NHL Draft 2015: List of Top Prospects, Sleepers and 1st-Round Mock Picks

The NHL draft means different things to different organizations. Some teams come into 2015's draft confident they'll be landing the game's next superstar. Others are hoping to find an excellent player who can contribute to a Stanley Cup.

Many teams are looking for a diamond in the rough. Others are concerned with moving picks to acquire veteran contributors or vice versa.

Every team, however, is seeking value in some capacity. And value is what this article will be focused on.

For the full list of top prospects, check out NHL.com's rankings. Below, I'll include my own mock draft, along with three sleepers who may or may not crack the first round on Friday but are worth watching.

The Mock Draft

Pick	Team	Player
1	Edmonton Oilers	Connor McDavid, C, Erie (OHL)
2	Buffalo Sabres	Jack Eichel, C, Boston University
3	Arizona Coyotes	Dylan Strome, C, Erie (OHL)
4	Toronto Maple Leafs	Mitch Marner, C, London (OHL)
5	Carolina Hurricanes	Noah Hanifin, D, Boston College
6	New Jersey Devils	Mikko Rantanen, RW, TPS (FIN)
7	Philadelphia Flyers	Ivan Provorov, D, Brandon (WHL)
8	Columbus Blue Jackets	Zachary Werenski, D, Michigan
9	San Jose Sharks	Pavel Zacha, C/LW, Sarnia (OHL)
10	Colorado Avalanche	Mathew Barzal, C, Seattle (WHL)
11	Florida Panthers	Lawson Crouse, LW, Kingston (OHL)
12	Dallas Stars	Travis Konecny, C, Ottawa (OHL)
13	Los Angeles Kings	Thomas Chabot, D, Saint John (QMJHL)
14	Boston Bruins	Jeremy Roy, D, Sherbrooke (QMJHL)
15	Calgary Flames	Nick Merkley, C/RW, Kelowna (WHL)
16	Edmonton Oilers (Pittsburgh)	Jakub Zboril, D, Saint John (QMJHL)
17	Winnipeg Jets	Kyle Connor, C, Youngstown (USHL)
18	Ottawa Senators	Evgeny Svechnikov, LW, Cape Breton (QMJHL)
19	Detroit Red Wings	Brandon Carlo, D, Tri-City (WHL)
20	Minnesota Wild	Timo Meier, LW, Halifax (QMJHL)
21	Buffalo Sabres (Islanders)	Brock Boeser, RW, Waterloo Blackhawks
22	Washington Capitals	Paul Bittner, LW, Portland (WHL)
23	Vancouver Canucks	Colin White, C/RW, USA U-18 (USHL)
24	Toronto Maple Leafs (Nashville)	Jake Debrusk, LW, Swift Current Broncos (WHL)
25	Winnipeg Jets (St. Louis via Buffalo)	Jansen Harkins, C, Prince George Cougars
26	Montreal Canadiens	Nicolas Roy, C/RW, Chicoutimi (QMJHL)
27	Anaheim Ducks	Jeremy Bracco, C/RW, USA U-18 (USHL)
28	Tampa Bay Lightning (Rangers)	Joel Eriksson Ek, C, Farjestad
29	Philadelphia Flyers (Tampa Bay)	Oliver Kylington, D, AIK (SWE)
30	Arizona Coyotes (Chicago)	Sebastian Aho, D, Skelleftea (Elitserien)

The Top Prospect

Connor McDavid, C, Erie (OHL) 

He's the best prospect to hit the NHL draft since Sidney Crosby. End of story.

The Anomaly

Oliver Kylington, D, AIK IF (Allsvenskan)

Oliver Kylington isn't a sleeper in the sense that folks aren't familiar with him. He's a sleeper in that he appears likely to be selected far lower than his talent suggests he should be taken.

Frankly, his true value is hard to determine because so many folks in the scouting community have such divergent opinions on him.

Maybe that makes him more intriguing than a sleeper. But given that he's gone from a prospect many expected to be taken in the top 10 to one who could drop out of the first round, well, if you believe he'll be a great player, then you have to consider him an amazing value at the end of the first round.

Poor play and injuries dropped his stock this season, but if you believed he was an elite player before, it's tough to suddenly decide he can't play because of one rough year.

He's a fantastic offensive defenseman when he's on his game and as good a playmaker from the blue line as you'll find in this draft. He boasts a good hockey IQ and skating.

One NHL team is either going to get very lucky nabbing him at a discounted rate or end up very disappointed, depending upon whom you ask.

The Sleepers

Jesse Gabrielle, LW, Regina Pats

There is a constant struggle for teams drafting in any sport between balancing an emphasis on overall athleticism and the individual skill sets that best translate to the highest level of the sport.

There's a difference between "pure athletes" and "hockey players," after all, even if the top prospects tend to be a combination of the two.

At this point, Jesse Gabrielle appears to be leaning toward the former, per Gare Joyce of Sportsnet:

"

He might project to be a third- or fourth-round pick, but Gabrielle murdered the anaerobic testing. In peak power he was 10 percent ahead of a closely bunched field, an off-the-charts number. Every once in a while you see an anomaly like that in testing and who knows if it can be translated into his game? Should he be a more dynamic or even elite skater with that lower-body power?

Then there was the bench: Gabrielle managed 20 reps, three clear of the field. Again, the tests don’t raise his stock, but it will get teams to re-open his file and see if there’s something they missed.

"

Don't be surprised if one team finds a thing or two that others missed. That type of athleticism is tough to ignore, and with more seasoning, Gabrielle could emerge as a real sleeper in this draft.

Rasmus Andersson, D, Barrie Colts

Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images

Rasmus Andersson is an intriguing prospect. He's an offensive defenseman who has a powerful shot, scores a lot of goals for his position and distributes the puck nicely.

He's not elite defensively, but he's not a liability either, and he's very effective on the power play. He has good enough size (6'0", 210 lbs) and a solid hockey IQ.

So why is he unlikely to crack the first round?

Well, frankly, in his first season of North American hockey, he often looked out of shape. That certainly didn't help his cause, and Joyce reports that he didn't exactly blow scouts away at the NHL Scouting Combine, either.

But if a team believes he'll improve in that area and is willing to grant that his past season was an adjustment period after spending his entire life playing in Sweden, it'll be getting a skilled defenseman who may never be elite but could round out a top pairing for many years to come.