The 2018 NHL draft ended on Saturday, and a whole day has passed without me writing about the draft, so I figure it’s overdue for me to start with a way too early look at the 2019 NHL draft. What follows is a look at the 25 guys I feel are currently the top tier for the upcoming class.



The 2019 class has a couple of star quality prospects at the top of the class in Jack Hughes and Kaapo Kakko.



Jack Hughes is the premier name everyone knows about, but even excluding Hughes, the probable first overall pick, this is a very strong USA crop. The USNTDP boasts one of its strongest classes ever, a big reason why they rolled a lot of teams this past season and have a lot of representation high in the first round.



In the USNTDP history, five of their top 10 U17 scorers were last season: Jack Hughes at first, Cole Caufield at third, Matthew Boldy at fourth, Alex Turcotte at eighth and Trevor Zegras at ninth.



I could see this USNTDP team produce...