The 2024 NHL draft could be remembered as one of the most defence-rich classes ever. It’s just loaded with talented and strong back-end blueliners, some of which are truly unique talents.

Most of them plied their trade in North America. Those players would be Artyom Levshunov, Zayne Parekh, Sam Dickinson, Zeev Buium, and Carter Yakemchuk. As the season progressed, Anton Silayev and Stian Solberg distinguished themselves across the Atlantic and entered the fray.

A little lower on most draft rankings, Solberg stands out in this group. Still, we’re certain that his recent work at the World Championship has pushed him into this tier for more than a handful of NHL organizations. We ranked him 20th overall in the Elite Prospects 2024 NHL Draft Guide, and we could see him surpass some of the names in front of him as he ages and matures.

What’s so fascinating about these prospects is the large variance in their skill sets. There’s a few shutdown defencemen, some more physical than others, but also high-level offensive quarterbacks and two-way, all-arounders.  

This diversity made ranking them a difficult task this season. And we imagine that NHL teams lived through similar debates when making their own lists.

In the end, our value system helped us order them in a way that made sense to us, but this system is unique to our team. Your favourite team may prioritize them differently based on their needs or their approach.

To give you a better indication of these players' strengths and weaknesses, how they compare, and why your organization may select one rather than the other, we’ll rerank them based on specific categories.

This exercise will hopefully enable you to develop your own view of these prospects and determine which one you would most like to see your team add to its prospect pool.