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Canucks Army Top 20 Canucks Prospects (2014 edition)

elvis15

By elvis15
in Prospects / Farm Team

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Derp... Canucks First-Line

Derp...

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Must mean subban didn't make the top 20. Not a huge surprise Forsling has a higher upside then subban in the same position IMO

So you think Subban didn't make it hey? I would disagree based on how the same guys rated him top 10 last year.

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Guest Dasein

Guest Dasein

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So you think Subban didn't make it hey? I would disagree based on how the same guys rated him top 10 last year.

Well Joe LaBate was top 10 last year and I'm certain he's off the list now, so you never know with Subban either. I think his name value will save him from falling out of the top 20, but not LaBate.

Unless they aren't considering vey a prospect

Yeah I'm wondering that as well. They must not be considering him a prospect - I really don't see how Forsling could have snuck in otherwise.

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elvis15 Canucks Hall-of-Famer

elvis15

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Gustav Forsling surprises and makes the list at #16..

http://canucksarmy.com/2014/8/18/prospect-profile-16-gustav-forsling

I don't get this one. Biggest inconsistency IMO is the fact that Cederholm, who was invited to Sweden's WJC camp, is at #20 while Forsling who didn't make the cut is higher up on the prospect chart.

Well, the lack of upside offensively does pull back on Cederholm, and the points they make on Forsling are that he's well rounded and plays with some grit even if he is smaller. Cederholm being a safer bet to play an NHL game and stronger defensively weighs in against how, generally speaking, offence trumps defence - even in a defenceman.

PROSPECT PROFILE: #16 GUSTAV FORSLING

...

Generally described as "toolsy" (including by our friend Corey Pronman), Forsling is a good skater with a plus left-handed shot. He's regarded as steady defensively and is widely praised for his willingness to play grittier hockey than one might expect from a 5-foot-11, 175 pound blue-liner.

"He's well rounded," junior Hockeysvirege.se blogger Jacob Nystrom, who covers Swedish junior hockey told us. "He's got a good first pass, moves around easily, has some grit to him - he's not that big but he's not afraid going into tough challenges."

While there's a lot to like about Forsling's game and the gamble the Canucks made when they selected him, he was around in the fifth round for a reason. The most notable of those reasons is Forsling's size (or lack thereof), but it's also worth pointing out that he hasn't been all that productive for the Linkoping Juniors.

Forsling was 5th among U18 skaters in the 'SuperElit' during his draft eligible season, which is fine, but the issue here is that the majority of the Swedish-born defenders in the NHL were playing with men during their first draft eligible season.

Of the 28 Swedish-born defenders who played at least a game in the NHL last season, 25 played in Sweden during their first draft eligible campaign (Johnny Oduya (CHL), Doug Murray (IJHL), and Christian Folin (NCAA) are the exceptions). Of those 25 defenders, 15 at least debuted at the senior level during their U18 season. Of the 10 players who didn't crack a senior team roster as an 18-year-old, only six were NHL regulars during the 2013-14 campaign (among those six defenders is Canucks blue-liner Alex Edler, and also: Carl Gunnarsson, Anton Stralman, Jonathan Ericsson, Matthias Ekholm and Nicklas Grossman).

...

While Forsling outscored the defensive-defenseman types at the J20 level, his production lags well behind the likes of Hampus Lindholm and Patrik Nemeth - players who are obviously a cut above in terms of prospect quality.

Anyway, it's probably a bit much to describe Forsling's relative lack of production as a red flag, but it's certainly uninspiring especially given the 18-year-old's profile. Though it's pretty tough to crack the NHL as a 5-foot-11 defender if you're not going to be producing some offense, there's some reason to believe that perhaps the counting stats undervalue Forsling's offensive tool kit.

According to Nystrom, Forsling wasn't exactly a mainstay on the power-play with Linkoping's junior squad last season.

"He has a great shot, but he hasn't used it that much in the junior leagues in Sweden," said Nystrom. "Perhaps it's because he hasn't had the same role on his team as he did on the national team [in terms of power-play time]."

A left-handed shooting defender, Forsling has a cannon shot and made minced meat out of opposing penalty-kill units when he got an opportunity on the point at five-on-four for the Tre Kronor at the U18's.

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Guest Dasein

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Well, the lack of upside offensively does pull back on Cederholm, and the points they make on Forsling are that he's well rounded and plays with some grit even if he is smaller. Cederholm being a safer bet to play an NHL game and stronger defensively weighs in against how, generally speaking, offence trumps defence - even in a defenceman.

