Seider still third-best in Wheeler’s 2019 re-draft

The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler re-drafted the NHL’s class of 2019, attempting to assuage any mistakes made in terms of evaluating players incorrectly as The Athletic’s resident prospect guru…

And it’s a little surprising to see him ranking both Jack Hughes and Trevor Zegras ahead of Moritz Seider:

2. New York Rangers: C/LW Trevor Zegras
Actual draft pick: No. 9 (change: +7) to Anaheim
My final ranking: No. 12 (change: +10)

I see you typing that angry comment, Red Wings fans. But hear me out. I debated Seider here. I really did. There’s an excellent case for him second and he may well end up here when their careers are all said and done. I’m sure there are some who’d place a premium on defence and take him first, though I’d suggest that that argument would stand on a weaker foundation. But Zegras is also (already) one of the faces of this sport, with a creative, playmaking game that will quite likely make him one of this generation’s best facilitators (like Nicklas Backstrom, Henrik Sedin and Joe Thornton before him, but with more flair), and he’s not going anywhere. Do you take the first-line wizard or the first-pairing anchor? I lean the former today with these two, even though the latter is compelling.

3. Chicago Blackhawks: RHD Moritz Seider
Actual draft pick: No. 6 (change: +3) to Detroit
My final ranking: No. 35 (change: +32)

This is one of my all-time misses. My final ranking here is deceiving, because it was released before the combine in Buffalo, and before Seider’s standout performance at men’s worlds, and I wrote in the aftermath that I’d rank him close to 20/the late teens if I could edit my list. But even that kind of slotting would have made this a huge miss, too, because I wouldn’t have taken Seider inside the top 10. In last year’s players I was wrong about column, I wrote about Seider and to a similar but lesser extent Jake Sanderson a year later, as indicative of a problem I’ve had not playing catch-up on late-season surges fast enough. That’s something I’ve worked to correct by trying to leave each prior viewing at the door and open myself up to the kind of rapid progression that can happen for some players and did happen for Seider. He’s got it all, now. And while he has made important progress in key areas (especially his assertiveness in the offensive half), he had a lot then, too.

Continued (paywall)…

I’m gonna be blunt and honest here: evaluating prospects is inherently a subjective business, and the hardest thing to evaluate is how well the player is going to improve over the course of their developmental curve.

Seider went to Grand Rapids and had a very good developmental season at the AHL level, and then he played for Rogle in Sweden the following season and had an even better developmental season. By the time he was ready for NHL duty, Seider himself had made great strides in terms of ensuring that his physical, mental and hockey skill developmental curves all reaching the same point at the same time–and he’s still got room to grow in terms of all three categories.

Now I’m not an NHL scout, and made incorrect assessments and mistakes when it comes to evaluating talent myself, but I’m often quite happy when a player “proves me wrong” and develops into an NHL-level player. In my case, there are, as Bob Ross would say, a fair number of “Happy Accidents,” and that’s thanks to what the players are willing to invest in themselves in terms of proving those who would evaluate their play wrong.

As for the “Zegras is better because he’s the face of the sport” logic, I don’t buy it, but I’m biased toward Seider holding his own in that regard.