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No Nolan Patrick. No Timothy Liljegren. No Casey Mittelstadt.

Three top-of-class draft-eligible NHL prospects — Patrick, of Winnipeg, is the consensus No. 1-overall pick right now while Liljegren, a Swede, and Mittelstadt, an American, are smart bets to crack the Top 10 — will not be suiting up for their respective countries at the 2017 world juniors, which starts next week.

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It’s a shame, really. The annual under-20 championship is often a battleground for elite draft-eligible players (for instance, Patrik Laine/Jesse Puljujarvi vs. Auston Matthews last year) and Patrick, in particular, would have been front and centre as a Canadian playing in Canada.

Fortunately, the three absentees aren’t the only draft-eligible players who can use this elite tournament to catch the eyes of scouts and general managers.

We’ve enlisted the help of Mark Edwards, owner and operator of HockeyProspect.com, a respected independent scouting agency, to bring us up to speed on some lesser knowns.