NHL Team Prospect Pools Power Rankings

We’ve ranked the top 100 prospects (skaters) along with the top 30 goalie prospects. Now how do the teams stack up against each other when it comes to their respective prospect pools in terms of quality and depth. A team of prospect-focused writers here at THW have collaborated to rank NHL franchises on this basis.

Coast to Coast and Across the Pond

To get a broad perspective of hockey’s next ones, we combined the rankings of the following to come to a consensus:

In the table highlighting the rankings the aggregate rankings are on the left. We’ve also left in each contributor’s rankings for comparison. While we agreed upon the placement of many teams (e.g. Jets, Blue Jackets, Canucks, and Sharks), there were several teams that were polarizing. For instance:

  • The Calgary Flames were ranked as high as 8th and as low as 20th.
  • The Pittsburgh Penguins were ranked as high as 12th and as low as 23rd.
  • The most divergence of opinion was with the Ottawa Senators who were ranked as high as 12th and as low as 28th.

Prospect Criteria

Nik Ehlers
Nik Ehlers (Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports)

 

We settled on the following subjective criteria when considering the teams’ prospect pools:

  • Age: 25 years old or younger
  • Has not established himself as a NHL regular
    • To clarify further, if they were in the NHL the last quarter of the season and not sent to the minors or CHL at season’s end, then they are no longer a prospect.
  • Must be drafted or signed by a NHL team

 

NHL Team Prospect Pools Power Rankings

Summer 2015

Note: Teams with completed Top 10 Prospect Rankings are in bold and hyperlinked.

# Team CR EM JA ZH DS # Top 100 Prospects # Top 30 Goalies
1 Jets 1 1 1 1 1 8 2
2 Coyotes 2 3 6 3 2 6 0
3 Oilers 3 4 2 2 6 4 0
4 Islanders 5 9 4 5 3 5 2
5 Sabres 4 6 3 6 8 3 1
6 Maple Leafs 6 8 5 8 4 5 0
7 Red Wings 7 2 9 9 5 4 0
8 Flyers 9 5 8 4 7 6 1
9 Blue Jackets 10 7 7 7 9 4 1
10 Canucks 11 10 13 11 10 5 1
11 Flames 8 16 11 10 20 4 2
12 Bruins 13 13 21 12 18 2 2
13 Capitals 14 15 18 15 15 2 2
14 Avalanche 12 11 23 13 22 2 2
15 Lightning 16 25 12 16 13 4 1
16 Predators 18 26 10 18 11 2 1
17 Sharks 17 19 17 17 16 4 0
18 Blues 19 18 19 19 14 3 3
19 Stars 24 14 14 14 24 4 0
20 Penguins 23 20 15 22 12 2 2
21 Ducks 26 23 16 21 19 2 0
22 Canadiens 21 17 25 23 21 3 1
23 Senators 15 12 26 27 28 2 1
24 Hurricanes 20 29 20 20 27 2 1
25 Blackhawks 25 21 24 24 25 2 0
26 Wild 22 27 27 26 17 3 0
27 Panthers 27 22 22 25 29 2 0
28 Rangers 29 28 28 28 26 1 3
29 Devils 28 24 29 29 30 2 1
30 Kings 30 30 30 30 23 1 0

For further team prospect pool breakdowns, stay tuned as we work through our top 10 rankings for each team. In the meantime, we’re happy to take questions via the comments section below. We will hyperlink all top 10 rankings articles on this page as they are completed.

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Email: CRalph@TheHockeyWriters.com

Twitter@ChrisRalphTHW