The Vancouver Canucks’ top prospects, ranked by trade value

‘Tis the season for prospect rankings, apparently.

In recent weeks, two of the leading online hockey publications put out their rankings of the top-NHL-affiliated prospects. Both the list of 100 published by EliteProspects and the list of 75 published by our friends at Daily Faceoff featured the same three Vancouver prospects: Tom Willander, Jonathan Lekkerimäki, and Braeden Cootes. But the orders they had them in were completely opposite. EliteProspects had Cootes first, Lekkerimäki second, and Willander third. Daily Faceoff, on the other hand, had Willander first, Lekkerimäki second, and Cootes third.

Of course, if you want to read the opinion of the foremost expert on Canucks’ prospects, that’s our own Dave Hall, and his rankings were in line with the Daily Faceoff set, with Willander followed by Lekkerimäki, followed by Cootes.

What we’re saying, in recapping these rankings, is that there’s little doubt about who the Canucks’ best prospects are, but some debate to be had about who is actually best between them. And given that discrepancy in opinion, we thought there was little harm in throwing another ranking into the mix – albeit, a slightly different ranking.

Each of the lists we’ve linked above is attempting to measure prospects by their eventual potential at the NHL level. It’s a long-term projection, and it ‘s the most important one when it comes to evaluating prospects, but it’s not the only way to valuate them.

Sometimes, it can be worthwhile to rank prospects based on their NHL-readiness, specifically. And at other times, when there’s a high possibility of said prospects being used as currency in upcoming trades, there’s probably some value in ranking the prospects by potential trade value.

That’s what we’re going to attempt today.

For each top Canucks prospect, we’re trying to gauge their general, league-wide value if the Canucks were to offer them up for trade – say, for example, in their bid for a new 2C. Of course, different teams will value prospects differently depending on what they already have on hand, but we’re going for an all-encompassing approach.

(For the purposes of this article, we’re sticking with Calder Trophy eligibility as the cut-off. So, no Elias Pettersson II or Aatu Räty.)

Here’s what we’ve got:

#1: Tom Willander

Most economies run on the principle of supply and demand, and the NHL trade market is no different. The least abundant asset out there is the right-shot defender, and that makes them an especially valuable kind of asset – especially when they appear to be as high-quality an RD as is Willander.

Willander’s case is a bit of an odd one, actually, in that one could make the argument that he might be more valuable to other franchises than he is to the Canucks. Vancouver already has Filip Hronek under contract long-term, and another good RD prospect on hand in Victor Mancini. Plenty of other teams aren’t so fortunate when it comes to the right side of their blueline, and those teams would be salivating other Willander.

It’s not just his position, of course. Willander is also just a great defensive prospect in general, and one said to have a very high floor and a large amount of NHL-readiness. Those two traits are why the Canucks will do everything they can to hang on to Willander, who they no doubt envision taking Tyler Myers’ spot in the lineup over the course of the next year. He’s still incredibly valuable to the Canucks themselves, and a big part of their future plans.

He’s just even more valuable from a trade market perspective.

#2: Braeden Cootes

This ranking, too, has a lot to do with position. The Canucks themselves are currently learning the importance of organizational centre depth. And if there’s an NHL commodity that ranks as second-rarest and second-most-valuable behind RDs, then it’s definitely the right-shot centre. In fact, Cootes is the only right-shot centre in the entire organization right now.

Centres, in general, tend to hold more value than wingers due to their increased importance on the ice. Really, the Canucks forward prospect with the greatest offensive potential is still Jonathan Lekkerimäki. But there is more to hockey than points, and so there’s plenty of scenarios imaginable in which Cootes scores less than Lekkerimäki at the NHL level, but is still more valuable overall.

That said, Cootes does have plenty of offensive potential in his own right, and tons of qualities both tangible and intangible that combine to make him, like Willander, a fairly high-floor prospect with ample upside.

Again, he’s not one the Canucks will want to trade, but he’s got top value all the same.

#3: Victor Mancini

Mancini over Lekkerimäki? You read that right.

Forgive us for the repetitiveness, but this one also has much to do with position.

