Rounding out our individual draft profiles with the final "consensus" top-20 forward.
Who is Nick Merkley?
According to Pension Plan Puppets' combined draft rankings, Merkley is the 14th-highest ranked prospect... but it's almost a given that he'll be available at #13. A curious fact, explained away fairly easily: his track record is solid, and he should contribute at the NHL level if he follows a normal course of development. So very few scouts are putting him outside of the first round.
Consensus Ranking: #16-20
Highest Ranking: #11, Craig Button, TSN
Lowest Ranking: #23 (North American), NHL Central Scouting
Why he might be gone before #13
Despite a downturn in his point totals during the second half, Merkley still came in as the WHL's sixth-most productive scorer, and he maintained that pace with a dominant performance in the WHL playoffs (27 points in 19 games) to propel the Kelowna Rockets to a WHL title.