We’re into the meat of the 2015-16 hockey season and as we get closer to the 2016 National Hockey League Draft; rankings are being produced with increasing frequency. In an effort to clarify what consensus, if any, exists between the most prominent draft rankings, we have collected five of them and produced the 2016 Midterm Consensus Rankings.
THE PROCESS
Five January rankings from prominent sources were selected for inclusion:
- International Scouting Services
- Future Considerations
- The Sports Network (TSN)
- Sportsnet
- HockeyProspect.com
Points were assigned for players being ranked in inverse order – 1 point for being ranked 30th, 30 points for being ranked 1st – with the total values summed and used to produce the consensus draft order. In the event that multiple players received the same sum, rather than create a complicated metric as a tie-breaker, we decided to declare a tie for simplicity’s sake.
THE RANKINGS
| Rank | Player (Pos.) | Team | ISS | FC | TSN | SN | HP | Biography |
| 1 | Auston Matthews (C) | ZSC Lions (NLA) | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | EliteProspects |
| 2 | Jesse Puljuvarvi (RW) | Karpat (SM-Liiga) | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | EliteProspects |
| 3 | Patrik Laine (RW) | Tappara (SM-Liiga) | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | EliteProspects |
| 4 | Matthew Tkachuk (LW) | London (OHL) | 3 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 | EliteProspects |
| 5 | Jakob Chychrun (D) | Sarnia (OHL) | 5 | 4 | 7 | 6 | 7 | EliteProspects |
| 6 | Alex Nylander (LW) | Mississauga (OHL) | 6 | 6 | 5 | 5 | 8 | EliteProspects |
| 7 | Olli Juolevi (D) | London (OHL) | 14 | 10 | 6 | 7 | 5 | EliteProspects |
| 8 | Mikhail Sergachev (D) | Windsor (OHL) | 10 | 9 | 9 | 10 | 9 | EliteProspects |
| 9 | Clayton Keller (C) | U.S. National Development (USHL) | 17 | 7 | 11 | 8 | 11 | EliteProspects |
| 10 | Tyson Jost (C) | Penticton (BCHL) | 9 | 13 | 12 | 13 | 10 | EliteProspects |
| 11 | Pierre-Luc Dubois (LW) | Cape Breton (QMJHL) | 18 | 11 | 10 | 12 | 6 | EliteProspects |
| 12 | Julien Gauthier (RW) | Val-d’Or (QMJHL) | 12 | 8 | 15 | 11 | 16 | EliteProspects |
| 13 | Mike McLeod (C) | Mississauga (OHL) | 7 | 12 | 17 | 15 | 12 | EliteProspects |
| 14 | Dante Fabbro (D) | Penticton (BCHL) | 16 | 14 | 8 | 14 | 13 | EliteProspects |
| 15 | Kieffer Bellows (LW) | U.S. National Development (USHL) | 15 | 15 | 14 | 9 | 18 | EliteProspects |
| 16 | German Rubtsov (C) | Team Russia U18 (MHL) | 11 | 19 | 13 | 21 | 17 | EliteProspects |
| 17 | Max Jones (LW) | London (OHL) | 8 | 16 | 28 | 17 | 15 | EliteProspects |
| 18 | Charlie McAvoy (D) | Boston University (NCAA) | 20 | 17 | 22 | 23 | 14 | EliteProspects |
| 19 | Jake Bean (D) | Calgary (WHL) | 21 | 25 | 19 | 16 | 20 | EliteProspects |
| T20 | Luke Kunin (D) | University of Wisconsin (NCAA) | 26 | 18 | – | 18 | 19 | EliteProspects |
| T20 | Tyler Benson (LW) | Vancouver (WHL) | 19 | 20 | 26 | 24 | 23 | EliteProspects |
| 22 | Logan Brown (C) | Windsor (OHL) | 13 | 22 | – | 22 | 27 | EliteProspects |
| 23 | Alex Debrincat (RW) | Erie (OHL) | – | 24 | 21 | 19 | 22 | EliteProspects |
| 24 | Samuel Girard (D) | Shawinigan (QMJHL) | – | 23 | 16 | – | – | EliteProspects |
| 25 | Riley Tufte (LW) | Blaine High School (HS-MN) | 28 | 30 | 25 | 27 | 24 | EliteProspects |
| T26 | Logan Stanley (D) | Windsor (OHL) | – | – | 24 | 20 | 28 | EliteProspects |
| T26 | Dillion Dube (C) | Kelowna (WHL) | – | – | 18 | 25 | 29 | EliteProspects |
| T26 | Vitali Abramov (RW) | Gatineau (QMJHL) | – | 21 | 20 | 23 | 14 | EliteProspects |
| T26 | Rasmus Asplund (C) | Farjestads BK (SHL) | 27 | 27 | – | – | 21 | EliteProspects |
| 30 | Chad Krys (D) | U.S. National Development (USHL) | 22 | 26 | – | – | – | EliteProspects |
THE BREAKDOWN
The 30 players ranked included zero goaltenders, 10 defensemen and 20 forwards.
- The top five defenders? Jakob Chychrun, Olli Juolevi, Mikhail Sergachev, Dante Fabbro & Charlie McAvoy
- Top top five forwards? Auston Matthews, Jesse Puljujarvi, Patrik Laine, Matthew Tkachuk, Alex Nylander & Clayton Keller
The top Canadian-born player ranked is Tyson Jost, the 10th-ranked player. If that comes to fruition in June, it’d be the furthest-back the first Canadian player has been taken in NHL draft history.
The teams with the most representation on the top 30 are the OHL’s London Knights (Nylander, Juolevi, Jones) and Windsor Spitfires (Sergachev, Brown, Stanley) and the U.S. National Development Team of the USHL (Keller, Bellows, Krys). Ten of the projected first round picks are from the OHL, four are from the QMJHL and just three are from the WHL.
There appears to be a consensus top pick, and a consensus top three, and a consensus top six or seven, at which point the consensus falls apart and the lists (wildly) diverge from each other. Odds are if we were able to peek at the various NHL clubs’ lists, we’d see a similar phenomenon.