Introducing the Hockey “Fab50™”

Jonathan Roybal
Associate Editor

What Minor League News brought to baseball fans, we now offer to puckophiles: Our in-depth survey of the best players in minor hockey, as defined by those who should be in the know: the people within the organizations themselves.

Every year, MLN asks coaches, scouts, general managers, league presidents, and other people in the know to talk up the best players in the minor league system, and identify the fast-track movers from the lower-tier leagues

What emerged from this daunting task was an insider’s perspective on fifty of the top young hockey players in the minors.

Much as our baseball Fab50 has outshined many of the traditional “rookie” lists in baseball, we hope that the MLN Fab50 Hockey™ will provide a good bellwether on the futures of some of the sport’s rising stars in leagues that may be the only professional hockey in years to come.

We compiled the research, taking into consideration an assortment factors, the decisive of which being the player’s ultimate ability to contribute at the NHL level.

What Makes a FAB50™ Player?

The hockey players that qualify for MLN’s Fab50 must meet the following criteria:

Having played less than 3 total years on any minor league team [any player who logged minutes in 00-01 is ineligible] Having played less than 50 total NHL games; Did not make an NHL club out of training camp in ’03; Minor leaguer players only qualify, no prospects from overseas, juniors, etc.;

In an effort to insure accurate players assessments, we have assured confidentiality to our “Insider’s Edge” sources. For that reason, they remain anonymous.

Click on the pull-down, below, to select a player, or click on the page numbers at the bottom of the article to read on...