Top 500 NCAA Eligible Prospects Born in 1996

Neutral Zone is pleased to announce our Top 500 NCAA Eligible Prospect Rankings for the 1996 birth year. Last year we only ranked the top 100 in each age group but we decided to extend our rankings this year after growing the scouting staff from 10 to 30. We will be leaving the old list on the National Rankings Page for scouts and fans to look back on before uploading this new list.

“We attended the AHCA Coaches Convention this summer and the most consistent feedback we received was that Division II/III coaches wanted a more expansive list for their 20 year old prospects,” remarked President Steve Wilk. “Looking at the data from last year we saw that over 600 incoming freshmen were 20-year old’s and so we shifted our focus this fall to accommodate that trend. We are starting with this list of 500 as our preliminary list, similar to NHL Central Scouting, and we will make additions, subtractions and edits as the season progresses. Our midterm ranking will be in the middle of January and the final ranking will be in the end of March.

Each player has been seen and evaluated by the Neutral Zone scouting staff. NZ scouts were busy this fall covering the USHL Fall Classic’s, BCHL Showcase, SJHL Showcase, AJHL Showcase, EHL Showcase, USPHL Showcase, NAHL Showcase and GOJHL Showcase including individual games. “The only way this list is possible to construct is if you have a large, highly competent scouting staff,” remarked Director of Scouting Brendan Collins. “I want to thank all of our scouts, but in particular, Brian Murphy, who was the longtime Head Coach at Tufts University and Marlin Muylaert who has been a Head Coach both at the CIS and NCAA level.  These guys have been in rinks all fall building this list and organizing regional scouts to make sure we saw as many prospects as possible.”

One of the things we preach at Neutral Zone is to avoid any bias or ego. The staff puts a lot of man hours and discussions in the scouting room about where these players are ranked, but in no way is this the final list. All of these players will be followed and evaluated more throughout the season and any changes or movements will be reflected in each player’s profile page.

With that being said, 100% of incoming college freshman this past year that we ranked 3.75 or higher committed Division 1. We saw over 95% of our 3.5 star prospects commit Division 1 as well. It is at the 3.25 – 3.0 category that we see the real drop off, as less than 15% of those players committed Division 1. Every year brings different recruiting patterns and trends, but we feel 3.5’s and upward are Division 1 prospects, 3.25’s are on the fringe and 3.0 star prospects and below are Division II/III. Obviously, like anything, there are plenty of exceptions to the rule, but our 2015-2016 statistics support this basic framework.

**Disclaimer: There are a lot of players on this list from Canadian junior leagues. Given the current economy and exchange rates between the US and Canadian dollar, there will likely be a decent percentage of these players who do not end up playing college hockey.  We also see trends in the Midwest and Western US, where Division II/III hockey isn’t as prevalent, that quality players who fall short of Division I stop playing or go the club route. This creates opportunities for other players in leagues that we didn’t cover in this list such as the WSHL, NA3HL and USPHL Elite, to name a few.

League Breakdown

 What we see in this chart is a breakdown of where the players are coming from. We see that the NAHL represents a quarter of the players which makes sense because the league is large and has a lot of older, veteran junior players. Contrast that to the USHL where they are only allowed four 1996’s per team. Therefore, this is not reflective of which league is “better.”

Positions

 This data simply shows the position breakdown of our list. On a typical hockey team the roster consists of 60% forwards, 30% defense and 10% goalies so we tried to stay close to that breakdown without impacting the quality of the list.

Commits

This chart shows the breakdown of Division 1 committed players versus uncommitted players. One of the areas we are trying to add awareness to is that only around 175 players at the 20-year-old age group went on to play Division 1 last year. We anticipate that only the top 35% will go Division 1 and nearly half of them are already committed.

Star Rating Breakdown

This last chat breaks down the different star ratings that exists on our list. Why so few 4 stars and upward? A lot of this is because the top prospects were taken at 18, then 19 and so only a few are left playing junior hockey by 20. Some are transfers, some need extra time to improve their academics and some are just taking another year to get bigger and stronger and faster.  The data shows that only 55 players or 11% of the list are sure-fire D1 prospects. The group of 3.5-star prospects accounts for 80 players or 16% of the list. Therefore, if all the 3.5 star prospects and above commit Division 1 then that would account for only 27% of the total list.

Top 500 NCAA Eligible Prospects in North America Born in 1996

This content is only available to subscribers.

Become an Exclusive Member!