I started this series off yesterday with a look at players in the OHL, and today I’d like to look at the players the Central Scouting Service ranks in the WHL. As in the last post, I’m including three numbers: the CSS midterm ranking (showing all domestic players), the CSS WHL preliminary watch-list, and my formula ranking. The formula takes into account scoring and age; I haven’t adjusted it for plus/minus just yet, but I have adjusted it for league strength, so it can be compared to the OHL rankings from yesterday, and the QMJHL rankings (whenever I get those up). As before, players marked by an * are over-agers, and their numbers from last season have been used so as to provide a fair comparison to this group.

With a few very minor flips, the top 10 players here are the same as on the preliminary list, which is interesting for all kinds of reasons, which I’ll expand upon below.

The most interesting question coming from this list is as follows: who is the best draft-eligible player in the WHL? That answer to that question, according to the CSS, is Brett Connolly a fantastic prospect with the Prince George Cougars. Unfortunately for Connolly, he’s been injured for the majority of the year, meaning that the decision made by scouts is coming from a combination of viewings last year and what little they could have seen this year, and maybe that opens the door a little bit for two other guys.

Emerson Etem is the player that CSS has ranked just below Connolly. His formula ranking isn’t especially impressive (good but not great) but at least part of that is because Etem is more of a goal-scorer than a playmaker and the formula weights goals and assists evenly. Kyle Woodlief of Red Line Report spoke highly of Etem in an interview back in November:

I think Emerson Etem (Center- Red Line’s 10th overall player for Nov.) is a real riser. He left the U.S. team to go to Medicine Hat of the Dub, and I thought it would take him a while to get used to the physical aspects of the WHL, but he’s come through like a champ. He’s scoring a lot of goals and competing hard, which is something I just didn’t see him do a lot playing on the U.S. Under-17 team because he was more talented than a lot of the players he skated with and against. But, to his credit, he’s been bringing a high effort level so far, and you’re seeing it pay off for him on the scoresheet.

The most famous player of these three is probably Swiss sensation “El” Nino Niederreiter, who came to the attention of North American hockey fans who might have otherwise missed him with a standout performance at the recently concluded World Juniors. Red Line Report jumped him past Etem in December and there’s absolutely no doubt that his World Junior showing increased his stock. Still, even without that his WHL play has been very, very good and combining that with his young age (if he were born a week later, he’d be a 2011 prospect) almost certainly mean that he’ll be gone by the time the 15th overall pick rolls around.

Niederreiter is one of three Portland Winterhawks forwards ranked very high here, with Ryan Johansen and Brad Ross being the other two. I’m not sure why Ross is so far down the list, unless scouts see him as a player being buoyed by superior teammates. He leads the Winterhawks in scoring (49 points), plus/minus (+19), and penalty minutes (119). He stands 6’1” (although he’s a lanky 171 lbs) and led the WHL in scoring in December en route to being named the WHL player of the month. I can’t help but wonder if he’s being undervalued by Central.

Pint-sized Jordan Weal is another player I find very interesting; he’s two years younger than teammate Jordan Eberle but sits just behind him in scoring for the Regina Pats. His 5’8”, 158lb frame is the biggest reason for concern but he’s one of the best pure-offence players in the draft and the kind of guy some team will take a chance on, just because his scoring is so good – he’s the highest scoring WHL player listed and he’s fairly comparable to the OHL’s Jeff Skinner in terms of total offence – not at the Hall/Seguin level but right under.

Brooks Macek made a significant jump to just outside the top-100 players; it’s very impressive, given that CSS didn’t even have him on their preliminary watchlist. He plays in Tri-City, which has a very impressive list of small but potent forwards – six players hovering around the point-per-game mark, all of them 5’11” or smaller. Justin Feser’s another one, although he’s even smaller than Macek and a little further down the CSS list, while over-ager Brendan Shinnimin leads the team in scoring and seems to have fallen off the radar, going from on the preliminary list to not even being mentioned here. I’m not sure why that is; after a lousy 2008-09 he’s continued his breakthrough season this year, scoring 58 points in 42 games. Still, even I wouldn’t look at him until the drafts later rounds and as an NHL GM I’d probably gamble that he slips through entirely and than invite him to camp, much like Vancouver did with Kellen Tochkin last year.

Another small over-ager appearing here is Craig Cunningham, who was just barely eligible for the 2008 draft. He came on a bit last year and has exploded this year (68 points in 46 games) but given his age I think he’s a long-shot to get drafted and is more likely to get his shot at a pro career as an undrafted free agent.

We also have two entries in this year’s famous last names department. Brody Sutter is the son of Duane Sutter , and undoubtedly carries on the Sutter’s legendary effectiveness in the ‘grit’ and ‘responsibility’ areas of the game. Unfortunately, he’s not an especially good scorer; despite being one of the oldest members of his draft class (if he were two weeks older he would have gone in 2009) he has all of three goals in 42 games and if his last name were Smith I doubt he’d be on the CSS list. The second entry is Brendan Ranford (Bill’s nephew), a smallish member of the Kamloops Blazers whose scoring probably makes him worth a late-round flyer.

Lastly, I want to mention Brendan Gallagher, the 5’8” scorer with the Vancouver Giants. He scores like a top-tier player (the formula ranks him a hair behind Niederreiter and ahead of Connolly or Etem) but CSS doesn’t see him that way. When I used this formula to look at previous drafts, it did well overall but had two interesting quirks: it generally did a good job of picking out late round picks who would go on to score in the NHL (guys like Radim Vrbata) and it elevated guys who never had a pro career but scored at crazy levels in junior. It’s impossible to know which category Gallagher falls into, but these boom-or-bust picks are exactly the kind of guys teams should be taking in the sixth or seventh round.