Pat from Black Dog Hates Skunks has it right. Most of us don't know what we're talking about.
So I tend to find it pretty funny when folks who, for the most part, have barely even seen any of the teenagers that will be up for the Oilers in June, have such strong opinions about these same players. I read a comment somewhere the other day from some clown that the Oilers had better not pick Larsson because he couldn't fight.
Nice.
So when I asked for your draft rankings, I did so out of sheer curiosity. I wanted to compare our readers' feelings on the 2011 prospect pool with that of our writers, mostly because there is some serious dissension in the C&B ranks about this upcoming draft. I also reached out to ten of our regular roundtable participants just to bring another point of view into the debate. I've compiled the combined average rankings from our respondents in the table below:
| C&B Writers | C&B Panelists | C&B Readers | |||||
| 1 | Adam Larsson | 1 | Adam Larsson | 1 | Ryan Nugent-Hopkins | ||
| 2 | Sean Couturier | 2 | Ryan Nugent-Hopkins | 2 | Adam Larsson | ||
| 3 | Jonathan Huberdeau | 2 | Gabriel Landeskog | 3 | Sean Couturier | ||
| 4 | Ryan Nugent-Hopkins | 4 | Sean Couturier | 4 | Gabriel Landeskog | ||
| 5 | Gabriel Landeskog | 5 | Doug Hamilton | 5 | Jonathan Huberdeau | ||
| 6 | Ryan Strome | 6 | Jonathan Huberdeau | 6 | Doug Hamilton | ||
| 7 | Doug Hamilton | 7 | Ryan Strome | 7 | Ryan Strome | ||
| 8 | Ryan Murphy | 8 | Ryan Murphy | 8 | Ryan Murphy |
A couple of observations from these lists:
- The writers and panelists like Larsson first overall, the readers like Nugent-Hopkins. The writers (sample size warning!) drop Nugent-Hopkins down to fourth.
- The writers also like Huberdeau much more than the panelists or readers, dropping Landeskog in his stead.
- We all like Couturier more than the experts.
- There exists a clear consensus on the top 8, though I think Mika Zibanejad will join the conversation.
I wonder how our rankings are influenced by the Oilers' organizational needs and how these rankings would differ if the writers at Mile High Hockey, Litter Box Cats, In Lou We Trust or Lighthouse Hockey did polling of their own?