Today on NHL.com it was the King's turn for 30-in-30 which is a great little feature they each year on every team leading up to the start of the new season.
There is some great reading in there so I recommend checking the following links out:
Questions Include Kopitar & Frattin
Mitchell's health X-factor for Kings
King's Not Satisfied, Hungry For Second Cup
However, the one that caught my interest the most being, a prospect writer as well as a huge fan o junior level hockey, was the top-10 prospect list put together by Dan Rosen:
Toffoli, Vey top prospect pipeline for Kings
For those who don't want to click on the link here is the list:
1. Tyler Toffoli (AHL/CHL)
2. Linden Vey (AHL/CHL)
3. Tanner Pearson (AHL/CHL)
4. Andy Andreoff (AHL/CHL)
5. Derek Forbort (AHL/NCAA)
6. Nicolas Deslauriers (AHL/CHL)
7. Kevin Gravel (NCAA)
8. Nick Shore (NCAA)
9. Nic Dowd (NCAA)
10. Michael Mersch (NCAA)
For the most part this is a solid list and one that is almost player for player matching up with the preliminary list I laid out for Hockey's Future in our upcoming Top-20 prospect list.
A few things to note here and there.
I would probably have included Valentin Zykov in this list within the top-five. I'm not sure if it's by pure luck that the King's nabbed Zykov in the early 2nd round or what but he is a real player. You hear people talk in baseball about five-tool players, well Zykov comes close to being that in hockey in my opinion. He's got size and physicality at 6-foot-1 and 200 lbs, offensive skill that he demonstrated in a 40-goal rookie season in the QMJHL, an effective two-way game, good skating, and the work-ethic that will make any coach drool. Maybe it’s because he is still young and hasn’t played at a higher level yet that he is left off this list, but regardless Zykov has everything you want from a prospect.
Another player absent is Martin Jones, who despite being in the shadow of Jonathan Quick and until recently Jonathan Bernier, is still a fine young goaltender who has done great in Manchester. He’s had three seasons in a row now where he put up .924/.919/.919 save percentages and held his GAA at around 2.50. Let’s not forget his playoff performances where two years running now he has had a save percentage over .930. A quality goaltender who deserves a little recognition in my opinion, and kudos to the King scouting as Martin Jones was signed as a free agent back in 2010.
Nic Dowd is a real surprise to me, but when you look at the body of work he put together last season and match it over his 2011-12 season totals he does jump out a bit. He nearly doubled his points with 39 in 2012-13 as opposed to 24 in the previous year. He also remained a plus-rated player and continued to be a responsible defensive asset. His St. Cloud State squad made it to the Frozen Four of the 2013 NCAA Championships and he was an integral piece to that team. He was on my radar but not quite so high. However, it’s really good to see some recognition, and I definitely will have to reapproach his rating on my own lists.
Check out the source of these players also, you have five players who progressed from the CHL levels (QMJHL, OHL, WHL) and five from the NCAA levels. It’s a great balance because these leagues play very different styles and develop very different players. The NCAA has come a very long way in recent years and you can see the paradigm shift in many draft strategies.
Circa 2000-2005, the Kings selected 12 players from the USHL or NCAA level. Only four of those players have had, what I would consider, successful and impactful careers upon the NHL (Brian Boyle, Jon Quick, David Steckel, Mike Cammalleri). Now look 2005-present, 15 players have been selected from the same programs, and you have at least two with NHL success (Trevor Lewis, Alec Martinez) and another five to six who have real potential but it’s too soon to tell (Forbort, Gravel, Mersch, Shore, Fasching, Dowd). It’s not a gigantic leap at least in our system, but in general you’re starting to see more and more picks from the collegiate level. The prospects coming out of there are being developed better than in the past and have a higher success rate compared to the past. Highly rated prospect systems like the Florida Panthers (McCoshen, Matheson, Grimaldi, Bjugstad, Drew Shore) have gone to the NCAA for a lot of solid players and picks in recent years. The King’s have a whole wave of NCAA prospects just coming to the forefront.
I’ll leave the rest of my differences for you all to peek at when the top-20 prospects list is released for Hockey’s Future and I do the inevitable self plug. However, kudos to Dan Rosen for putting together a pretty knowledgable list. He did his homework.
Do you agree with the list or would you change it up? Let's hear it.
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