The Draft Board: John Tavares

In preparation for the NHL Draft, we're going to run down the top 15 players as ranked by the ISS and have our users vote for how good they think each player is to help us prepare our draft board. Up first, the ISS #1, John Tavares.

Described as the future face of a franchise John Tavares is the consensus #1 overall pick in this year's draft. On that note, down 0-2 Pittsburgh is probably already wondering if it's too late to tank this season and end up with the #1 pick. You've all had his achievements drilled into your heads by now but here we go; at the age of 14 he was the first player taken with Exceptional Player status in the OHL draft. 2006 rookie of the year. 2007 player of the year. Broke Wayne Gretzky's record for most goals scored in a single season in juniors (edit: as a sixteen year old, thanks jrwendelman). All time leading goal scorer in the OHL. 2009 WJHC MVP.

His final OHL stats:

The one issue surrounding Tavares is a question about his work ethic. Tavares had a great showing in the WJHC but a disappointing playoffs in the OHL. Personally, it seems that Tavares is bored playing hockey in the OHL. He missed the age cutoff for the 2008 NHL Entry Draft by the thinnest of margins, and indeed last year there was discussion of moving the draft cutoff deadline to include Tavares. So have at it PPPers, rate John Tavares as a prospect to help us build our draft board!

Rate Tavares on a scale of 1-5. Highest average rating will be our #1 player and so on.