Re-ranking the 2021 NHL Draft class five years later

If there was ever a year for scouts to excuse their misses, it’s this one. COVID-19 wrecked the 2021 NHL Draft.

​Many CHLers, especially the OHLers, barely touched the ice. Some played only in the Under-18 tournament at the end of the season, in third- and fourth-line roles, giving scouts limited opportunities to evaluate their play. Others went to Europe, playing in tertiary leagues that accepted them, but lacked history at the NHL draft.​

A large part of scouting is finding comparables for prospects. You evaluate them against their peers in their draft classes, past draft classes, and in the league they play in.  When these prospects play in the AlpsHL or HockeyEttan, those comparisons become impossible.

​In hindsight, our team should have relied on draft-minus-one tape more than we did. That’s the biggest lesson we drew from this re-draft.

​Over the past couple of years, not only have we started scouting prospects more heavily before their draft year, but we’ve also added scouts for youth leagues across the world. Now, we’re following top prospects from their 14- or 15-year-old season, all the way to their draft year and beyond.

​While this re-ranking exposes some shameful misses of the Elite Prospects team, we’re sharing these misses with the NHL, too. Thus, they hurt less than some of the ones we had in 2020. In some ways, this re-ranking is shaping more favorably to us than the 2020 re-ranking we did a couple of weeks ago.

​That’s progress!

This is not a re-draft. It’s a re-ranking.

​We’re not picking the players that teams should have selected based on their needs in 2021, considering how their careers are going.

​Instead, we’re re-ranking players based on the value they provide, with a heavy emphasis on analytics. To order them, we considered production, the number of seasons they spent in the league, Stanley Cups, remaining development runway, and players' market value. The eye test also plays a large role. Players providing more game-breaking skills and three-zone impact rose higher.

​We’re also showing our own draft ranking back then, and reflecting on the lessons we learned while watching these players develop.

In hindsight, this is not a strong draft class. A few scoring forwards and a couple of top-line-calibre defencemen emerged, but many of the prospects who were projected to have high impacts are still figuring out their games.

​At the moment, one player stands above the rest: Wyatt Johnston. He sits comfortably at first overall in this re-ranking without a clear challenger at the moment. Players like Dylan Guenther, Simon Edvinsson, and Owen Power could rise up and take that spot down the road. To get there, their opportunities would have to grow, as would their overall game.

​We considered ranking Matthew Knies as high as second on this list, but a down season in terms of play-driving had us place him more conservatively at fourth overall.

​The next tier features a trio of players we ranked first to third overall: Matthew Beniers, William Eklund, and Owen Power. For now, their underlying metrics suggest we should keep that same order, while we wait to see if Power can use Buffalo’s successful season as a springboard to a new level of play.

​Ranking Janis Moser proved highly difficult. He’s older than most of the class, having been drafted as a re-entry, and only has one elite season under his belt: the current one. His underlying numbers paint him as an elite blue-liner. The eye test agrees, to an extent, but the Tampa Bay Lightning's environment may be a factor here. Has it given Moser a jolt, or is he having the best stretch of his career?

We’ll see how he evolves over the next few years. For now, we placed him at eighth overall.

​Brandt Clarke, Jesper Wallstedt, and Luke Hughes close out the top-11, before a few surprises. They all have had stretches of high-end play, too, but there are question marks clinging to them.

​Wallstedt could win the Minnesota Wild cage with more strong performances, but he’s only beginning his NHL career and remains very much a prospect compared to other players on this list. Hughes has earned the largest role earliest, but hasn’t lived up to it, accumulating some of the worst defensive metrics in the league. The Los Angeles Kings seem to finally be giving Clarke more opportunities, including the top power play role that fits his talents. He’s looking like the total package as a back-end play-driver at five-on-five, too, but the underlying numbers may be overselling his actual defensive capabilities.

​Following the criteria above and valuing the upside of the players who have just arrived in their intended roles and are living up to expectations, we placed Wallstedt and Clarke ahead of Hughes, in that order.

​

​One of the biggest draft steals in NHL history, Johnston holds the first overall spot, offering a variety of high-end skills that enable him to make the best play in most situations.

​On the wall, Johnston seals pucks from the opposition, keeping an interior position and maintaining a clear awareness of the ice under pressure. His passes fly out of scrums, connecting with teammates in the middle. He wastes no time repositioning for the next play and provides consistent outlets to teammates. His highly effective pass-and-reposition style is the biggest reason why he’s driving the play.. Sneaking past defenders, timing his movements to the slot, and creating backdoor plays, he’s getting scoring chances after scoring chances. He’s also a clever rush orchestrator, capable of counter-attacking, leveraging options all around him to fake defenders, and beat vulnerable ones.

​On top of his playmaking, physical, off-puck, and scoring skills, Johnston is also developing a ton of great habits and tricks that give him the edge even against top competition. He’s making plays on his first touch, catching pucks dynamically, using subtle stick lifts and self-passes to beat checking pressure, and layering more and more deception in his plays as he’s maturing.

​At the moment, Johnston is trading some defensive value in favour of maximizing his offensive contribution, but as he possesses all the skills necessary to improve his shutdown game, we believe his two-way impact will only grow as he matures.

