Sound Of Hockey Prospect Week continues with today’s venture, a 2023-24 update on our truly reckless project from last offseason, ranking every NHL-affiliated skater prospect (both drafted and signed players) that meet two criteria entering the 2023-24 season. These players must (1) be younger than 25 years old, and (2) have played fewer than 50 NHL games. In addition, we’ll layer in some organization-level comparisons to investigate how the 32 NHL teams stack up.

As described yesterday when we looked at Seattle’s prospects through a similar lens, our “data-only” ranking is built on Thibaud Chatel’s NHL equivalency research and uses only quantifiable measures: prospect points per game and strength of the player’s current league, with adjustments made by me for prospect age and positional value. If you want more detail on methods, we went into it here, and feel free to drop questions in the comments below or on X (formerly known as Twitter).

For current purposes, it is likely sufficient to reiterate that there were no adjustments for subjective preferences or the “eye test” here. In that sense, this exercise is meant to complement traditional scouting assessments, not to be a replacement for that important work.

A data-only prospect ranking

Alright, without further preamble, you can find the full ranking of all 946 NHL-affiliated prospects meeting our criteria, with a lot of additional data on each prospect HERE.

Important note on using the data-only ranking: If you want to filter the data by various categories, highlight row 2, then select “Data,” “Filter Views,” and “Create New Temporary Filter View.” This will allow you to manipulate the data in a way visible only to you.

Here is summary information on the top 50:

How do the organizations stack up against each other? Let’s dig into that now.

Which organizations have the most young scoring talent coming?

The Seattle Kraken have more prospects in the top 50 of the overall (four) than any other NHL team.

In case you’re wondering whether we chose this initial threshold to cast the Kraken’s system in an artificially good light, it’s worth noting that Seattle Kraken prospect Jagger Firkus is prospect No. 51 in the ranking.

Of course, it’s much more valuable to have the No. 1 overall prospect in hockey than the number 50 prospect, so here’s a look at the aggregate 2023-24 season-adjusted NHLe for the same snapshot of prospects, by organization:

Drawing back a bit, here is how the top 100 prospects in this data-only ranking fall by organization. The logos closest to the Y Axis represent the highest-ranked prospects.

And, finally, here is a breakdown of how many top-200 prospects are in each organization:

Seattle’s prospects again measure up favorably, though its group is still not quite as deep as the very best prospect pools in the league, the Montreal Canadiens and the San Jose Sharks.

Finally, here is the aggregate 2023-24 season adjusted NHLe for the top-200 prospects, by organization:

Which organizations have the most young talent overall?

While we have learned a lot about which teams have the most young talent yet to play regularly at the NHL level, this doesn’t quite answer the question of which teams have the most young talent overall. After all, some of the very best young players–Connor Bedard, for example–never spend a moment playing junior or minor-league hockey after they are drafted.

To get an answer to the question of which organizations have the most (or least) young talent for the future, I compiled 2023-24 scoring data for all under-25 players on NHL rosters. Here are the results displayed graphically. The X Axis measures total scoring by the NHL team’s under-25 players. The Y axis measures the total adjusted NHLe by the system’s prospects ranking within the top 100. 

Organizations in the top right quadrant have above-average young scoring talent in the NHL and outside it. Conversely, the cupboard is bare for the organizations in the bottom left, as they lack young scorers at any level.

The Kraken land in the top-left quadrant, among teams that don’t have much young talent yet established at the NHL level but have a lot coming. It makes sense that Seattle would be in this spot given that its draft classes are just now starting to mature outside of the very top draft picks that can make the jump to the NHL more quickly.

Elsewhere, the Sharks, Canadiens, Devils, Flyers, and Sabres appear well situated moving forward with young talent already on their NHL rosters and more coming. At the other extreme, the Lightning, Panthers, Oilers, and Islanders can’t bank on a pipeline of young scoring moving forward.

Which organizations are best positioned moving forward?

Of course, winning isn’t just about having young scorers. So, one last thing to look at is which organizations are both winning now and have highly ranked prospects coming. Again, top-right is where you want to be. Bottom-left is less than ideal.

Carolina and Winnipeg appear well situated with prospects coming to sustain their current success into the future. On the other end of the spectrum, even with Connor Bedard on hand, the Blackhawks need to add more talent to the organization. Drafting Ivan Demidov second overall would certainly help. 

The Islanders and Oilers better win soon because the cupboard looks pretty bare for the future. On the other hand, the Sharks, Canadiens, and Kraken have reason to think things should improve going forward–though San Jose has a long road ahead to reach a competitive level.

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What stands out to you? Anything else you’d like to know? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter/X at @deepseahockey and @sound_hockey.