Werenski and Hanafin were clearly better players during their draft years. Besides, who cares what his coaches say. They’re obviously hyping him up.
Same thing with Lundell but you don’t see people hyping him up.
Maybe people should be hyping Lundell though? I think this draft is so stacked that were going to rank more than a handful of the top 10 guys above guys like Kakko, Hischier, Patrick, Koktaniemie, ect.
Besides that, it's hard to say that Werenski was clearly better than Sanderson. Due to their age Zach was in college during his draft year. He never really played a season with the US under 18 team like Sanderson did.
Werenski came up through the ranks with a group that featured Eichel, Matthews, Tkachuk, McAvoy, Hanafin and many others from that stacked 2015 draft class. He was surrounded by elite talent at all times. Sanderson's teammates by comparison are several tiers below in terms of quality, and he was basically carrying the team by himself.
Hanifin on the other hand did the opposite of what Sanderson did in his draft year, and started to slide down the rankings. He still had a lot more hype behind him than Sanderson though it's true. But it's also fair to say that some teams started to fall out of love with him by the time the draft happened, whereas Sanderson is rocketing up the ranks. Some scouts may like him better, comparatively speaking.
And if someone that close to all of these players and their development says that Sanderson is right there with them, I'm more or less inclined to believe them above anyone else. Hands down.