The ISS 2013 NHL draft guide has been released and here’s my look at the guide (for last year’s go here). ISS does not rank goaltenders and skaters together (20 of the former, 200 of the latter), making them the only purchased draft product that fails to make a unified list (Central Scouting separates their lists ever more radically, but it’s a free service). ISS was dead last in drafting acumen (you can check it out here). Here is their top-30 (which differs slightly from what they just released).
1. Nathan MacKinnon
2. Seth Jones
3. Jonathan Drouin
4. Valery Nichushkin
5. Sasha Barkov
6. Darnell Nurse
7. Elias Lindholm
8. Nikita Zadorov
9. Sean Monahan
10. Bo Horvat
11. Rasmus Ristolainen
12. Curtis Lazar
13. Hunter Shinkaruk
14. Ryan Pulock
15. Alexander Wennberg
16. Andre Burakowsky
17. Steve Santini
18. Frederik Gauthier
19. Valentin Zykov
20. Kerby Rychel
21. Joshua Morrissey
22. Madison Bowey
23. Michael McCarron
24. Anthony Mantha
25. Max Domi
26. J.T. Compher
27. Dillon Heatherington
28. Ian McCoshen
29. Nic Petan
30. Chris Bigras
Zachary Fucale is their top goaltender, followed by Tristan Jarry and Eamon McAdam.
ISS assessed each team’s prospect pool assigning them a grade and here’s how the league looks to them:
A
Edmonton
B+
Ottawa, Philadelphia, Washington, Boston, Winnipeg, St. Louis, Chicago
B
Anaheim, Minnesota, Florida, Montreal, New York Islanders,
B-
Pittsburgh, New York Rangers, Tampa Bay, Toronto, Buffalo, Phoenix, Nashville, Los Angeles, Colorado
C+
Columbus, Calgary, Detroit, Vancouver, New Jersey, Carolina,
C
Dallas
C-
San Jose
Last year ISS ranked Ottawa’s prospects with a B grade. They’ve listed Patrick Wiercioch, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Jakob Silfverberg, and Ben Blood (of all people) as “on the horizon”. Unlike last year there’s no list of team needs, but the players selected above match the 2012 list minus Robin Lehner (presumably graduated) and Ben Bishop (now “on the horizon” for Tampa). In their mock draft they have the Sens picking Andre Burakowsky, saying:
Burakowsky plays the game with a lot of skill. His game seemed to fall off a little this year and he slipped in the rankings according. He could be a steal if he regains his mojo.
This is a very expensive product and isn’t meant for casual draft fans. It’s a useful guide for serious fantasy/draft fans who want scouting reports for all listed prospects, but that’s the only thing that separates it from inexpensive alternatives like The Hockey News.
This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)
eyeonthesens 