Sadly, the fantasy hockey season has come to an end. I’ll have an RCL summary post up later this week along with a preview of The Stanley Cup Playoffs with Reid on Tuesday’s podcast. For now, I’d like to invite everyone to join the Razzball Bracket Challenge again through the link here and to present my super early top 50 for next season. I’m not going to go into much detail at this point because so many things can change between now and six months from now when the 2017-18 regular season actually begins. This will go longer than our mock draft podcast but if you want more details about my thought process, I’d be sure to check that out. Even if you have listened, I’ve made some minor changes so there is already some tweaking (hopefully improvement) happening. I’ll be separating these guys into tiers with tier explanations but that will be the extent of the analysis. Obviously you’re welcome to ask me in the comments section about anything you like / disagree with. Let’s get to it!
Tier 1: The Gimmes – This is a two person tier. If you’re lucky enough to get a top two pick next season, you don’t have to put much thought into it.
1) Connor McDavid
2) Sidney Crosby
Tier 2: Not Quite a Gimme, Still Amazing – This is a four person tier. I debating putting Malkin in his own tier at 6th overall because I wouldn’t take him before that. That said, I can understand someone taking him earlier because he was the clear #1 player on a per-game basis. I can see moving 3-5 around a lot during the offseason, it’s that close and depends what you’re looking for.
3) Nikita Kucherov
4) Patrick Kane
5) Alex Ovechkin
6) Evgeni Malkin
Tier 3: Floor Through The Roof – Four players again in this tier. The first guy on this list had a great season while the other three were down by their standards. That said, they were still terrific and that safety makes them worthy of a first round pick. Maybe I’ll end up putting some more upside guys ahead of them but for now, I like having this group here.
7) Brad Marchand
8) Vladimir Tarasenko
9) Tyler Seguin
10) Jamie Benn
Tier 4: Moving Forward Without Forwards – This is self-explanatory. At the wheel, I would consider taking one goalie and that’s it. Again, my general philosophy is to wait on goalie. Assuming Holtby goes earlier, I love the idea of pairing up the two stud defensemen on the wheel
11) Brent Burns
12) Braden Holtby
13) Erik Karlsson
Tier 5a/5b: I Can’t See The Ceiling / Where Is The Floor? – This tier goes from 14 to 23 although the players fall into two categories. We are looking at a handful of players who have tremendous upside and a handful of players who have established themselves as elite fantasy assets for years. There is a lot of wiggle room and I can definitely see myself moving these guys around come August
14) Jack Eichel
15) Auston Matthews
16) Patrik Laine
17) Joe Pavelski
18) Blake Wheeler
19) Mark Scheifele
20) Steven Stamkos
21) John Tavares
22) David Pastrnak
23) Nicklas Backstrom
Tier 6: More Goalies I Expect To Be Gone: The title is self-explanatory. I could see myself passing on a couple of these guys even if they’re on the board but I’d at least consider it on the second wheel of a 12 man draft. It will definitely price me out on Price and Bob but there’s hope Murray could make it.
24) Matt Murray
25) Carey Price
26) Sergei Bobrovsky
Tier 7: Just Missed Tier 5 : I’ll give you one guess about the guys in this tier… damn you guys are good! I expect to be down on Draisaitl and Panarin compared to consensus but that’s okay.
27) Max Pacioretty
28) Leon Draisaitl
29) Artemi Panarin
30) Victor Hedman
31) Nikolaj Ehlers
32) Jeff Skinner
Tier 8: Pick Your Poison – This is a massive tier that goes from 33 to . After a summer of research, I could see this tier being broken into two separate tiers but for now, I’m lumping them all together. Most of these skaters have one weakness, be it poor shots, no penalty minutes or lacking big upside.
33) Wayne Simmonds
34) Patrice Bergeron
35) Devan Dubnyk
36) Johnny Gaudreau
37) Dustin Byfuglien
38) Mike Hoffman
39) Filip Forsberg
40) Mitch Marner
41) Phil Kessel
42) Cam Atkinson
43) Mikael Granlund
Tier 9: Clear Number One Goalies – More safety in this group but they simply aren’t as good as the five goalies above them for various reasons. That said, there is plenty to like here.
44) John Gibson
45) Cam Talbot
46) Corey Crawford
47) Martin Jones
Tier 10: I Believe! – This group of guys had breakout seasons and I don’t think it’s a fluke. In fact, with #50, I know it’s overaggressive but I want him everywhere.
48) Nino Niederreiter
49) Viktor Arvidsson
50) Matthew Tkachuk
Just missed in no particular order: William Nylander, Evgeny Kuznetsov (he’s the most likely candidate to move up), T.J Oshie, Jeff Carter, Ryan Getzlaf, Aleksander Barkov, Taylor Hall, Evander Kane, Jakub Voracek
That’s all for now guys. Reid and I will be recording a podcast on Tuesday morning reviewing every team’s regular season and previewing the first round playoff matchups. Anything else you want us to talk about, let me know and I’ll be sure to do that either Tuesday or Thursday. As always, feel free to ask any questions and leave any comments below. My next post will be on Wednesday but at this time, I’m not sure what it will be about. It could be the RCL review but more than likely I’ll be saving that for Friday. Hope you like surprises! Thanks for reading, take care!
