2017 NHL Draft Final Consensus Rankings

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Final 2017 Edition

The hockey season is completely over and all that’s left to do for the 2017 National Hockey League draft class is show up to Chicago to be selected. All the major ranking entities have nailed down their final rankings for the NHL Draft. It’s time for the final 2017 NHL Draft Consensus Rankings, averaging out the variation in the major rankings to produce a single semi-definitive ordering of prospects. Don’t forget to check out our complete guide to the 2017 NHL Draft.

Nico Hischier (Katie Whitty Photography/Flickr)

Here’s the projected consensus first round (the top 31 ranked players) according to the major rankers.

Included Rankings

Notes on the Top 31

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
  • 4 Swedish Hockey League
  • 3 Quebec Major Junior Hockey League
  • 2 SM-Liiga (Finland)
  • 2 United States Hockey League
  • 2 National Collegiate Athletic Association
  • 1 Alberta Junior Hockey League
  • 1 United States High School (Minnesota)
  • 1 Czech Extraliga
  • 1 HockeyAllsvenskan (Sweden)
  • 1 Supreme Hockey League (Russia)

Notably, all nine European players that cracked the consensus Top 31 spent significant time this season playing professional hockey.

As you can see once you dig into the handy table below, there’s a ton of variation in the various rankings. Everybody has Patrick and Hischier as the top pairing in some order. Then most rankings have combinations of Heiskanen, Vilardi, Makar and Mittelstadt as the next four, with some variations and exceptions. At that point, it gets wacky. Everyone has the same 19 players in the first round somewhere, but there’s an incredible amount of disagreement regarding which players are the top and which ones are merely somewhere in the pack.

It has the makings of a very chaotic first night of the NHL Draft in Chicago.

Consensus Rankings

Rank Player Pos. Primary Team ISS Marek McKenzie Button HP FC THN
1 Nolan Patrick C Brandon (WHL) 1 1 2 2 2 1 1
2 Nico Hischier C Halifax (QMJHL) 2 2 1 1 1 2 2
3 Miro Heiskanen D HIFK (SM-Liiga) 4 3 3 5 3 3 6
4 Gabriel Vilardi C Windsor (OHL) 3 6 5 6 7 4 3
5 Cale Makar D Brooks (AJHL) 9 9 4 3 4 7 5
6 Casey Mittelstadt C Eden Prairie (USHS) 7 8 6 9 8 5 4
7 Cody Glass C Portland (WHL) 6 5 8 4 6 10 10
8 Martin Necas C HC Kometa Brno (Extraliga) 13 10 11 7 9 9 12
9 Elias Pettersson C Timra IK (Allsvenskan) 20 15 7 8 5 8 9
10 Owen Tippett RW Mississauga (OHL) 5 4 10 23 22 6 7
11 Timothy Liljegren D Rogle BK (SHL) 8 7 16 10 10 22 15
12 Michael Rasmussen C Tri-City (WHL) 10 22 9 21 15 16 8
13 Nick Suzuki C Owen Sound (OHL) 11 19 12 11 18 19 13
14 Juuso Valimaki D Tri-City (WHL) 14 13 14 17 17 12 18
15 Eeli Tolvanen LW Sioux City (USHL) 17 12 17 15 24 11 11
16 Lias Andersson C HV71 (SHL) 25 11 13 18 12 13 23
17 Cal Foote D Kelowna (WHL) 12 16 20 14 14 25 16
18 Klim Kostin RW Dynamo Balashikha (VHL) 16 18 18 24 19 14 14
19 Ryan Poehling C St. Cloud State (NCAA) 15 23 19 12 21 21 17
20 Kristian Vesalainen LW Frolunda HC (SHL) 19 21 15 26 17 21
21 Erik Brannstrom D HV71 (SHL) 14 29 19 16 18 28
22 Kailer Yamamoto C Spokane (WHL) 26 20 24 16 15 24
23 Isaac Ratcliffe LW Guelph (OHL) 22 27 27 13 23 20
24 Nic Hague D Mississauga (OHL) 18 17 25 20 22
25 Robert Thomas C London (OHL) 21 25 21 23 25
26 Urho Vaakanainen D JYP (SM-Liiga) 26 22 31 11 30 29
27 Maxime Comtois LW Victoriaville (QMJHL) 30 24 24 19
28 Jake Oettinger G Boston University (NCAA) 31 26 29 20 26
29 Pierre-Olivier Joseph D Charlottetown (QMJHL) 13 26
30 Joshua Norris C U.S. Under-18 Team (USHL) 23 23 25
31 Kole Lind RW Kelowna (WHL) 24 29 25 27