2010 CSS Final Rankings: Movers and Shakers...

2010 CSS Rankings Article

2010 CSS Final Rankings: An overview of the potential NHL draftees with movement tracker.
Written by Derek Felska
Sunday, 18 April 2010 14:01

The U.S. Census is something is done every 10 years (and it is required by law to participate in) and tracks the changes in America's population. Congress takes that data and uses it decides how to allocate money for various programs all over the nation. It also uses it to re-draw congressional district lines for the House of Representatives and researchers also use that data to see the face of America's everchanging population. The proces of re-drawing of congressional district lines is called gerrymandering. It is a vital and necessary process for our government and citizens are encouraged to participate in what has become a costly ad campaign, somewhere in the realm of billions of dollars but enough about politics and government. The NHL has sort of a census of its own that it does twice each year as its Central Scouting Service evaluates potential draftees for the upcoming Entry Draft this summer and for those of us who do not have an unlimited amount of time to go drive around and evaluate all these prospects ourselves its a tool to see what players whose stock is rising or falling. Central Scouting is just one evaluation service, as International Scouting Service, and a few other publications (McKeen's for example) also make their own lists. NHL teams themselves employ their own scouts or in the case of the Buffalo Sabres, video collectors to evaluate players and come up with their own lists to fill specific prospect needs for their organization. The process is highly subjective but there usually some universal truths that can be gathered as well.

Overall, based upon the rise and fall of prospects in the lists for North American Skaters, North American Goalies, European Skaters and European Goaltenders I've come to the following general conclusions.

1. For North American skaters there is a fair amount of stability in the rankings from 1 to 20, meaning there is only a modest amount of rise and fall meaning there is little debate between the Central Scouting evaluators, but after that it becomes more erratic making the reliability of the rankings more suspect.

2. For European skaters there is good stability from 1 to 14 but after that it is even more chaotic than the North American skater rankings as they were some players who rose very significantly and those who dropped precipitously. There is also a huge portion of players listed in the final rankings that were not evaluated in the mid-term rankings.

3. Goaltending rankings for both North Americans and Europeans stayed rather stagnant from the Mid-Term assessment. Not a ton of movement especially in the top 10 selections for both. The Europeans again saw some un-rated Mid-term players on the final CSS list.

With the Wild's mediocre seasons, I've found myself focusing more of my post-season energy on the draft and hopefully Minnesota's loss of the post-season is your gain as I help add a bit of color and order to the Central Scouting's Final rankings which they publish each spring. Hopefully this 2010 NHL Entry Draft Prospect tracker which traces those players who have moved up and down in the rankings from Central Scouting's Mid-Term rankings is a useful tool for you fans out there who love to compile your own draft lists and mock drafts so you can track the trajectory of these players you may be mulling over as the league gets closer to draft day. (click on the link for the rest of the article)

Enjoy!

according to those and i would disagree like mad Nino should fall to us, but he's going to be gone before pick 7. so we might get Etem or Johansson whom i'd be happy with.