In the NHL Draft, consensus can be a misnomer.Even about the players for whom there is broad agreement, it only takes one team, or one executive, to disagree to change the outlook of the draft.Last year, for example, Ben Kindel was 25th on The Athletic’s consensus big board — which averages out the lists of five prospect experts — and didn’t have a single vote higher than the 20s. But the Pittsburgh Penguins loved him, took him 11th, and a year later that pick looks outstanding after Kindel finished top-10 in Calder Trophy voting.So while the goal of this list is to find the consensus, it’s still the disagreements that make the draft so exciting. And really, that’s one of the best uses of this list, too: seeing how wide the range of opinions is on one player can be just as valuable as knowing who has unanimous backing.Today, we explore that with this year’s consensus draft list, made up of the published lists from The Athletic’s Corey Pronman and Scott Wheeler, FloHockey’s Chris Peters, former NHL GM and TSN director of scouting Craig Button and Sportsnet’s Jason Bukala. We encourage you to read each list and article, too, but by combining them all in one place, the goal is to find the biggest areas of agreement and disagreement, and ultimately form a top-50 big board.There's no surprise at No. 1, as Gavin McKenna slots in at the top. Through some ups and downs along the way, the dynamic Penn State winger is ending the season at the same place he started it, as the favorite to be picked first. He was No. 1 on three of the lists (Wheeler, Peters and Button) we surveyed.Notably, though, it is not unanimous. Bukala has another winger, Frölunda's Ivar Stenberg, ahead of McKenna. And Pronman has him at No. 4, with three defensemen atop his list. Of course, in terms of being the first pick, it only matters what the Toronto Maple Leafs think. But in terms of setting expectations or comparing to recent top picks, it's not the clean sweep Matthew Schaefer had in 2025, or Macklin Celebrini in 2024. There is some dissent.That some of that dissent goes in favor of Stenberg, who shares McKenna's position, will be particularly interesting to monitor as their careers progress. While both are similarly sized offensive wingers, McKenna is seen as having higher upside and more dynamic quality, whereas Stenberg is viewed as having a translatable brand of offense, thanks to his work rate. It makes for at least a good discussion topic, though four of the five lists collected for this exercise favor McKenna.Stenberg, though, is still in the top two on four of the five lists, and that all points to a big decision for the San Jose Sharks picking at No. 2. Do they add Stenberg to a deep pool of talented forward prospects? Or swing for one of the many talented defenseman in the class, addressing more of a need? Pronman's list favors the defensemen, namely his No. 1 prospect Chase Reid, but the other rankers all have Stenberg higher on their board.