Starting points review

Since our last ranking was published almost two months ago, many other lists for the 2017 NHL Draft have come out, including Bob McKenzie’s first of the season and NHL Central Scouting's preliminary assessment of this year class.

Bob’s list came out the day after ours and provides a benchmark for what the supposed scouting consensus was at the start of the CHL season. 

You can find his preliminary ranking here. To the left you can see highlighted the players who were eligible for our ranking. When looking at those names the main thing that struck us was two players were missing from Bob's list: Nico Hischier and Elias Pettersson were right on top of our ranking but nowhere to be found there. Even more striking when considering K. Kostin, our #4 in Europe, sat at #3 overall, and K. Vesalainen, our #7 in Europe, sat 7th overall behind only T. Liljegren and K. Kostin among Euro-based prospects. Only two more of those made McKenzie’s list, M. Necas and L. Andersson, with our #5 M. Davidsson missing as well.

The future CSS lists for Europe will be particularly interesting and easy to compare since they’ll pertain to the same group of prospects, but at this stage CSS still has all the players together and only rated by A/B/C rather than ranked. Still, their initial ratings released on October 4th (as of now yet available here) definitely provided some food for thought as they even sharpened some of the differences mentioned above between our assessment and the seeming consensus.

As highlighted in the pictures below, they had Pettersson rated as 2nd/3rd material, together with M. Davidsson, D. Samorukov and H. Jokiharju. Our highest ranked goaltender, D. Tarasov, got a 4th to 6th round assessment, like S. Walfridsson and F. Zetterlund.

Almost two months later, and with the first international break in the books, it’s interesting to focus on the players recipient of the main differences.
Our September top ranked prospect Nico Hischier took some weeks to get comfortable on North American rinks, had no goals in his first 5 QMJHL regular season games, but has scored 19 times in his last 19 games, producing at a 2 points per game pace over that span, with a recent spurt of 19 points in his last 6 games. 

His current output (41 points in 24 games, 18 more than the next rookie) is good for second in the league; considering Nico is far from a one dimensional player, that is really encouraging and we would be indeed surprised if he is not going to make McKenzie’s top 15 at midterm.

2018 early top 5 update

Just like many prospects for the 2017 draft, some Europeans eligible for the 2018 draft are already leaving for North America and starting their official season overseas. This update is meant to see where we stand right before guys like A.Svechnikov leave Europe and our rankings as a result.  

After the Hlinka, not much has changed for us. Our appointed top 3 prospects only confirmed they deserve to remain up there and we don’t feel like someone else has really challenged their position so far. With two seasons to go before their NHL draft there is plenty of time for that to happen, but it might not be that easy to catch defenseman Rasmus Dahlin and contend for his #1 spot. In fact, at this time we believe the 16 years old Swede to be the most promising prospect in Europe for the next two NHL drafts.

To finish off our top 5 we still have Skarek and Alexeyev there, as the Czech goalie backstopped his national team to their first win at the home tournament and the Russian defenseman was a solid presence on the blue line for his country before leaving for the WHL. They mark the only change to our early August list as they flip the last two positions.

Rank	Player	Position	Nation
1.	Rasmus Dahlin	D	SWE
2.	Andrei Svechnikov	RW	RUS
3.	Filip Zadina	LW	CZE
4.	Alexander Alexeyev	D	RUS
5.	Jakub Skarek	G	CZE

2017 Draft - September Ranking

Timothy Liljegren is moving backwards in our updated top 20. 

Considering we already had him in the same tier with our next two prospects in early August (see previous ranking), the change is not as big as the drop in the rank might suggest, but so far this season Liljegren's play has nourished some concerns with his decision-making ability. That's an area of strength for both Hischier and Pettersson, and at this point in time we like their long term projection a bit better. Before the draft comes around Liljegren will have plenty of opportunities to address those concerns and to show he can use his obvious tools to his advantage without taking unnecessary risks too frequently. 

Nico Hischier didn't have a particularly successful Hlinka Memorial tourney, but had some impressive moments. He seems to have taken a step forward in his physical development and has been more willing to use his good shot than in the past, something that should help him in his transition to the QMJHL. The fact he is about to start his North American season means this is the last time he appears on our rankings, as they only pertain prospects playing for European clubs. In this pre CHL season update we have four prospects in the same situation, they're identifiable in grey in the ranking below.

Having Hischier, Pettersson and Liljegren in the same 'top 7' tier means we estimate right now there are four more prospects outside of Europe in the same (or higher) tier. It's an indication of where we feel the trio currently belong when adding to the mix the other eligible prospects, it is not an attempt to predict how the draft will unfold.

