Cosentino on NHL draft: Top 5 rankings

Heading into Friday’s National Hockey League Entry Draft, teams wrestle with the same question every year:

Do you draft for team need or take the best player available?

If it’s the team need approach you prefer, Sportsnet’s CHL Insider Sam Cosentino ranks the Top 5 players by position and offers up a few first-round sleepers and wildcards.

Also, Cosentino projects Friday’s first round with a mock draft of his own: :

Top 5 Centers	Top 5 Left Wingers	Top 5 Right Wingers
1. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins 2. Jonathan Huberdeau 3. Mika Zibanejad 4. Sean Couturier 5. Ryan Strome	1. Gabriel Landeskog 2. Sven Baertschi 3. Phillip Danault 4. Nicklas Jensen 5. Brandon Saad	1. Tomas Jurco 2. Tyler Biggs 3. Joel Armia 4. Rickard Rakell 5. Ty Rattie
Top 5 Defencemen	Top 5 Goaltenders	Top 5 Round 1 sleepers
1. Nathan Beaulieu 2. Adam Larsson 3. Joe Morrow 4. Dougie Hamilton 5. Oscar Klefbom	1. Christopher Gibson 2. John Gibson 3. Jordan Binnington 4. Michael Morrison 5. Benjamin Conz	1. Stuart Percy 2. Stefan Noesen 3. Christopher Gibson 4. Markus Granlund 5. Ryan Sproul
Top 5 Round 1 Wildcards
1. Matt Puempel 2. Sean Couturier 3. Ryan Murphy 4. Jamie Oleksiak 5. Scott Mayfield