Mancini is not just an RD, he’s an RD with size, skating ability, and what appears to be a high degree of NHL-readiness. If we’re looking for ‘prospect value modifiers,’ then Mancini has a whole lot of them.

Put that together with his breakout performance in the Calder Cup Playoffs, and you get a prospect whose current value probably outstrips his long-term projections. Most still slot Mancini in as a bottom-pairing defender eventually, but he seems very, very likely to hit that status, and soon.

Teams would love to trade for Mancini because they can use him right now, and into the future.

#4: Jonathan Lekkerimäki

Lekkerimäki has the misfortune, if it can be called that, of playing the wing, which is the least valuable position when it comes to supply and demand.

As we said earlier, he’s the prospect with the greatest offensive potential in the Canucks’ cupboard, and it might not even be particularly close.

There are a few other strikes against Lekkerimäki. He’s not particularly big, and he’s not particularly fast. He does possess a truly elite shot, but then the challenge will be finding a way to use it at the big league level.

We still believe in Lekkerimäki’s quality as a prospect, and even that he may be becoming underrated, of late. But those factors can’t help but impact his trade value, at least to the point that he’s seen as less valuable than others even if he’s an overall better prospect than them.

#5: Sawyer Mynio

Mynio over Kirill Kudryavtsev?

Yes. We’re aware that this one might be controversial, too, and so we want to be upfront in saying that, at this point, we’ve got Kudryavtsev ahead of Mynio as the better LD prospect of the two. But, then, this list isn’t about who the best prospect is.

But Mynio also has a bunch of factors working in favour of his trade value. He’s coming out of some great WHL programs in Seattle and Calgary. He’s got solid size and engages physically. He was drafted at 89^th overall, compared to Kudryavtsev’s 208^th overall, and while that shouldn’t matter too much as time moves on, it still kind of does when we’re talking reputation.

Let’s not ignore, either, that the bulk of NHL executives are Canadian, and that Mynio having made Team Canada for the most recent World Juniors gives him a bit of an elevated prestige.

That ‘name value’ puts Mynio at least slightly ahead of Kudryavtsev.

#6: Kirill Kudryavtsev

Well, we’ve sort of said our piece on Kudryavtsev already. He’s skyrocketed up the Canucks prospect charts by just looking better and better as he’s advanced through the system, and especially by hitting his peak in the AHL Playoffs.

Put differently, we could say that Kudryavtsev has upped his value about as much as any seventh round pick could have in the three years following their draft. Kudryavtsev may not have that same ‘name value’ as a Mynio, but he’s making a name for himself all the same. Another high-quality campaign in Abbotsford, and he’ll move up this list quickly.

#7: Ty Mueller

Mueller lands one spot higher on our list than he did Dave Hall’s, and you know by now that the primary reason for that is that he plays centre. Mueller, like Kudryavtsev, is a big climber from the middle rounds. He’s a bit of a rare instance in that he was a prospect with very little hype until he hit the pros, which is both interesting and encouraging. He’s trending upward, in other words.

With other teams always on the lookout for centre depth, that gives Mueller just a little added value over comparable wingers in the system.

#8: Aleksei Medvedev

We had to throw Medvedev in somewhere. He is probably a top-five prospect in the system overall, and was just drafted at 47^th overall.

But if we’re talking trade value, Canucks fans know well that prospect goalies just don’t have a lot of currency around the league. Arturs Silovs just won the Calder Cup MVP and was flipped for a fourth and change.

Save for the rarest circumstances, goalies really don’t have much trade value until they’re established in the NHL. For now, that leaves Medvedev pretty far down our trade value list – though that can change as he advances through the ranks.

#9: Arshdeep Bains

Bains is the point at which we know we’ve reached the end of the list. Does he carry an abundance of trade value? No, not really. He’s a 24-year-old undrafted prospect with questionable wheels. He has value and potential within this organization itself, but every team has players like this in their own depth chart.

That said, we’ve made the argument before that Bains’ showing in the Calder Cup Playoffs this past year was more than enough to convince another team to take a flyer on him on waivers, should the Canucks cut him, and that’s some value, at the very least.

Every other prospect in the system is either in line with this value, or not yet established enough to say differently.