Craig Button joined TSN1200, an Ottawa-based radio station, and said that the Senators, not the LA Kings, have the best prospect pool.
I can’t help but think this is 100 percent recency bias. And that’s not to discredit the Senators because they’ve done a terrific job of accumulating draft capital. They held the third and fifth overall picks, taking Tim Stutzle and Jake Sanderson, respectively. Those two guys were part of seven picks within the first three rounds. The LA Kings had five, including Quinton Byfield, with the second overall pick.
Yet, TSN’s Craig Button believes that the Senators have the best prospect pool. He even went one step further on TSN1200, indicating that Ottawa’s top ten prospects will all be future NHLers.
"“No team comes close to the Senators prospect list. You can’t name another team that has 10 prospects in their system that will be NHLers.” – Button/TSN1200"
Heading into the draft, a strong argument can be made that the Kings had the best prospect pool in the league with the likes of Alex Turcotte, Gabe Vilardi, Arthur Kaliyev, Rasmus Kupari, Tobias Bjornfot, Akil Thomas, Samuel Fagemo, and Kale Clague in the mix. Now add the draft’s best centerman, who projects to be the next Anze Kopitar, and two top defensemen in Helge Grans and Brock Faber.
Again, no disrespect to the Senators. They drafted very well this week.
But their farm system was ranked seventh-best by The Athletic back in February. I don’t know if Stutzle, Sanderson, and Ridly Greig (28th overall pick) are enough to leapfrog the Kings’ prospect pool. Who in the Kings’ top ten isn’t going to play in the NHL?
In no particular order, LA features names like Vilardi, Turcotte, Byfield, Grans, Faber, Thomas, Kupari, Bjornfot, Kaliyev, Fagemo, Anderson, Dudas, Grundstrom, and Anderson-Dolan in the system. That doesn’t even factor in Lias Andersson, who has 66 games in the NHL under his belt. The Kings’ prospect pool is loaded.
There’s a good chance that 10 of those guys wind up in the NHL.