NEWSLETTER
Over this past weekend I shared an updated 2024 NHL Mock Draft, looking ahead at what the first round might look like in June. It’s always a fun endeavor that leads to a lot of conversation about which players a team’s fans think is the best fit, and which players might slide — or surprise — when the draft takes place.
Whenever I drop a mock draft, one of the questions I frequently get is how I decide on which players go where in a draft. There are a few answer(s) to that question. I consider the specific needs and recent draft history of each NHL team, watch a lot of hockey and highlights of prospects coming, and I consider draft rankings of analysts from whom I have valued prospect rankings over the nearly two decades of covering the game.
When we only had mid-term rankings from TSN’s Bob McKenzie and Scott Wheeler at The Athletic I compared their two sets. Now, we’ve got rankings from Corey Pronman at The Athletic and Chris Peters at FloHockey. Keep in mind the rankings from Wheeler, Pronman and Peters are all behind paywalls. So… you’re welcome.
It’s noteworthy as we get into these rankings that each analysts listed a different number of prospects. Pronman only gave us his top 36 whereas Peters ranked 50, Wheeler ranked 64 and McKenzie gave us his top 80 plus a handful of honorable mentions.
I have the players ranked below by their average of the four analysts with where they fall in each set. If a player wasn’t mentioned by one of the analysts, I’ll simply have N/A. (For my personal purposes, I go much deeper than just first-round grades as they’re available.)
I limited this list to 37 players because those are the guys whose aggregate came up under 34 overall, making them a first-round candidate (or, in the case of the Blackhawks, a possibility early in the second round).
2024 NHL Draft Prospect Rankings
| Name | Pos | Avg | McKenzie | Wheeler | Pronman | Peters | |
| 1 | Macklin Celebrini | C | 1.00 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 2 | Artyom Levshunov | RHD | 3.00 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 2 |
| 3 | Anton Silayev | LHD | 3.25 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 4 |
| 4 | Ivan Demidov | LW | 5.75 | 6 | 4 | 8 | 5 |
| 5 | Cayden Lindstrom | C | 5.75 | 5 | 11 | 4 | 3 |
| 6 | Cole Eiserman | LW | 6.00 | 4 | 3 | 9 | 8 |
| 7 | Sam Dickinson | LHD | 7.00 | 7 | 8 | 7 | 6 |
| 8 | Berkly Catton | C | 8.00 | 10 | 9 | 6 | 7 |
| 9 | Zayne Perekh | RHD | 9.25 | 9 | 6 | 10 | 12 |
| 10 | Carter Yakemchuk | RHD | 9.25 | 12 | 12 | 3 | 10 |
| 11 | Konsta Helenius | C | 9.50 | 8 | 10 | 11 | 9 |
| 12 | Zeev Buium | LHD | 10.75 | 13 | 7 | 12 | 11 |
| 13 | Trevor Connelly | LW | 13.25 | 11 | 15 | 14 | 13 |
| 14 | Adam Jiricek | RHD | 14.75 | 14 | 17 | 13 | 15 |
| 15 | Michael Brandsegg–Nygård | RW | 15.75 | 20 | 13 | 16 | 14 |
| 16 | Tij Iginla | LW | 17.00 | 16 | 21 | 15 | 16 |
| 17 | Emil Hemming | RW | 17.33 | 15 | 20 | N/A | 17 |
| 18 | Igor Chernyshov | LW | 17.75 | 18 | 18 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | Liam Greentree | RW | 20.50 | 17 | 14 | 31 | 30 |
| 20 | Sacha Boisvert | C | 21.75 | 22 | 24 | 22 | 19 |
| 21 | Aron Kiviharju | LHD | 22.00 | 23 | 16 | 25 | 24 |
| 22 | Beckett Sennecke | RW | 22.75 | 19 | 27 | 24 | 21 |
| 23 | Michael Hage | C | 25.00 | 36 | 22 | 19 | 23 |
| 24 | Charlie Elick | RHD | 26.75 | 28 | 34 | 18 | 27 |
| 25 | Tanner Howe | LW | 28.00 | 25 | 28 | 30 | 29 |
| 26 | Terik Parascak | RW | 28.33 | 27 | 26 | N/A | 32 |
| 27 | Ryder Ritchie | C | 28.50 | 21 | 25 | 33 | 35 |
| 28 | Nikita Artamonov | LW | 28.75 | 34 | 32 | 27 | 22 |
| 29 | Henry Mews | RHD | 29.00 | 37 | 19 | N/A | 31 |
| 30 | Cole Hutson | LHD | 29.75 | 41 | 30 | 20 | 28 |
| 31 | Andrew Basha | LW | 30.33 | 24 | 29 | N/A | 38 |
| 32 | Leo Sahlin Wallenius | LHD | 32.00 | 38 | 31 | 26 | 33 |
| 33 | Maxim Massé | RW | 32.33 | 35 | 23 | N/A | 39 |
| 34 | Jett Luchanko | C | 33.00 | 26 | 33 | N/A | 40 |
| 35 | Lucas Pettersson | C | 33.00 | 31 | 38 | N/A | 30 |
| 36 | Cole Beaudoin | C | 33.50 | 30 | 37 | 23 | 44 |
| 37 | Matvei Gridin | LW | 33.67 | 29 | 46 | N/A | 26 |
