DuPont the definitive No.1 player in TSN’s pre-season draft ranking

The battle for headliner status in TSN’s annual draft ranking begins as a one-sided affair.

Brilliant Michigan right defenceman Landon DuPont received all nine No. 1 votes in the TSN pre-season draft ranking poll.

With a primary assist awarded to FloHockey’s NHL Draft & Prospect Analyst Chris Peters, TSN surveyed eight NHL team scouts to rank the top players available for the 2027 draft. Button and Peters collaborated on a single TSN list to bring the total number of ballots to nine.

DuPont’s position atop the list should come as no surprise.

DuPont was granted exceptional player status by Hockey Canada in 2024, chosen first overall in the 2024 Western Hockey League draft, named Canadian Hockey League rookie of the year in 2025 and reached the Memorial Cup final in 2026.

He enters his draft year as the definitive No.1-ranked player.

TSN Director of Scouting Craig Button puts it this way: “DuPont is destined to be a franchise player in the NHL, period.”

As for who begins the season as the best of the rest of the draft class, it’s crystal clear.

Hulking Russian left winger Nazar Privalov of CSKA was ranked No. 2 on eight of nine lists.

DuPont and Privalov are not exactly opposites, but they do offer a study in contrasts: one is a defenceman, the other a forward. One is 5-foot-11, the other 6-foot-4.

The hockey world has been focused on Dupont since the Calgary native joined Everett Silvertips as a 15-year-old.

He collected 17 goals and 43 assists, becoming the first rookie defenceman to record 50-plus points since Hockey Hall of Famer Scott Niedermayer in 1989-90.

DuPont followed up with 73 points in 63 games last season, helping lead Everett to the Memorial Cup final before losing to the Kitchener Rangers.

Button compares DuPont to the highest-paid player in the NHL, Colorado superstar defenceman Cale Makar.“Landon is a lower-case Makar,” said Button. “He is a blank-canvas painter with electric feet and a lightning-fast mind.”

Like DuPont, Makar was a 5-foot-11 defenceman when he went fourth overall to Colorado in 2017. Makar has since proved himself to be that draft year’s best player.

The only time in NHL history a sub-6-foot defenceman has been drafted first overall was Wendel Clark in 1985, and he was converted to a left winger on Day 1 of training camp with Toronto.

DuPont is playing for the Wolverines this season, the second straight super prospect to leave the WHL for U.S. college hockey in his draft year after the NCAA opened its doors to major junior players in 2025.

Gavin McKenna preceded him a year ago, departing Medicine Hat for Penn State. The move paid off for McKenna, with the Toronto Maple Leafs selecting him first in the 2026 NHL Draft.

U.S. college players have gone first overall only five times in NHL draft history - three times in the past six years - but never in back-to-back years. Will it happen in just the second year of hockey’s new era of NCAA major junior eligibility?

“DuPont is as intriguing as any prospect in this draft because it feels like we all have the most tape on him,” said Peters. “We have two WHL seasons that had exceptional results and now we’ll see how he transitions to college.”

Privalov, meanwhile, is part of an extraordinary contingent of Russian prospects, with four making it into TSN’s pre-season top 20. They are No. 2 Privalov, No. 4 left winger Sergei Skvortsov, No. 14 centre Andrei Pustovoy and No. 20 centre Yevgeni Yakunin.

Two Russians have gone in the top five only once in NHL draft history – in 2004 when Alex Ovechkin went first overall and Evgeny Malkin second. Privalov and Skvortsov would be the second pair.

Privalov was named rookie of the year in Russia’s top junior league after scoring 30 goals in 51 games with Red Army Moscow.

“Privalov may have people the most excited because of his package of size and skill,” said Peters. “But he still comes with some unknowns. His goal numbers were exciting in the MHL last season, but the quality of that level has come into question in recent years.”

Button calls Privalov an “imposing, multi-dimensional scorer.”

Joining DuPont, Privalov and Skvortsov in TSN’s pre-season top five are a pair of centres playing in the Quebec Martimes Junior Hockey League: No. 3 American centre Carter Meyer of Quebec and No. 5 Canadian centre Alexis Joseph of Saint John.

Joseph was the No. 1 pick in the 2025 QMJHL Draft and the only player other than Privalov to receive a No. 2 vote in the TSN poll.

TSN’s Pre-Season Draft Ranking - The Top 20