PROSPECT PROFILE: #16 GUSTAV FORSLING

In Cederholm's profile, they say:

For now, Cederholm's place on this list is suppressed as he finds himself stuck behind a handful of other defensemen in the system that are either a.) closer to tangibly contributing to the Vancouver Canucks, b.) have a considerably larger perceived upside, or in most cases, a healthy combination of both.

I guess you could make a case that Forsling is in front of Cederholm because of (b.), but Cederholm has him beat on (a). IMO, it's useless to have all the perceived upside in the world if the likelihood of reaching the NHL is small, so Forsling shouldn't be in front of Cederholm.

It's the same reason I would rank Horvat ahead of McCann - McCann has the larger perceived upside but Bo is closer to tangibly contributing to the Vancouver Canucks.

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Gerbera Abbotsford Regular

Gerbera

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I think the overall ranking is from 5 people right? Maybe one of the participants are really high on Forsling and decided to give him a rank between 10-15. It finally rounded out to 16. I honestly think the guy writing the article is not super enthusiastic about Forsling (in comparison to the McEneny article), but just following the ranking criteria and had to put him in 16.

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The Bookie Canucks Second-Line

The Bookie

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ah, I see Dmitri in the comments there justifying his ranking. I forgot that the criteria is not where they're at right now but where they project their overall career trajectory will take them. Still seems highly speculative to me, but I guess that's the name of the game with prospects.

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elvis15 Canucks Hall-of-Famer

elvis15

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ah, I see Dmitri in the comments there justifying his ranking. I forgot that the criteria is not where they're at right now but where they project their overall career trajectory will take them. Still seems highly speculative to me, but I guess that's the name of the game with prospects.

Sure, but what else do we have to do this summer around hockey but speculate?

I like the comparison between the CDC picks. However, once change would be to have an up or down arrow against the CDC picks to see if Canucks army placed them higher or lower. The chances of having a player on the exact same spot is probably not too common.

Interesting idea. I didn't really like the 'x' anyway, but wanted something other than the star.

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Ossi Vaananen Canucks Star

Ossi Vaananen

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Ya, I too don't see Forsling in the top 20, nonetheless 16. You can talk all you want about his potential, though even at the j20 level he's not exactly lighting it up. I think his chances of even seeing NHL time, nonetheless North American pro are far less than any other of our prospects.

I'm all for being positive about a kid's potential, but the trajectory of this kid at best is an average AHLer. Maybe I'm horribly wrong, but even for meaningless lists like this, someone else deserves his spot.

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Guest Dasein

Guest Dasein

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DAMN Tommernes stays alive at #15 - thought he was bumped off because of Forsling.

This list is starting to not make sense in the last couple picks.

Also, Tommernes at age 24 making it means Vey is probably also in it.. but he's not one of the choices for Canucks top prospect poll on the side of Canucks Army. Probably signs of even more confusing rankings.

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Off_The_Schneid! Canucks Rookie

Off_The_Schneid!

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Posted

I did this last year as they came out with articles on the top 20 prospects over the summer, and I'm going to keep this simple with an updated list and links to the articles rather than the full articles. I can post excerpts from the articles in the replies as we go along to keep bumping it.

  • ? (CDC: Horvat)
  • ? (CDC: Virtanen)
  • ? (CDC: Jensen)
  • ? (CDC: Shinkaruk)
  • ? (CDC: Vey)
  • ? (CDC: McCann)
  • ? (CDC: Gaunce)
  • ? (CDC: Corrado)
  • ? (CDC: Demko)
  • ? (CDC: Hutton)
  • ? (CDC: Cassels)
  • ? (CDC: Fox)
  • ? (CDC: Tryamkin)
  • ? (CDC: Eriksson)
  • ? (CDC: Subban)
  • Gustav Forsling (CDC: Cederholm) Arrow_Up2.png
  • Nikita Tryamkin (CDC: Grenier) Arrow_Down2.png
  • Evan McEneny (CDC: Kenins) Arrow_Up2.png
  • Mike Zalewski (CDC: Zalewski) icon_star_gold.gif
  • Anton Cederholm (CDC: McEneny) Arrow_Down2.png
CDC picks taken from the poll thread: http://forum.canucks.com/topic/363029-top-30-canucks-prospects-28/

Canucks Army's methodology for choosing 'prospects':

Just quoting so I don't have to go back and forth

Maybe no fox? Overager not drafted?

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BanTSN Canucks First-Line

BanTSN

Posted
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DAMN Tommernes stays alive at #15 - thought he was bumped off because of Forsling.

This list is starting to not make sense in the last couple picks.

Also, Tommernes at age 24 making it means Vey is probably also in it.. but he's not one of the choices for Canucks top prospect poll on the side of Canucks Army. Probably signs of even more confusing rankings.

Yeah.

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