Rank	Player	Position	Nation	Ov. Rank Projection
1.	Nico Hischier	C	SUI	top 7
2.	Elias Pettersson	C/W	SWE	top 7
3.	Timothy Liljegren	D	SWE	top 7
4.	Klim Kostin	RW	RUS	top 15
5.	Marcus Davidsson	C	SWE	mid 1st
6.	Dmitri Samorukov	D	RUS	mid 1st
7.	Kristian Vesalainen	LW	FIN	mid 1st
8.	Lias Andersson	C	SWE	1st round
9.	Martin Necas	C	CZE	1st round
10.	Henri Jokiharju	D	FIN	1st round
11.	Miro Heiskanen	D	FIN	1st round
12.	Daniil Tarasov	G	RUS	1st round
13.	Urho Vaakanainen	D	FIN	1st round
14.	Adam Ruzicka	W/C	SVK	1st round
15.	Ukko-P. Luukkonen	G	FIN	early 2nd
16.	Lukas Elvenes	RW	SWE	2nd round
17.	Robin Salo	D	FIN	2nd round
18.	Sebastian Walfridsson	D	SWE	2nd round
19.	Jesper Boqvist	C/W	SWE	2nd round
20.	Fabian Zetterlund	RW	SWE	2nd round

Early look at Europe's best for the 2018 NHL Draft

Some promising 2018 eligible players will also get their season underway at the upcoming Hlinka Memorial. Below we list our five favourite prospects playing in Europe two seasons away from their draft.

Based on what we’ve seen last season, the top 3 was pretty easily done.

Dahlin is an all-around Swedish defenseman whose name we believe will become much more popular once Rasmus gets more international exposure, and that might start to happen as soon as next week.

Andrei Svechnikov is instead an already well hyped name, thanks to his ability to score in bunches against his peers.

Filip Zadina is a late ’99 born winger who plays at a very advanced level for his age, so much so that he already dressed for a couple of Extraliga games.

Speaking of playing at an advanced level, his countryman Jakub Skarek is a goalie who already enjoyed some success playing against men last season. Him and steady defenseman Alexander Alexeyev round out our early top 5, edging out a number of other interesting prospects.

Rank	Name	Position	Nation
1.	Rasmus Dahlin	D	SWE
2.	Andrei Svechnikov	RW	RUS
3.	Filip Zadina	LW	CZE
4.	Jakub Skarek	G	CZE
5.	Alexander Alexeyev	D	RUS

2017 Draft pre-season Rankings

The Hlinka Memorial Cup U18 tournament means the start of a new scouting season. With only three days left before the puck drops in Breclav and Bratislava it is time to set where we are at ahead of the first games of the 2017 Draft season, as they will bring a ton of new inputs into the evaluation of the 1999 class.

The ranking that follows is the result of the scouting we did in Europe throughout last season and only pertains to prospects who have been playing for European clubs in 2015/16 (which means players like Valimaki, Tolvanen and N.A. Popugayev do not get considered here).

However, to put things in perspective, we added an overall ranking appraisal. Even if we focus on prospects in Europe, we still have a grasp of how good the draft is supposed to be overall. At this stage, this year's North American crop seems to be a bit weaker than usual, allowing for more Europeans to potentially make their way into the 1st Round. 

Still, this should not be confused with a prediction. This is nothing like a Mock Draft, and the Overall Rank Projection column is just an indicator of where we currently feel these players belong overall. Should they confirm what we have seen so far, that's the range where we would recommend drafting them, which is different from suggesting where they'll eventually get drafted.

We think these players have shown the potential to be there for us next June, no matter where they are currently ranked by other resources. 

Obviously, like everyone else, we'll get a better handle as the season progresses and things will inevitably change, but here come our pre-Hlinka rankings for the 2017 Draft (which by the way are the first ever rankings we release as an independent source, under the "Draftin Europe" mark).

Rank	Player	Position	Nation	Ov. Rank Projection
1.	Timothy Liljegren	D	SWE	top 5
2.	Nico Hischier	C	SUI	top 5
3.	Elias Pettersson	C/W	SWE	top 5
4.	Klim Kostin	RW	RUS	top 15
5.	Marcus Davidsson	C	SWE	mid 1st
6.	Dmitri Samorukov	D	RUS	mid 1st
7.	Urho Vaakanainen	D	FIN	mid 1st
8.	Kristian Vesalainen	LW	FIN	1st round
9.	Lias Andersson	C/W	SWE	1st round
10.	Daniil Tarasov	G	RUS	1st round
11.	Henri Jokiharju	D	FIN	late 1st
12.	Martin Necas	C	CZE	late 1st
13.	Adam Ruzicka	C/W	SVK	late 1st
14.	Ukko-P. Luukkonen	G	FIN	early 2nd
15.	Miro Heiskanen	D	FIN	early 2nd
16.	Lukas Elvenes	RW	SWE	early 2nd
17.	Robin Salo	D	FIN	2nd round
18.	Fabian Zetterlund	RW	SWE	2nd round
19.	Jesper Boqvist	C/W	SWE	2nd round
20.	Maxim Zhukov	G	RUS	late 2nd