With Training Camps in full swing around the league, Hockeyland Canada will begin our coverage by giving readers a run-down of our list of the top-3 prospects per team. Note that to qualify as a prospect, we are considering players who have played less than 35 NHL games.
Anaheim
1. Emerson Etem 2. Hampus Lindholm 3. John Gibson
Boston
1. Carl Soderberg 2. Malcolm Subban 3. Joe Morrow
Buffalo
1. Joel Armia 2. Mikhail Grigorenko 3. Rasmus Ristolainen
Calgary
1. Sven Baertschi 2. Sean Monahan 3. Johnny Gaudreau
Carolina
1. Elias Lindholm 2. Victor Rask 3. Ryan Murphy
Chicago
1. Teuvo Teravainen 2. Mark McNeill 3. Phillip Danault
Colorado
1. Nathan MacKinnon 2. Duncan Siemens 3. Tyson Barrie
Columbus
1. Ryan Murray 2. Alexander Wennberg 3. Boone Jenner
Dallas
1. Valeri Nichuskin 2. Radek Faksa 3. Jack Campbell
Detroit
1. Tomas Tatar 2. Petr Mrazek 3. Danny DeKeyser
Edmonton
1. Oscar Klefbom 2. Darnell Nurse 3. Martin Marincin
Florida
1. Aleksander Barkov 2. Nick Bjugstad 3. Jacob Markstrom
Los Angeles
1. Valentin Zykov 2. Tyler Toffoli 3. Derek Forbort
Minnesota
1. Matthew Dumba 2. Mikael Granlund 3. Jason Zucker
Montreal
1. Jared Tinordi 2. Sebastian Collberg 3. Nathan Beaulieu
Nashville
1. Seth Jones 2. Filip Forsberg 3. Pontus Aberg
New Jersey
1. Jon Merrill 2. Reid Boucher 3. Stefan Matteau
New York Islanders
1. Ryan Strome 2. Griffin Reinhart 3. Brock Nelson
New York Rangers
1. JT Miller 2. Chris Kreider 3. Dylan McIlrath
Ottawa
1. Robin Lehner 2. Matt Puempel 3. Cody Ceci
Philadelphia
1. Robert Hagg 2. Scott Laughton 3. Nick Cousins
Phoenix
1. Brandon Gormley 2. David Rundblad 3. Henrik Samuelsson
Pittsburgh
1. Olli Maatta 2. Derrick Pouliot 3. Beau Bennett
San Jose
1. Tomas Hertl 2. Mirco Mueller 3. Matt Nieto
St. Louis
1. Ty Rattie 2. Jake Allen 3. Evgeny Grachev
Tampa Bay
1. Jonathan Drouin 2. Andrei Vasilevski 3. Vladislav Namestnikov
Toronto
1. Morgan Rielly 2. Frederik Gauthier 3. Joe Colborne
Vancouver
1. Bo Horvat 2. Nicklas Jensen 3. Hunter Shinkaruk
Washington
1. Evgeny Kuznetsov 2. Tom Wilson 3. Andre Burakovsky
Winnipeg
1. Jacob Trouba 2. Mark Scheifele 3. Nicolas Petan
Of course now it’s time for the fun part of any rankings – let the debate begin! Disagree with my order? Would you rank another player in the top-3? Have your take.
For Hockeyland Canada,
RK, Esq.
Initial thoughts are that the following should be considered their team’s top prospect: Chris Kreider, Beau Bennett, and Tyler Toffoli. I would put Granlund ahead of Dumba as well. Brandon Pirri on the hawks seems poised to do some damage. Finally, I’d put Lindholm ahead of Etem. Otherwise, overall solid rankings RK, esq