The Draft Board: Matt Duchene

In preparation for the NHL Draft, we're going to run down the top 15 players as ranked by the ISSand have our users vote for how good they think each player is to help us prepare our draft board. Since the Hockey-Reference posts apparently do not count I am back. Up next - because Chemmy has problems with crooked numbers - the ISS #2, Matt Duchene.

Duchene has improved every year since lacing them up for the Central Ontario Wolves AAA minor midget team. He is one of two Brampton Battalion rookies to score 30 goals along with Raffi Torres. Duchene also played behind some kid named Cory Hodgsonwho had kind of a great career in the OHL. I always thought that a # 2 ranked player would be the top centre on his junior team but the pros know better I guess. The biggest shock about Duchene's ascension to the top of draft boards around the league came when Redline Report ranked him above Tavares. Needless to say, many were skeptical about the reasons behind the move. Hockey Prospect describes him as a complete player who has a well developed defensive game to complement his offensive capabilities. Bob McKenzie and the fans at Mile High Hockey are ready to welcome him to Denver. In fact, that McKenzie approval is pretty strong:

Jassi, the scouts love everything about Duchene. They like his size, strength, speed, skill and smarts. They see him as a character player, as someone who can score goals, make plays and work as hard without the puck as with it. There’s nothing not to like about the Brampton Battalion forward. Tavares and Hedman are heavy favorites to go one-two in this draft, but if there’s one player who could upset that scenario, it’s probably Duchene. Not to give it away just yet, but when we release a revised Top 15 draft ranking tonight on the NHL Draft Lottery show on TSN at 8 p.m. eastern, Duchene will be a rock-solid No. 3 but at least one of the 10 scouts we surveyed had him at No. 2, ahead of Hedman.

So PPPers how good do you think Matt Duchene is? Weigh in on our poll and then defend yourselves in the comments.

Rate Duchene on a scale of 1-5. Highest average rating will be our #1 player and so on.