Having their first draft-eligible year pushed back will most likely hurt
        the stock of most high school seniors who will now have to wait until
        the end of their freshman collegiate year to be selected, according
        to one NHL scout.
 
        Now that their last evaluated year is their freshman year with a vast increase
        in level of competition along with the loss of playing time as compared to
        their senior season, most players won't go as high as they might've.
 
        Take BU's Jeff Kealty for example. He went 20th overall to Quebec (Denver) after
        his senior year at Catholic Memorial. But figure in his freshman BU campaign
        where he played sparingly as the sixth defenseman, and he would not have
        been taken in the first or possibly second rounds.
 
        It seems the overall ranking of college players will drop over the next few years
        except for the occaisonal Kariya or Lachance. How big a problem does this look
        to be?
 
        Neil Goldberg, The Daily Free Press, Boston University