• PROSPECT-UPDATE ARCHIVE
Christmas Day 2017 wasn't a great day for top performances by 2018 NHL Entry Draft prospects. A handful of games were played in Russia, but there were no top performances there. So there is no daily list for Monday.
The good news is .... welcome to the 2018 World Junior Championship tournament which begins with four preliminary-round games on Tuesday. The first two games are dream matchups for fans of draft prospects, as the Czechs face Russia, and Rasmus Dahlin gets to strut his stuff for Sweden against a rather challenged Belarus squad. The Canada-Finland game would have normally been good for watching draft prospects, but Canada has none on its roster, and the Finns have only one.
A whopping 24 key prospects will be in the annual tournament. Several did not get drafted last year, but will definitely be taken in June. Most are 18 years old, but Dahlin and Russia's Andrei Svechnikov are the main attractions -- two superstar 17-year-olds who will almost certainly be the top two picks in 2018.
To get yourself psyched up for a great tournament, take a look at these highlights of some prominent 2018 prospects in Buffalo: