The busy holiday season saw every highly regarded prospect play at some level. In some cases the rankings have changed as a result, while in others my opinion on them hardened.
Whether it was the World Junior Championship, the World Under-17, or holding down the fort on a depleted club team, the guys eligible for the 2008, 2009, or even 2010 drafts, helped build the book on when and where they should be drafted.
As such, here are my new rankings for the 2008 NHL entry draft in Ottawa.
1 – Steven Stamkos; C, Sarnia Sting
For the first four months of the season, I had Stamkos outside of the No. 1 position because I felt the gap between him and two franchise defensemen wasn’t great enough to warrant bypassing the opportunity to fill a need felt by most teams – defense.
Stamkos’ performance at the world juniors changed everything. He has in fact distanced himself so far from every other prospect that he is the clear No. 1 draft choice. He has all of the tools to become a superstar in the NHL as early as next year and proved it against the best 19-year-olds in the world.
His character, skills, maturity and vision are phenomenal and above all, he will become a marketing dream along the same lines as Sidney Crosby. Although it took me a while to put him in the top spot, I don’t foresee him dropping out of it any time soon.
2 – Alex Pietrangelo; RD, Niagara IceDogs
One of the biggest challenges in being a successful scout is being able to look past the player you see today and forecast how he’ll play when he is 23 years old.
Pietrangelo is a tremendous player today for the Niagara IceDogs, but he isn’t as good as Drew Doughty and that was obvious by his omission from the Canadian world junior team.
The fact is he needs to significantly improve his defensive zone play and become committed to that end of the ice. He also has to get much stronger. However, when it’s all said and done, he will become a franchise defenseman for whichever NHL team selects him in June.
He will play in the NHL at 220 pounds, while quarterbacking the power play and playing 25 minutes a night, but all of that will take a while and the team that understands patience is a virtue and brings him along slowly will have made an epic decision.
Mark Seidel's Blog: Revamped draft rankings, Pt. 1 
