November Edition
We’re a few months into the junior hockey season, meaning that the various players eligible for selection in the 2016 National Hockey League Entry Draft have played several games by this point. Given that most of the major prospect rankings entities have released their first rankings of the year, we’ve compiled the first edition of this year’s NHL Draft Consensus Rankings. We’ve collected the major 2017 NHL Draft rankings released to this point and averaged out the rankings across the board to produce a consensus of the various scouting and rankings agencies.
Here’s the projected consensus first round as of early November 2016.
Included Rankings
- International Scouting Service’s November ranking
- Jeff Marek’s (of Sportsnet) November ranking
- Bob McKenzie’s (of TSN) preliminary ranking
- Craig Button’s (of TSN) preliminary ranking
- HockeyProspect’s September ranking
- Future Considerations’ fall ranking
Consensus Rankings
| Rank | Player | Pos. | Team | ISS | Marek | McKenzie | Button | HP | FC |
| 1 | Nolan Patrick | C | Brandon (WHL) | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 2 | Timothy Liljegren | D | Rogle BK J20 (SuperElit) | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| 3 | Gabriel Vilardi | C | Windsor (OHL) | 3 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 3 |
| 4 | Maxime Comtois | LW | Victoriaville (QMJHL) | 7 | 7 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| 5 | Klim Kostin | RW | Dynamo Moscow (KHL) | 5 | 8 | 3 | 9 | 4 | 6 |
| 6 | Eeli Tolvanen | LW | Sioux City (USHL) | 9 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 9 |
| 7 | Casey Mittelstadt | C | Green Bay (USHL) | 13 | 9 | 11 | 10 | 6 | 4 |
| 8 | Kristian Vesalainen | LW | Frolunda HC (SHL) | 6 | 13 | 7 | 8 | 17 | 11 |
| 9 | Owen Tippett | RW | Mississauga (OHL) | 4 | 5 | 8 | 29 | 14 | 8 |
| 10 | Cal Foote | D | Kelowna (WHL) | 10 | 11 | 9 | 20 | 10 | 10 |
| 11 | Nic Hague | D | Mississauga (OHL) | 11 | 10 | 14 | 21 | 19 | 7 |
| 12 | Ryan Poehling | C | St. Cloud State U. (NCHC) | 15 | 18 | 15 | 4 | 16 | 18 |
| 13 | Martin Necas | C | HC Kometa Brno (Czech) | 16 | 16 | 12 | 11 | 9 | 23 |
| 14 | Lias Andersson | C | HV71 (SHL) | 25 | 21 | 10 | 7 | 15 | 12 |
| 15 | Nico Hischier | C | Halifax (QMJHL) | 21 | 6 | 13 | 8 | 20 | |
| 16 | Michael Rasmussen | C | Tri-City (WHL) | 8 | 12 | 13 | 27 | 25 | 21 |
| 17 | Shane Bowers | C | Waterloo (USHL) | 24 | 20 | 12 | 18 | 28 | |
| 18 | Kailer Yamamoto | C | Spokane (WHL) | 14 | 19 | 23 | 15 | ||
| 19 | Elias Pettersson | C | Timra IK (Allsvenskan) | 19 | 30 | 12 | 14 | ||
| 20 | Nikita Popugayev | LW | Moose Jaw (WHL) | 14 | 22 | 13 | |||
| 21 | Juuso Valimaki | D | Tri-City (WHL) | 19 | 17 | 28 | 22 | ||
| 22 | Urho Vaakanainen | D | JYP (SM-Liiga) | 22 | 23 | 22 | 19 | ||
| 23 | Miro Heiskanen | D | HIFK (SM-Liiga) | 18 | 21 | 16 | |||
| 24 | Sasha Chmelevski | C | Ottawa (OHL) | 12 | 29 | 30 | 24 | ||
| 25 | Matthew Strome | LW | Hamilton (OHL) | 28 | 27 | 24 | 17 | ||
| 26 | Robin Salo | D | Sport (SM-Liiga) | 27 | 26 | 13 | |||
| 27 | Dmitri Samorukov | D | Windsor (OHL) | 28 | 11 | ||||
| 28 | Marcus Davidsson | C | Djurgardens IF (SuperElit) | 15 | 31 | 26 | |||
| 29 | Antoine Morand | C | Acadie-Bathrust (QMJHL) | 25 | 25 | 24 | |||
| 30 | Henri Jokiharju | D | Portland (WHL) | 24 | 22 | ||||
| 31 | Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen | G | HPK U20 (Jr. Liiga) | 14 |
Luukkonen edged out Kirill Slepets, Erik Brannstrom, Stelio Mattheos and Grant Mismash based on Craig Button really liking Luukkonen. He’s the only goalie that cracks the first-round list, a fair ways ahead of Boston University’s Jake Oettinger.
There’s a general consensus around the top 15 or 16 prospects at this juncture, with a clear top three (Patrick, Liljegren and Vilardi) and a clear top 9/10. The second half of the projected first round is very chaotic, with a good deal of clustering and the rankings skewed a bit by one or two ranking services really liking a prospect. It’ll be interesting to see if this persists in subsequent updates of the consensus list.
The positional breakdown of the Top 31 is:
- 1 goaltender
- 9 defensemen
- 21 forwards
The league breakdown of the Top 31 is:
- 7 Western Hockey League
- 6 Ontario Hockey League
- 3 Quebec Major Junior Hockey League
- 3 United States Hockey League
- 3 SM-Liiga
- 2 SuperElit
- 2 Swedish Hockey League
- 1 Kontinental Hockey League
- 1 NCAA
- 1 Jr. Liiga
- 1 HockeyAllsvenskan
- 1 Czech Extraliga