NHL Central Scouting Final 2026 Combined Draft Rankings
Upside Hockey's Eldon MacDonald painstakingly aggregates NHL Central Scouting's separated final NHL Draft Rankings.
If you are like our chief rankings officer Eldon MacDonald, you are likely slightly annoyed when NHL Central Scouting puts out four separate rankings for each draft class - an early edition, midterm, and final. Thus, each year, for each edition, Eldon takes on the cumbersome task of combining the segregated lists they put out. NHL CS recently published their Final Rankings in their typical format: North American Skaters | International Skaters | North American Goalies | International Goalies.
The lottery is in the books with the Toronto Maple Leafs jumping up to the coveted number one slot. Draft weekend is drawing near, being held at KeyBank Center in Buffalo on June 26-27th, 2026.
At Upside, we’ve been admittedly publishing plenty of rankings of late. This combined NHL CS rankings is yet another tool for readers and draft geeks alike. To clarify the rankings we do publish and with which you can compare NHL Central Scoutings to:
Our Top 83 Consolidated Draft Rankings (from all the top public rankings available from who deem the best sources are) - update coming soon
Upside’s own April Rankings (our mammoth in-depth spreadsheet) - May update coming soon
Top 100 Final Rankings Big Board With Tiers by Trevor Curtis - our chief prospect profiler gives a different perspective on the draft class with a tier-based analysis
The Upside column below is from our May rankings which will be available separately shortly. How did Central Scouting do this year?
Dare to compare NHL Central Scoutings to:
Our Top 83 Consolidated Draft Rankings (from all the top public rankings available from who deem the best sources are) - update coming soon
Upside’s own April Rankings (our mammoth in-depth spreadsheet) - May update coming soon
Top 100 Final Rankings Big Board With Tiers by Trevor Curtis - our chief prospect profiler gives a different perspective on the draft class
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