Yes, it’s already that time of the year again.



The inaugural, newly minted Hlinka Gretzky Cup has come to a close, and the 2019 NHL draft season is off to a dramatic start thanks to Canada’s controversial semifinal victory over Team USA.



As always, I will be releasing my draft rankings in three installments this season: A preliminary top 62 in November, a midseason top 62 in February, and a final top 100 in May. But having spent a lot of my summer prepping for next season and watching back games from last year, I wanted to close out the Hlinka Gretzky Cup with a pre-emptive look at my top 31 prospects for this draft, as well as a couple of dozen other names to keep an eye on. Because it is so early, and a lot is subject to change over the next 10 months, I have broken down the top 31 into five tiers. Rather than individually rank all of the players, this early look at the class does not rank the players within their tiers. As things stand today, those...