Our December rankings reveal a few changes in the top 10. While Nathan Mackinnon remains in the top spot, Alex Barkov jumps into the number two spot as he continues to have a strong season. Also moving into our top 10 is Hunter Shinkaruk, the WHL forward sneaks into the #10 spot. Andre Burakowsky slipped out of the top 10 and into the early 20’s after the recent U20 tournament in Sweden.

One player who is a riser this month is Nikita Zadorov of the London Knights. After viewing him last season we loved his potential to be high end prospect in the 2013 NHL Draft. Zadorov is now beginning to show off his tools on a consistent basis, progressing nicely in his rookie season in the OHL. Nikita moves from being just outside our top 30, all the way up to #16 overall. He is a player with the ability to keep rising as we continue to watch his progress in the second half of the OHL season.

Anthony Duclair slides just outside our top 30 and Ryan Hartman of the Plymouth Whalers gets the last spot in the first round. Like Zadorov, Hartman was another player who sat just outside our top 30 in our previous lists.

Tune into the Hockey Prospects radio show on Sirius XM’s NHL Network Radio and TSN 1050 on December 15th as HockeyProspect.com’s, Mark Edwards, will be a guest and chat for a full hour about the latest rankings. You can access podcasts of the Hockey Prospects radio show on TSN 1050’s website here.