The 2010 NHL Draft is almost upon us and as it gets closer so begins the deluge of NHL draft rankings and mock drafts that everyone and their mother seems to put out... and as much as we like to hear lots of different opinions, we also like to know what the consensus opinion is, so we take all the major rankings, a few mock drafts and use some Reaganomics & the Colonel's Secret Recipe to come up with the FHS 2010 Consolidated NHL Draft Rankings.

To see how the consensus opinion ended up last year, take a look back at our 2009 Consolidated Rankings.

Stay tuned over the next two weeks for more of our NHL Draft coverage as well have our very own Mock Draft and the all important Fantasy Draft Rankings.

We've been updating the consolidated rankings each month (almost) so you can see how players have been skyrocketing or sinking over the course of the season.  Here's our final 2010 rankings (based on the 14 sources we considered): 

Notes: 

• Taylor Hall was #1 wire-to-wire this year and wasn't really challenged as he was #1 in 11 of the 14 sources
• Despite some people not being convinced about Cam Fowler as a potential top dman, he was ranked between #3 & #6 in all 14 sources
• Brett Connolly is a solid 6th and would have been higher if it wasn't for ISS having him at #13
• Nino Niederreiter was the biggest riser as he wasn't even in the top 30 before the WJC and has slowly risen all the way to #7
• Alexander Burmistrov is another who has improved his stock all the way from 18th back in October to 8th in the final rankings... this due to a good showing in the mocks and independent rankings as he's only ranked 14th by ISS & the 11th best skater in NA by CS
• There's a wide range of opinions on Mikael Granlund as he's ranked between 3rd & 15th depending on who you listen to
• Ryan Johansen is another one who wasn't in the top 30 back in October but has vaulted himself to the brink of the top 10 now
• Others who have been steadily climbing are #13 Austin Watson, #16 Nick Bjugstad and #23 Jaden Schwartz and those that have been slowly fading are #20 Jonathan Merrill, #25 Evgeny Kuznetsov and #27 Stanislav Galiev
• Jeff Skinner is ranked in the top 10 by 5 of 14 sources but is hurt by CS ranking him as 34th best skater in NA... really???... this is a dude that scored 70 goals this year (regular & playoffs) 
• Jack Campbell makes the biggest rise since April as he's up five spots to #19 and is ranked in the top 15 by 9 of 14 sources
• John McFarland holds onto a 1st round spot but he's been slowly sliding all the way from #6 back in October... but he's not even the worst as Kirill Kabanov was #4 as late as December before falling all the way out of the top 30 (he's #32)
• Calvin Pickard moves into the top 30 for the first time right at the end to give us two goalies in the 1st round