Timothy Liljegren

He played hard minutes for the Marlies as a mostly 19 year old and got the Focus on Defense training regimen. And by all accounts, his defense has improved significantly.

I was pretty surprised to see Pronman rate both Bracco and Woll ahead of him recently. I think he should be comfortably ahead of both them at this point (as he is on these rankings) but we'll see what the future holds.

[Bender]

9. Timothy Liljegren

He played hard minutes for the Marlies as a mostly 19 year old and got the Focus on Defense training regimen. And by all accounts, his defense has improved significantly.

I was pretty surprised to see Pronman rate both Bracco and Woll ahead of him recently. I think he should be comfortably ahead of both them at this point (as he is on these rankings) but we'll see what the future holds.

I find it hard to believe Woll ought to be ranked ahead of Liljegren at this point.

[CarltonTheBear]

I find it hard to believe Woll ought to be ranked ahead of Liljegren at this point.

Bracco I at least somewhat understood because Pronman loves those types of players and he did put up serious numbers in the AHL this past season. But Woll? A voodoo goalie coming out of the NCAA who only put up average looking numbers throughout his career? He's even a year older than Liljegren. I feel like you'd have to think Woll has legitimate starting goalie potential to rank him that high and there's probably really only 1-3 goalie prospects league wide at any given point that I'd say that about.

[herman]

For reference:

Organizational Top 10 (23 and Under)
Auston Matthews, C (21)
Mitch Marner, RW (22)
William Nylander, C (23)
Kasperi Kapanen, RW (23)
Rasmus Sandin, D (19)
Travis Dermott, D (22)
Jeremy Bracco, RW (22)
Joseph Woll, G (21)
Nicholas Robertson, LW (17)
Timothy Liljegren, D (20)

I think the linearity of the list presentation obscures that he's probably ranking them in more of a tier and heavily favours offensive ceiling in his projections (a la Laine > Matthews). What puts Woll in the conversation likely has to do with positional value. An NHL backup goalie > 3rd pair D?

My ranking of the same list by ceiling is more like
Matthews
Marner, Nylander
Sandin, Dermott, Liljegren
Kapanen, Robertson
Woll
Bracco

but what do I know? I'm still tempted to slot Nylander over Marner by a narrow margin. Yeah it's different than my page 4 T25U25 rankings, but that was me guessing what PPP voters would do.

[herman]

8. Travis Dermott

Dragging Ozhiganov around the ice apparently did a number on people's perception of Dermott.

[Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate]

I know these rankings shouldn't be taken too seriously but I'll just say again that it's almost perversely stupid to include young full time NHLers on a "prospects" list. This list should start after Kapanen.

[CarltonTheBear]

I know these rankings shouldn't be taken too seriously but I'll just say again that it's almost perversely stupid to include young full time NHLers on a "prospects" list. This list should start after Kapanen.

I mean, it's not a prospects list.

We seem to have this conversation about this fun summer exercise every year and I don't get it. It's a top 25 under 25. Which players under 25 are most valuable to this franchise. It shouldn't be hard to look at a "young full time NHLer" like Trevor Moore and say Rasmus Sandin has more value to the franchise than him. Just apply that principal to every player.