The end of the hockey season and the approach of the annual National Hockey League draft sees a drastic uptick in mock drafts and draft rankings from all around the hockey world. In an effort to provide some structure to all of the rankings noise, we have curated the final edition of the Consensus Rankings for the 2016 NHL Draft. The consensus list aims to average out the variability in five of the leading rankings from media outlets and scouting organizations.
The top-end of the draft appears to be as we’ve long suspected: fairly set. All five of the rankings we compiled had the same five players at the top of the list – Auston Matthews, Patrik Laine, Jesse Puljujarvi and then Pierre-Luc Dubois and Matthew Tkachuk in some order. After that, the draft looks to get messy with a lot of divergence of opinions on players.
All-told, 19 players were included in the first round of all 30 cited rankings. Points were awarded inverse to a player’s cited draft position, and players that were ranked outside of the first round didn’t receive any points due to the consensus focus on the opening round of the draft.
Rankings Included
- International Scouting Services’ final rankings
- Future Considerations’ final rankings
- TSN’s Craig Button’s final rankings
- Sportsnet’s Damien Cox’s final rankings
- HockeyProspect.com’s final rankings
The Consensus Top 30
Players are listed with The Next Ones biography linked, if applicable.
| Rank | Player | Team | ISS | FC | TSN | SN | HP |
| 1 | Auston Matthews (F) | ZSC Lions (NLA) | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 2 | Patrik Laine (F) | Tappara (SM-Liiga) | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 3 | Jesse Puljujarvi (F) | Karpat (SM-Liiga) | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| 4 | Pierre-Luc Dubois (F) | Cape Breton (QMJHL) | 5 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 4 |
| 5 | Matthew Tkachuk (F) | London (OHL) | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 5 |
| 6 | Logan Brown (F) | Windsor (OHL) | 7 | 12 | 7 | 8 | 7 |
| 7 | Olli Juolevi (D) | London (OHL) | 11 | 11 | 9 | 6 | 6 |
| 8 | Mikhail Sergachev (D) | Windsor (OHL) | 10 | 9 | 8 | 10 | 8 |
| 9 | Alexander Nylander (F) | Mississauga (OHL) | 6 | 8 | 10 | 9 | 12 |
| 10 | Clayton Keller (F) | U.S. National Development Team (USHL) | 12 | 7 | 6 | 13 | 9 |
| 11 | Tyson Jost (F) | Penticton (BCHL) | 9 | 10 | 11 | 7 | 10 |
| 12 | Jakob Chychrun (D) | Sarnia (OHL) | 8 | 6 | 17 | 12 | 14 |
| 13 | Dante Fabbro (D) | Penticton (BCHL) | 19 | 13 | 15 | 15 | 11 |
| 14 | Charlie McAvoy (D) | Boston University (NCAA) | 23 | 14 | 16 | 11 | 13 |
| 15 | Jake Bean (D) | Calgary (WHL) | 16 | 18 | 12 | 17 | 15 |
| 16 | Michael McLeod (F) | Mississauga (OHL) | 13 | 15 | 19 | 16 | 19 |
| 17 | Kieffer Bellows (F) | U.S. National Development Team (USHL) | 17 | 16 | 13 | 20 | 18 |
| 18 | German Rubtsov (F) | Team Russia U18 (MHL) | 15 | 17 | 14 | 23 | 16 |
| 19 | Luke Kunin (F) | University of Wisconsin (NCAA) | 18 | 19 | 20 | 18 | 17 |
| 20 | Max Jones (F) | London (OHL) | 14 | 20 | 19 | 20 | |
| 21 | Julien Gauthier (F) | Val-d’Or (QMJHL) | 21 | 21 | 21 | 25 | |
| 22 | Riley Tufte (F) | Blaine HS (USHS) | 22 | 22 | 22 | 23 | |
| 23 | Brett Howden (F) | Moose Jaw (WHL) | 20 | 18 | 27 | ||
| 24 | Alex Debrincat (F) | Erie (OHL) | 26 | 25 | 21 | 24 | |
| 25 | Logan Stanley (D) | Windsor (OHL) | 25 | 30 | 14 | 30 | |
| 26 | Rasmus Asplund (F) | Farjestads BK (SHL) | 26 | 26 | 21 | ||
| 27 | Vitali Abramov (F) | Gatineau (QMJHL) | 24 | 23 | 29 | ||
| 28 | Pascal Laberge (F) | Victoriaville (QMJHL) | 30 | 23 | 25 | ||
| 29 | Tage Thompson (F) | University of Connecticut (NCAA) | 24 | 30 | 28 | 28 | |
| 30 | Boris Katchouk (F) | Sault Ste. Marie (OHL) | 27 | 22 |
Just Missed The Top 30
BCHL defenseman Dennis Cholowski, OHL forward Will Bitten and QMJHL defenseman Samuel Girard are all on multiple top-30 lists but finished just shy of the cumulative points needed to crack the top 30.
11 additional players were included on one of the above top-30 listings but also failed to garner enough points to qualify for the consensus list. Two of them were goaltenders: Carter Hart and Filip Gustavsson.