TSN is doing their team ranking for G, D and Offence.. Wingers just added *

[town123 242]

Here's the goalie tiers followed by the Defense.   Offence should be out in a couple of days.

 

Centres ranking came out today

 

https://www.tsn.ca/nhl/nhl-summer-talent-tiers-goaltending-1.2342916

https://www.tsn.ca/nhl/nhl-summer-talent-tiers-defence-1.2344922 

https://www.tsn.ca/nhl/travis-yost-s-nhl-summer-talent-tiers-wingers-1.2347543

https://www.tsn.ca/nhl/yost-s-nhl-summer-talent-tiers-centres-1.2350287   

Edited August 25 by town123

[LeftWinger 5,172]

Not great, but at least we aren't bottom of the barrel. I am surprised by this:

 

Quote

San Jose Sharks (T5) — There was significant damage inflicted to San Jose’s lottery-bound team a season ago, and two returning defenders – Mario Ferraro and Timothy Liljegren – were at the epicentre of the destruction. Ferraro (-26) and Liljegren (-20) had two of the worst on-ice goal differentials last year, and again will be fixtures inside of the San Jose top-four.

Regardless, I would take BOTH of them on our team. It's hard to imagine San Jose with a worse D than Detroit. I think both these players would upgrade Detroit's D.

[town123 242]

Not sure I buy Buffalo being 2 tiers better than us.   I wonder who here would trade Mo, Ed and AlJo for Power, Dahlin and Byram.

 

I would love Dahlin, but I think Power and Byram have maxed out and for us Ed's second season could be great. 

We just need another top 4 defenceman.

[town123 242]

I guess Ray Ray is our only true asset on wing.

[Jimmybigrigs69 532]

Gibson and Edvinsson both need to step up in big ways this year. If that happens, those tiers will look silly. 

[town123 242]

I just added the CENTRES

[kipwinger 8,803]

To me, to be a top player you need to be able to play against the best players in the world at even strength and give as good as you get. Obviously the elite players give more than they get, but that's a different conversation. And by that definition we've got two wingers (Raymond and Debrincat), one center (Larkin), two defensemen (Seider and Edvinsson), and one goalie (Gibson) who are credibly amongst the world's 20-30 best players at their positions. We'd basically need another player at each position before we can call ourselves a consistent playoff team.

[town123 242]

I would have to put Kasper with Ed as most likely to put a stamp on their elite status this coming season.   Hopefully a couple of kids in the cupboards pan out like those two sooner than later.

[kipwinger 8,803]

On 8/27/2025 at 5:16 PM, town123 said:

I would have to put Kasper with Ed as most likely to put a stamp on their elite status this coming season.   Hopefully a couple of kids in the cupboards pan out like those two sooner than later.

I'd agree with this more or less. I expect all of Edvinsson, Kasper, Johansson, and Sodorblom to be better this year than last.

For Edvinsson that means continuing to be a defensive rock against top players, taking on (and excelling) a bigger role of the penalty kill, and (hopefully) becoming more of a difference maker with his even strength offense (which was already quite good). For Kasper it means spending a full season in the top six at center and anchoring his own line. His line will get easier usage than Larkin's (because Dcat and Kane are likely to be his wingers) but he'll still need to take his defensive assignments seriously and make sure the line isn't getting caved defensively. I'd also consider it "growth" if he continued his offensive output from last year because he'd be doing it against better players. Given how young they are, if both those guys reach those benchmarks I think you can comfortably say they're fully on track to be difference making NHLers throughout the remainder of their careers. Edvinsson as an all situations workhorse who can shutdown the league's best, and Kasper as a 200-ft, two-way, matchup center with plenty of offense to be a top-of-the-league 2C.

For Sodorblom I'm looking for complimentary scoring. I think he understands that he's going to have to use his body more in the NHL than he did at lower levels and I saw movement in that direction last year. I don't expect him to blow guys up, but if he can use his size to increase his offensive output (kinda like Franzen) by protection pucks down low and learning to score around the net, I think that's growth. But what I really want to see is growth in his confidence/mindset. He's got the ability to be a difference maker as a 3rd line wing if he grows out of the young player "deferential" mindset and starts being assertive with the puck. If he begins to impose himself a little more with the puck on his stick I think he'll score 20 goals and be a real down lineup asset. For Johanson I think growth means that he takes over a spot on the 3rd pair and embraces a role centered on eliminating depth scoring against Detroit. I think he was above his head on the 2nd pair last year and did the best he could. But ideally I think he's a guy that can be a difference maker on the 3rd pair by erasing easy goals against from depth players. Nothing is more back breaking than giving up a goal to some 3rd/4th line pud because you just killed off a penalty or ended a powerplay and all your good players are on the bench getting a breather. I think Aljo would excel in a role like this and have plenty of room for growth as a matchup guy.

Trouble is, even if all this happens it may not be enough to propel us into a playoff spot. We badly need to solve the 1st line LW and 2nd pair RHD questions adequately. So far my money is on Copp/Ras for the 1st line winger spot, and Bernard Docker for the 2nd pair RHD spot. I'm not sure Copp or Ras would excel offensively in that role, but at least they wouldn't get caved defensively against the league's best. That's my worry with Van Reimsdyk. I'm actually reasonably optimistic that Bernard Docker will be an improvement over either of Johansson or Petry on the 2nd pair tho. I think he's primed to take a bigger role than he's had elsewhere and run with it. I'm expecting him to be a more physical Olli Maatta.