2018 NHL Entry Draft Rankings: Pre-World Junior List

It’s that time of year again. The World Junior Hockey Championship is around the corner, which means that junior hockey is on the mind for a lot of people that don’t ordinarily pay attention to it. Luckily, there are a number of us here that keep a close eye on junior hockey all year so you don't have to. Here at Mile High Hockey, we are going to provide you with updates on the 2018 NHL Entry Draft from now until June.

We will provide rankings and news, as well as prospect profiles for some of the players that will be of interest to fans.

Below is my list of the top-50 eligible prospects for next June’s draft. I think it’s important to see where many guys stand before the hype of the World Juniors kicks in.

While Rasmus Dahlin is the name even periphery fans will know, this is really a two-man draft. The gap between Dahlin and Andrei Svechnikov is not as wide as many would believe. In fact, there are a few people in the scouting world that I have spoken to that believe there are a few teams that would have Svechnikov as #1 on their draft board - although that was before his season was derailed by a broken wrist. Dahlin will almost certainly be #1 from now until the draft, but the elite sniping Russian is going to be one heck of a consolation prize for whichever team finishes second in the lottery.

One interesting note is that half of my top-10 are from the US National Team Development Program, showing just how much talent is coming out of this generation of USA Hockey.