Cumulative 2014 Draft Rankings (January)

 This is the latest I've ever put out a year's first cumulative draft rankings since The Hart of Hockey started its signature draft coverage. That might have actually been for the best actually, since the longer this season has gone on, it looks like the 2014 NHL Entry Draft in Philadelphia, Pa. will be one of the most volatile drafts in a long while, and the various rankings collected here reflect that.
 The table below shows the most recent prospect rankings of five different scouts/publications, The Hockey News (THN,) International Scouting Services (ISS,) NHL Central Scouting (CS,) and TSN analysts Craig Button and Bob McKenzie. An individual player's rankings from THN, ISS, Button, and McKenzie's lists is averaged into a cumulative score, and then the top scores are ranked and become The Hart of Hockey's prospect rankings. Since CS separates players by North American and European, as well as dividing skaters and goalies, its rankings are used as a tiebreaker in the event of two or more players tying their average score.

The Sochi Olympics All-Snub Team

With almost every international competition, comes one of the hockey community's favorite past times: the
"HOW THE HECK DID THIS GUY NOT MAKE THE TEAM" game. It's invigorating, frustrating, it makes us laugh and cry, but it's ultimately useless. Hockey Canada does not care who you think should be on their team. USA Hockey could care less if you think the team they picked sucks. What matters is results, and the pursuit of those results inevitably leaves behind many players worthy of a position on their home country's teams.

 All of those players left empty by the rejection of their homelands can rest easy knowing that the Hart of Hockey has created a last chance for them to be recognized, by naming the 2014 Winter Olympics ALL-SNUB TEAM. Every and all players left off of an Olympic roster were considered to create the best possible team that could compete in Sochi, Russia.

 It is my honor to announce the line-up for this team, with a quick few sentences about why they were chosen to be on this squad and represent the All-Snubs in 2014. The team is as follows:

Left Wing	Center	Right Wing
James Neal (CAN)	Logan Couture (CAN)	Bobby Ryan (USA)
Martin St. Louis (CAN)	Joe Thornton (CAN)	Tyler Seguin (CAN)
Jiří Hudler (CZE)	Claude Giroux (CAN)	Radim Vrbata (CZE)
Tomáš Fleischmann (CZE)	Marcus Johansson (SWE)	Kyle Okposo (USA)
Gašper Kopitar (SLO)	-	Patric Hörnqvist (SWE)

L                          Defen	semen                       R
Victor Hedman (SWE)	Dan Boyle (CAN)
Keith Yandle (USA)	Brent Seabrook (CAN)
Jack Johnson (USA)	Erik Johnson (USA)
Darnell Nurse (CAN)	Roman Polák (CZE)

Goaltenders

Ben Bishop (USA)

Marc-André Fleury (CAN)

Marek Mazanec (CZE)

Takeaways From the 2014 WJC

 After Rasmus Ristolainen, leader of the Finnish defense corps, slid the puck underneath the right pad of Oscar Dansk on a great individual effort, it was all over. The thrilling Gold medal game: over. The cheering chants and screams of the hometown Swedish fans: over. The 2014 World Junior Tournament: over, and the nation of Finland reigned supreme.
 Now that the competition is complete, it's time for the Hart of Hockey's annual "what we learned" from the World Junior championship. Plenty during the past two weeks was exciting, but some things stuck out more than others. If you noticed it, too, you'll read it here. If you missed it, you'll get the chance to hear about it here. 10 teams and 31 games leave us with five major takeaways from this year's World Junior Championship.

NASHVILLE HAS FINLAND FIGURED OUT
 The Nashville Predators have had a knack for finding gems late in the NHL Entry Draft. The most notable nugget they dug up is probably Pekka Rinne. The Preds snagged Rinne in the eighth round (which doesn't even exist anymore,) and now the Finnish netminder is one of the best goalies in the world.

Juuse Saros was a fourth round pick of the Predators in 2013.
(Associated Press/Ludvig Thunman)

 Nashville's scouts have flown across the pond into Finland and apparently stumbled upon more treasures in Juuse Saros and Saku Mäenalanen. Though not named the best goalie by the tournament's directorate, Saros was the media's selection as goaltender of the tournament, and was the best player on Team Finland every time they put him between the pipes. He came up with big saves at big times, he didn't surrender a single goal in regulation or overtime when he came in cold and his team was in need of a comeback against Switzerland, and, of course, he earned a gold medal with his performance.
 In a world that has become seemingly obsessed with a goalie's measurements instead of his talents, five foot nine inches Saros has the Preds looking like geniuses for drafting him. Oh yeah, and they got him in the fourth round. Eight different goalies were chosen ahead of Saros at the 2013 Draft, and none of them have had anything close to the success Saros has had since then.

Mäenalanen celebrates his goal in the Gold
medal game. (IIHF Images/Francois LaPlante)

 Mäenalanen was taken one round after Saros in 2013, and went undrafted the year before. Mäenalanen demonstrated a complete game at the World Juniors, using his speed, effective forechecking, and smarts to score an incredible amount for the Finns. He led the entire tournament in goals with seven, and had a knack for finding the back of the net in big moments, as well.
 Saros and Mäenalanen still haven't proven anything at the NHL level like Rinne has, but still, to even think those Finnish players tumbled down the draft as far as they did is surprising. The fact that Nashville was the team to take them all in is more than coincidence. The Predators have that country figured out.