Every time we do another run of our Top 25 Under 25 series, our voters are mostly made up of the masthead here at PPP. This year is no different, although not all of us chose to submit rankings. For clarity, here is the list of PPP writers who did participate in making the rankings:
- Species — lover of pregame naps that go to overtime
- Katya — hater of pointzalytics
- Hardev — hater of Marners
- Elseldo — hater of London
- Brigstew — hater of beeg
- Omar — maker of gifs
- Kevin Papetti — prospect master
- Acting the Fulemin and Arvind — haters of participating (did not participate)/
However, we usually try and get at least a couple of guest voters to join in. It helps us break through the same old hive mind, and offer some fresh perspective — even if all they do is submit their rankings.
So here is a quick introduction to our guest voters this year...
Will Scouch
Scouch (@Scouching) will be familiar to many regular readers here. Even if he is not part of our masthead, I have cited him and his work a lot over the past two years for my draft and prospect writing. He has been an independent scout for the past several years, using a combination of tracking data, his own or from platforms like InStat, and watching several games of each prospect he analyzes.
He writes articles and posts his tracking data and draft rankings at his own website: www.scouching.ca. Some resources and tools on his site are free, but others require you to subscribe to his Patreon account: www.patreon.com/Scouching. He will also have weekly streams on YouTube and Twitch during the season where anyone can stop by to ask questions about various prospects, which he will answer.
What I like about Will is that he’s no nonsense. He’ll say what he thinks, he won’t change his opinion to match a consensus, and if he has doubts about someone he will not only say so but back it up with clips and data. But he’s also very chill and respectful about it, you’ll never hear him just completely slag a prospect. If he thinks someone is bad, he’ll explain why but won’t be mean about it.
A.J. Gidaro
A.J. (@AlfredoGidaro) is another scout that we invited to join our T25U25 series. I met him through Scouch’s community, and we bonded over our mutual love/hate of the Leafs as well as over various prospect talks. He works for Dobber Prospects as a cross-regional scout and is also an admin for puck_analysis on Instagram.
Dobber Prospects is an independent online scouting platform that’s had many good people over the years. Just last year, they saw one of their Finland scouts get hired by the Carolina Hurricanes. I can’t say much about Puck Analysis because as an old man I do not use Instagram due to stubborness and also I don’t know how.
Arjun
If you’re on Twitter and follow a lot of Leafs Twitter, chances are you’re at least aware of if not familiar with Arjun (@_marlanderthews). He does not currently write for any blog or platform, but he has over 4,000 followers on Twitter for a reason — mainly because he’s really funny, but smart too.
Arjun has an obsession with the Leafs like many of us here. He live tweets all the games and is hoping to dabble into writing about his favourite hockey team. Currently he’s studying for LSATs (because by Divine Decree all Leafs fans of note must either be lawyers or in STEM) with the dream of going to law school and potentially becoming a player agent. His rankings were done by considering factors such as a player’s potential ceiling, age and NHL games played.
So please extend a warm welcome, for however brief, to our guest voters! We may see a few comments from them on certain prospects as well.
