A few weeks ago we dug into all NHL-affiliated prospects, first ranking the Seattle Kraken’s prospects and then comparing the prospect pools of every team in the league based on player production from the 2023-24 season.

Now, as the calendar turns to June, we look to the future. Draft season is upon us. In less than four weeks, just after 4:00 p.m. PT on Friday, June 28, the San Jose Sharks will make Macklin Celebrini the first overall pick in the 2024 NHL Draft. This much we’re fairly confident about. After that, the real game begins. Who are the best prospects? Who should the Kraken (or your favorite team) be targeting? We dug into the numbers.

Building a quantitative draft board

Almost exactly one year ago, we kicked off our 2023 NHL Draft coverage here at Sound Of Hockey with our inaugural data-only draft prospect ranking. This year, we have been monitoring the 2024 NHL Draft skater prospects with a preseason data-only ranking as well as a midseason data-only check-in. If you want more on how we built those lists, read up here.

Today, we present our final data-only ranking of the 2024 NHL Draft skater prospects. I made a few adjustments to my method of calculating this final ranking, which I will get to in a moment. But, as with each of our previous quantitative rankings, this list is built upon the foundation of an NHL equivalency or “NHLe.” 

What is NHLe? NHLe is a method to compare the scoring proficiency of players in the various professional and junior leagues across the globe. I used Thibaud Chatel’s model, which is the most up-to-date public research in the area. Check out Chatel’s Substack for an in-depth discussion of NHLe. For this project, I used Chatel’s newest model, which has been updated to account for 2023-24 season data.

From there, as before, I made modest adjustments based on factors known to be linked to prospect success rates, including (1) re-draft status, (2) age, and (3) height. For reasons discussed in my preseason post, I also made a modest upward adjustment to the NHLe for low-scoring draft-eligible players playing in high-level professional leagues. 

I then made three additional adjustments in producing this final list. First, I made a change based on positional value, i.e., forward versus defense. I made a small adjustment to account for this in my previous rankings, but, after some research, I determined these adjustments were too conservative and undervalued the scoring provided by defensemen. 

Second, I made a very small upward edit for players who provided value to team goal scoring and suppression of goal scoring against by comparing on-ice plus-minus against team off-ice plus-minus. Third, I also made a very small upward adjustment for players who contributed to a high percentage of their team’s overall goal scoring–whether by scoring the goal itself or assisting on it. These changes are based on the same logic underlying win share and game score metrics. 

The 2024 NHL Draft “data score” ranking

After all of the aforementioned adjustments, I arrived at an adjusted NHLe number. This number no longer projects NHL scoring but is (hopefully) useful in comparing the relative strength of prospects. I then normalized these numbers so that the top-ranked skater prospect (spoiler: It’s Macklin Celebrini) would have a score of 100. This final output I call the prospect’s “data score,” and I used it to rank skater prospects in the 2024 NHL Draft.

You can find the full list–8096 players long–in a Google Sheet here. 

Important note on using the data-only ranking: If you want to filter the data by various categories, highlight row 3, then select “Data,” “Filter Views,” and “Create New Temporary Filter View.” This will allow you to manipulate the data in a way visible only to you.

Note that I only “ranked” players who played at least 15 games in the club league in which they played the most games. I left the other unranked players on the spreadsheet, ordered by their data score, because there are some interesting ones. For example, Aron Kiviharju was thought of as a first-round pick coming into the year, but missed most of the season with an injury. His data score based on the few games he did play would support a late-second- or early-third-round pick, but I didn’t “rank” him at that level because of the limited sample size.

Here are the skaters that rank within the top two rounds (the top 65) based on data score:

Data score also helps us see that there is a ton of value at the very top of the draft, but it levels out fairly quickly from there, settling into a gradual decline that persists for the remainder of the draft. This reminds us that not all “first-round picks” are the same. This year, this data score approach sees only a few elite prospects that separate themselves from the pack.

Expanding our view out to the top-two rounds you get an even stronger sense of the value at the top.

Beyond Celebrini, the value in this draft appears to be in a group of four defensemen–Zeev Buium, Zayne Parekh, Artyom Levshunov, and Sam Dickinson. If any one is available to the Kraken at No. 8, it would be a good pick.

Looking at relative league strength

We can also look at which leagues have the most players and the most valuable individuals that qualify as “draftable” by our data score approach. Limiting our list to the top 225 skater prospects, the OHL has the most with 39, followed by the WHL with 36 and the USHL with 35. Interestingly, the QMJHL has fewer than half as many as its CHL counterparts with only 17. If the U.S. National Team Development Program were combined with the other USHL teams (because it does play a partial USHL schedule), that group together would have the most players, overtaking the OHL.

Judging by total data score of each league’s players in the top 225, again the OHL comes out ahead, followed by the WHL and USHL. Though again fifth in the ranking, data score further emphasizes QMJHL’s relative weakness, showing that it projects to deliver prospects only (approximately) one-third as valuable as their OHL counterparts in this draft.

Addressing a few closing questions

Any surprises in the rankings? Trevor Connelly stands out positively in this ranking, but I should take a moment to underscore there are no qualitative (or “off ice”) adjustments in play here. If I were publishing my personal ranking, I’d have Connelly lower. 

Conversely, I’d have Ivan Demidov a bit higher because I know his data profile is hurt a bit by a handful of lean ice time KHL games. This data score ranking doesn’t account for time on ice because many leagues do not make it available. 

Finally, Anton Silayev is bound to be lower than many expect, but it should be noted again that this ranking is built on scoring data. And even when adjusting Silayev’s KHL production upward as I have done for other low-scoring prospects playing in professional leagues, his scoring is not his primary appeal.

Where are the goalies? As you have noticed, this is a skater-only list built on scoring data. After some effort, I haven’t settled on a theoretically sound method to compare skater and goalie prospects. In the meantime, while that effort is ongoing, I do plan to publish a list that ranks the goalies available in the 2024 NHL Draft against each other based on their quantifiable measures.

It should be noted that many in the scouting community believe that there is not a goalie worthy of a top-100 pick in this year’s draft, so the list above is probably a fair snapshot of the top prospects available.

Are you still doing the Sound Of Hockey Big Board? Yes! Final draft rankings are only just now starting to be published. As in years past, we intend to compile a composite “Big Board” of as many credible rankings as we can.

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Thank you for reading. This project is more time consuming than any other I do for Sound Of Hockey each year. If you have any questions, feedback, or ideas for future directions, please don’t hesitate to write in the comments below or on Twitter @deepseahockey or @sound_hockey.