Bob McKenzie's Draft Rankings - A Final Look

I love the NHL draft. This may seem to be a bit of a dis-connect being a Leaf fan and all. The Leafs are not exactly a franchise known for keeping their picks, using their picks wisely, or developing the kids they do manage to grab. This is a team, after all, that once used all of their first round picks to draft three Belleville Bulls.

Each year, in the days leading up to the draft, TSN's Bob McKenzie puts together a master list of the order in which thinks players will be drafted. It's not a ranking per se - like Central Scouting or Red Line Report puts together - rather it's McKenzie's insight into what the final draft order may be, based on discussions with NHL scouts, managers, and other executives.

The following table looks at the actual draft order and how it compared with the master list assembled by McKenzie. As much as expressions like "off the board" were thrown around during the draft coverage, one look at this chart shows that McKenzie was actually very close. Sure, nobody would have seen Hishon going at 17 or Visentin at 27, but otherwise McKenzie was pretty close.

The first column is the actual draft order, followed by the drafting team, McKeznie's projected ranking and finally a differential between the projected draft ranking and where the player was actually taken.

Actual Player Picked	Team	McKenzie’s Index	Differential
1. TAYLOR HALL	Edmonton	1	-
2. TYLER SEGUIN	Boston	2	-
3. ERIK GUDBRANSON	Florida	3	-
4. RYAN JOHANSEN	Columbus	6	+2
5. NINO NIEDERREITER	NYI	7	+2
6. BRETT CONNOLLY	Tampa Bay	8	+2
7. JEFF SKINNER	Carolina	10	+3
8. ALEXANDER BURMISTROV	Atlanta	12	+4
9. MIKAEL GRANLUND	Minnesota	13	+4
10. DYLAN MCILRATH	NYR	15	+5
11. JACK CAMPBELL	Dallas	9	-2
12. CAM FOWLER	Anaheim	5	-7
13. BRANDON GORMLEY	Phoenix	4	-9
14. JADEN SCHWARTZ	St. Louis	29	+15
15. DEREK FORBORT	Los Angeles	11	-4
16. VLADIMIR TARASENKO	St. Louis	16	-
17. JOEY HISHON	Colorado	51	+34
18. AUSTIN WATSON	Nashville	14	-4
19. NICK BJUGSTAD	Florida	19	-
20. BEAU BENNETT	Pittsburgh	18	-2
21. RILEY SHEAHAN	Detroit	21	-
22. JARRED TINORDI	Montreal	23	+1
23. MARK PYSYK	Buffalo	20	-3
24. KEVIN HAYES	Chicago	49	+25
25. QUINTIN HOWDEN	Florida	26	+1
26. EVGENY KUZNETSOV	Washington	24	-2
27. MARK VISENTIN	Phoenix	60	+33
28. CHARLIE COYLE	San Jose	32	+4
29. EMERSON ETEM	Anaheim	17	-12
30. BROCK NELSON	NYI	34	+4