2018 NHL Draft Consensus Rankings – Mid-Season Edition

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We’re midway through the 2017-18 hockey season and the players eligible for the 2018 National Hockey League entry draft have played a significant number of games. Several of them have played in the World Junior Championship or a top prospects game, as well. Given that the major prospect rankings entities have released their midterm rankings, we’ve compiled the mid-season edition of this year’s NHL Draft Consensus Rankings. We’ve collected the major 2018 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.

Rasmus Dahlin
Rasmus Dahlin (Tommy Holl/Frölunda HC)

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:

  • 0 goaltenders
  • 13 defensemen
  • 18 forwards

The league breakdown of the Top 31 is:

  • 8 Ontario Hockey League
  • 5 Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (including three from the Halifax Mooseheads)
  • 5 United States Hockey League (all from the U.S. National Development Program)
  • 2 Western Hockey League
  • 2 Swedish Hockey League
  • 2 NCAA
  • 2 SM-Liiga
  • 1 HockeyAllsvenskan
  • 1 SuperElit (Swedish junior)
  • 1 Ontario Junior Hockey League
  • 1 Junior Hockey League (Russian junior)
  • 1 Czech Extraliga

There is a clear top group in the 2018 class, led by Dahlin and Svechnikov – in that order. Tkachuk and Zadina are more or less tied for the third slot. Wilde, Smith and Kupari are tightly clustered around the 10th slot. Hayton, Veleno and McIsaac are also clustered tightly further down the rankings. Other than those clusters, the rankings are pretty linear and spread apart. The top half of the first round is very heavy on defenders, but becomes much more positionally balanced later on.

Consensus Rankings

Rank Player Pos. Primary Team ISS SN McKenzie Button HP FC CSS
1 Rasmus Dahlin D Frolunda (SHL) 1 1 1 1 1 1 1, INT
2 Andrei Svechnikov RW Barrie (OHL) 3 2 2 4 2 2 1, NA
3 Brady Tkachuk LW Boston University (NCAA) 2 4 4 3 4 3 3, NA
4 Filip Zadina C Halifax (QMJHL) 4 3 3 5 3 4 2, NA
5 Adam Boqvist D Brynas U20 (SuperElit) 8 5 5 2 5 5 2, INT
6 Oliver Wahlstrom RW U.S. National Dev. (USHL) 5 8 9 9 7 8 7, NA
7 Quinn Hughes D U of Michigan (NCAA) 7 16 6 7 9 6 4, NA
8 Evan Bouchard D London (OHL) 6 10 7 10 15 10 5, NA
9 Noah Dobson D Acadie-Bathurst (QMJHL) 20 6 8 11 8 9 9, NA
10 Bode Wilde D U.S. National Dev. (USHL) 13 9 14 8 17 11 20, NA
11 Ty Smith D Spokane (WHL) 10 14 10 20 12 7 14, NA
12 Rasmus Kupari C Karpat (SM-Liiga) 9 7 13 14 11 19 6, INT
13 Joel Farabee LW U.S. National Dev. (USHL) 14 12 16 15 6 16 11, NA
14 Isac Lundestrom C Lulea (SHL) 11 21 20 16 14 14 3, INT
15 Barrett Hayton C Sault Ste. Marie (OHL) 15 11 12 6 27 27 6, NA
16 Joe Veleno C Drummondville (QMJHL) 12 15 15 25 20 12 13, NA
17 Jared McIsaac D Halifax (QMJHL) 16 13 18 21 19 13 12, NA
18 Grigori Denisenko LW Loko Yaroslavl (MHL) 17 18 21 19 10 21 4, INT
19 Jesperi Kotkaniemi C Assat (SM-Liiga) 25 19 19 26 16 17 9, INT
20 Ryan Merkley D Guelph (OHL) 23 27 11 12 18 21, NA
21 Ryan McLeod C Mississauga (OHL) 19 25 17 15 16, NA
22 Jacob Olofsson C Timra (Allsvenskan) 28 23 13 22 28 6, INT
23 Jack McBain C Toronto (OJHL) 28 23 26 18 20 29, NA
24 Benoit-Olivier Groulx C Halifax (QMJHL) 21 20 28 28 22 18, NA
25 Jett Woo D Moose Jaw (WHL) 26 17 27 31 28 23 20, NA
26 Mattias Samuelsson D U.S. National Dev. (USHL) 30 24 27 13 30 17, NA
27 Akil Thomas C Niagara (OHL) 18 31 29 23 26 10, NA
28 Serron Noel RW Oshawa (OHL) 31 26 22 24 29 31 9, NA
29 Rasmus Sandin D Sault Ste. Marie (OHL) 22 17 15, NA
30 K’Andre Miller D U.S. National Dev. (USHL) 18 25 31, NA
31 Martin Kaut RW HC Pardubice (Extraliga) 24 30 23 11, INT