CHL Prospects Update - Year To Date Stats

The Central scouting released their preliminary rankings today. This season around, they have changed their format by dividing the players by league rather than just by nation where the player is playing. I think this is perfect time to put up the year -to-date totals of prospects we have been statistically tracking. 

As usual, ZPG is Zero point games. Players in black are draft prospects for the upcoming draft. Players in copper are Oiler prospects. Players in red are 1st round draft picks from previous draft and those in blue were drafted in 2009.  Charts are after the jump.  First up are the QMJHL and OHL prospects, followed by the WHL prospects. All points are updated to 14th November 2010. 

Click to enlarge chart

Some thoughts:

• Just last week, Don Cherry made a very bold statement stating that he believes Ryan Murphy would go 1st overall. Murphy is a dynamic skater with a great talent, however his size will prohibit him from even top 5. Central scouting has actually over compensated fro size by listing Murphy as their 8th best prospect from Ohl. I have to ask them whether they have ranked him so low just to make headlines. I could have accepted him to be after Landeskog and maybe even Doug Hamilton, but 8th is outrageous for any ranking that has come out 2 months into the season. They are essentially labeling him as a late 1st rounder. This is a guy who is top 10 in Ohl scoring and is on pace for 100 point season by a D-man! 
• Ryan Murphy is not the only point of contention in the OHL rankings. Two other players are ranked too low- Alexander Khokhlachev and Shane Prince. As you can see Khokhlachev has been a very good forward in the league. He has been consistently good and has the one of the least ZPG amongst the prospects listed in the 1st chart. Shane Prince is currently 3rd in the Ohl scoring. Doritogrande has written a very detailed report on the player and can be read here. One thing is common between all these players and that is the lack of size and CSB has docked off a lot of points because of it. 
• It was widely been considered a 3 horse race between Coturier, Nugent-Hopkins and Larsson for the 1st overall, but I now believe that Landeskog and Rattie should also be mentioned in that list. Those two have been absolutely destroying the league they are playing in. I have been waiting for Rattie to slow down but he hasnt so far. Also most of the points for Hopkins has been on the PP and his EV production has been underwhelming as has been Couturier's offense in general. 
• Moving onto Oiler prospects, the 2010 draft class really stands out. Ryan Martindale, Martin Marincin and Curtis Hamilton have been completely outstanding. Martindale seems to have found consistency in his game and is top 10 in scoring in the Ohl. If one looks at the WHL chart, Hamilton has gotten points at EV, PP and SH. He is one of those 2 way wingers who looks to have enough scoring so as to have an NHLcareer as a top 6 winger. Marincin is the biggest surprise of the season. The book on him was a shut down guy, but he is showing a lot of offense. My theory is that when he was playing in Slovakia, he was playing against men and losing games in a blowout. I think there he was restricted to staying in the d-zone as any mistake would have proved to be costly. In the WHL, the level of competition is not as difficult and he has adapted very well. Unfortunately same cannot be said of Pitlick who has had some adjustment issues so far.
• Not to beat a dead horse, but the Cameron Abney pick looks terrible. Even the famous Zorg had much more offense on his junior days. Right now i wouldnt expect Abney to be even half as good as Zorg as a Pro. If the Oilers havent signed him yet, I think they should seriously consider not doing it.