Of the five series that have played 3 games, three of them are in 3-0 situations:
Red Deer leads Edmonton 3-0
Kelowna leads Prince George 3-0
Tri-City leads Vancouver 3-0
The picture is pretty grim for the Oil Kings, Cougars, and Giants - a 3-0 deficit has been overcome only once in WHL history. It seems pretty likely that those three teams are going to see their seasons end this week.
The other two series which have played a game 3 are seeing the underdog leading the series:
Moose Jaw leads Kootenay 2-1
Brandon leads Medicine Hat 2-1
And the Warriors & Wheat Kings still get to play game four at home yet too, an excellent chance to take a 3-1 lead and move within a game of the only upsets (looking that way anyway) of the first round.
The other three series are at 2-0, with the heavy favourite leading all three:
Saskatoon leads Prince Albert 2-0
Portland leads Everett 2-0
Spokane leads Chilliwack 2-0
Right now I'm thinking we'll see 4 or 5 or even 6 sweeps in the first round, which would make this one of the least interesting first rounds ever.
Couple other things today...
The first coaching opening of the 2011 offseason has become available, after the Seattle Thunderbirds announced yesterday that they will not renew the expiring contract of head coach Rob Sumner. Sumner has been the head coach of the Thunderbirds for the last seven seasons and was an assistant coach for eight years before that, so he has been behind the Seattle bench since the fall of 1996.
In Sumner's 7 years as head coach, the team averaged 76 points (.531) and made it out of the first round of the playoffs three times (although they lost in the 2nd round all three times), but they have missed the playoffs the last two seasons.
The other note is, the WHL appears to have launched a new section called Prospects Central, without any fanfare or announcements. You can see the new section, which focuses on the bantam draft, right here.
I like the idea, this is another marketing tool for a league which hasn't always done a good job of selling the hype. Fans care about this stuff - the draft, upcoming prospects, etc, and it's good to see the league taking steps to provide the fans with info they're craving.
Two things I'd like to see:
- first, some attribution of those bantam draft player rankings would be nice. The WHL itself has no "central scouting" type organization which ranks players, all the teams are responsible for all their own scouting. So the league is using somebody's rankings here....explanation of which scouting service provided those rankings, or how those rankings were determined, would be nice
- second, I'd like to see a breakdown of traded bantam draft picks. I've tried to do this here on the blog but whatever I come up with is unofficial and surely contains some mistakes since I don't have access to all the official details of trades. A simple breakdown of all picks in upcoming drafts, which ones have been traded, who they were traded to, and for what, would be a great resource for fans and shouldn't be very hard for the league to put together. Just a suggestion.
9 comments:
WHL Bantam Prospect list only has 3 players from the 5 teams heading to the Westerns in Winnipeg and all 3 are from Prince Albert. I would guess that there are some quality on the other teams missed on this list.
Allot of the Whls teams success is a result of great scouting. That is why the only list that is real, is the one that comes out May 5 Allot of these names have been tossed around for years, an equal number of talented kids are flying below the radar for what ever reason with zero pressure. I would expect a percentage of these names to drop to 2nd and lower rounds as they did not meet expectations or projected hype or chose different routes or sports.
Another factor in changes to the top bantam prospects list is that there's still some high profile tournaments/camps to come yet.
- the Western Canadian Bantam Championship
- Provincewide camps for the top BC, AB, and MB kids. (SK's was last weekend)
- tournaments like KIBIHT which features some of the top teams in the west
Obviously almost every kid who will eventually be drafted is already known to WHL teams/scouts. These final tournaments aren't going to turn up new gems for anyone....just a chance for kids to move themselves up or down the list a bit with strong or weak play.
I think I know where this list comes from. I don't think they want to admit it though.
Secondly, as for the Western Canada Bantam Championships. BWC have several outstanding players but they are 97 born prospects in Matt Barzal who at this point is the #1 prospect in his age group in western Canada, Justin Szeto, Chris Seto and goalie McBride. They really don't have anyone this year who will crack the top couple rounds. They play a strong team game.
The Winnipeg Hawks have several good players who could go in the late 2nd early 3rd. They are led by Adam Brooks who won the league scoring race in a landslide, he will be someone to watch. I think they forgot to put Quennville in from Edmonton SSAC, he is a definite first round prospect and also a couple others who could sneak in to the top 25 from SSAC are defenseman Aaron Irving and Patterson. The Winnipeg Sharks don't really have anyone who will be drafted high. They are though led by 6'0 195lb 1997 born Dallas Miller. Miller played age advanced and was one of the goal leaders despite being the youngest in the league. He will go Top 5 next year.
Rather than alledgedly being a know-it-all... why don't you reveal the source then, Western Elite??
I would presume that the WHL has just as much responsibility in releasing their source for the Top 25 Prospects as WEHP does. The bottom line is that no self-respecting WHL GM would say to anybody (including the WHL) who their 1st pick would be for fear of this being leveraged against their team on draft day. Therefore, I am assuming that the WHL took portions of WEHP list or had some regional WHL scout leak hist list to league. Either way the list is probably about 75% accurate as every draft day there are at leat 3-4 picks where people are left scratching their heads.
I still think it is irresponsible for the WHL to have this list on their site as it gives false hopes to parents and kids that are on the list and negative hopes to some top end prospects that are not on their list.
As a marketing to for WHL it is smart. But people have to remember that is all the WHL draft is "a marketing tool for the WHL".
Seems a little odd to use a citizen journalist for an "official" list.
From what I have read, he really needs to start citing sources and following a little closer the tenants of journalistic integrity.
However, Kudos to him. You can see that he puts alot of work into it.
I'll say it again, don't assume that the WHL sources for this WHL Top 25 list are anymore reliable than WEHP. The WHL should also have responsibility/integrity for who their sources are.
If you asked all 22 WHL Head Scouts/GM for their Top 25 list, I guarantee you that there would be a least 5-7 names different on each list and about 18-20 names the same. In fact from what I have heard several teams are disturbed by the list being on the website.
So in the end, whose list is a joke? At least WEHP doesn't make any claims that his list is the actual list that will happen on draft day. The WHL on the other hand is unfortunately misleading parents and kids into thinking that those 25 kids will get drafted in the top 25 on draft day. What happens if just one of those kids doesn't? The WHL might have a few questions to answer while WEHP is not official and has never claimed to be.
I think everyone is probably smart enough to understand that regardless of the origins of that list, it represents only one person or organization's opinion, and that the league is not using it to make any statement about who is getting picked in the top 25.
I have no problem with the league publishing a list of prospects for the draft, I think drumming up interest amongst the fans is never a bad thing.
I just want them to attribute the source, that is all. Because right now it looks like it is the WHL's own rankings and they do not do such scouting. That part is misleading.
Post a Comment