NHL Draft Rankings: Let’s Compare Four Notable Lists

Throughout this offseason, I’ve been doing my best to keep Blackhawks fans up-to-date with rumors and speculation about how things might play out as we inch closer to the 2024 NHL Draft. This is a big draft for the Chicago Blackhawks; they’ll draft second overall one year after owning the No. 1 overall pick. The Hawks have never done that before — and getting this right will influence the next decade as the organization rebuilds.

There are four NHL draft analysts whose rankings and mock drafts get my eyeballs immediately whenever they drop: Corey Pronman and Scott Wheeler at The Athletic, Steven Ellis at Daily Faceoff and Craig Button. There are others, including TSN’s Bob McKenzie and Chris Peters at FloHockey, whose opinions and analysis are also top tier in my eyes, but those four regularly update their rankings and mock drafts throughout the year.

So I thought now, less than one week from the start of the 2024 NHL Draft, was a good time for us to consider and compare the most recent draft rankings from those analysts. Here are the most recent updates on their rankings:

For this exercise, because each of them ranked a different number of prospects and the Blackhawks have picks No. 2, 18 and 34 overall in this year’s NHL draft, I wanted to specifically focus on the players they ranked in their top 35 overall. Here they are side-by-side:

NHL Draft Rankings

There are plenty of differences in these lists and a lot to break down, especially looking at where the Blackhawks currently own picks. The top of three of the four lists are identical: Macklin Celebrini and Ivan Demidov. Pronman has consistently had Demidov lower than most other analysts, so that isn’t a surprise.

One surprise is where 6-7 LHD Anton Silayev now ranks with each of them. He was in the conversation for the No. 2 pick early in the process, but his stock has appeared to slide him more into the 5-10 area now. His contract in Russia undoubtedly plays into that thinking, but it’s interesting to see how he’s slid. I keep track of these things, and between January and the middle of March, Silayev was no lower than fifth overall by these four, McKenzie or Peters.

The stock of forwards Tij Iginla and Cole Eiserman also come in all over the board now. Eiserman was considered a possibility for a top-three pick when we started talking about this draft a year ago, but his game is viewed as fairly one-dimensional and that has led to a slide. Iginla, on the other hand, continues to climb.

One player I have consistently loved for the Blackhawks is Michael Brandsegg-Nygård; I have him coming to Chicago in my most recent mock draft. He’s a big, responsible forward who I hope makes it to the Blackhawks at No. 18 in the 2024 NHL Draft. These four have him between 14-17 in their rankings, however.