​In his prime, Johnston looks like one of the best forwards in the NHL. If he can add a bit more agility and balance risk and reward slightly better in his plays, he will cement that status.

​This is a player we completely missed, ranking him 54th overall, below many other players who won’t ever sniff the NHL.

​Missing his entire OHL season and mostly used in a third-line, checking role at the U18 World Championship in his draft year, Johnston barely showed his potential. He didn’t get the minutes, good puck touches, or the linemates necessary to shine.

​An evaluator paying close attention could see many projectable elements, however. He linked give-and-goes into backdoor plays, protected the puck with his body while eluding pressure, and constantly blocked the opposition on the forecheck. He had the frame, speed, and skill to earn a higher spot on our board and an offensive role in the NHL.  

​Our team instead saw him for what he was at the tournament, a checker. We didn’t look past his limited role enough.

​We should have weighted his draft-minus-one performance in the OHL more heavily. When he did get more minutes in the league, Johnston showed his playmaking talent regularly, spotting and connecting with outlets instantly, making plays to the slot, and planning his offensive runs in advance. All the marks of a higher-end hockey sense were there.

​The Dallas Stars saw them.

​

​While many prospects on this list have evolved significantly since their draft year, Guenther has found success in the NHL playing largely the same game he had in the WHL. He hunts shooting opportunities in the offensive zone, letting teammates carry the puck and finding space in and around the slot and the net.

​Otherwise, he's playing a simple game, beating the opposition to the net and focusing on preventing chances with sound positioning and quick pressure.

​In 2021, we still prioritized playmakers over complementary shooters like Guenther, but we started to see their value, especially if they also boasted power forward skills. We ranked him seventh. In this re-ranking, he's jumping to second, becoming about what we projected, with a bit more defensive value than anticipated.

​Making draft boards at Elite Prospects is a collaborative process. Takes emerge from our debates, summed evaluations, and the influence we have over each other. That being said, Edvinsson was a prospect I held in significantly higher esteem than our consensus in 2021, and one that we did end up ranking too low. His progression since his draft year has influenced the way we now project defencemen.

​Edvinsson evolved from a high-event, creative, but mistake-prone playmaker in his draft year into a much more complete defenceman. In the end, the concerns about his decision-making didn't matter, as he broke his bad habits and learned to use his special tools to shut down the opposition. It took him longer to make an impact than other defencemen in the class, but that's also because of Detroit’s slower development system.

​We attribute part of this success story to development, but Edvinsson’s archetype also had more value than we anticipated.

​Toolsy defencemen possessing size, range, and puck skills, have multiple pathways to success. They retain significant advantages over their peers as they mature and can leverage those advantages to earn top roles.

​If Edvinsson earns more offensive opportunities one day, we may see his puck skills reemerge. But even if he remains a highly mobile and tangy, two-way defenceman, he will maintain top-5 value in this draft.

Knies was one of the biggest hits of the Dubas era Toronto Maple Leafs, a first-line winger drafted at 57th overall. We ranked him 66th.

​We appreciated his tools in his draft year, his size and mobility and the flashes of physicality, but didn't rate them high enough. We mainly struggled to find an NHL role for a player who lacked a clear identity and seemed to stagnate in his progression. In some games, he flashed transition skills, carrying the puck across zones, outpacing defenders, and slipping the puck under their sticks. In others, his battle abilities stood out more, but he wasn't connecting passes at a high rate or generating enough scoring chances in projectable ways.

​It's by taking into account the bulk of his work and banking on the development of his already projectable tools, a bit like Edvinsson, that one could see upside in his game.

​Immediately upon joining the University of Minnesota, we saw his ability to complement top-end teammates with his puck-retrieving skills and playmaking ability. We knew we had made a mistake and immediately changed our projection to a top-six role.

​Knows remains more of a complementary player than a true line-driver. His play has dipped this season, probably due to an injury, but his power playmaker skillset, prized around the league, gives him top-5 value in this draft.

​We projected that Beniers would score more than he has. A few 60- to 70-point seasons seemed within his capabilities, but otherwise he has become what most envisioned: a true centre and one of the top defensive players in the NHL.

​There aren't many lessons to draw from his development, aside from the lower scoring. His game looked entirely projectable to the NHL in his draft year, as he already skated the right routes, reloaded above the play in a timely way, and outworked the opposition, engaging them physically and taking away options.

​A player who mostly used his speed to create and took available plays. Beniers lacked high-end playmaking abilities and a talent for manipulating defences. He never really developed these post-draft. It isn't surprising. Most players who lack those elements never develop them.

​One of our favorite prospects in the 2021 NHL Draft, Eklund had a slower ascension to his projected top-six role. He slowly reworked his game, becoming a better goal-scorer and overall play-driver, despite lacking the size and skating ability of other forwards at the top end of this list.

​There are still lessons to draw from Eklund’s projection, ones he immediately applied to his brother, a player of similar profile who came through the draft last season.

​Eklund’s ability to manipulate defenders, especially along the walls, was at the centre of his projection. We thought he would dominate the walls in the same way at the NHL level, faking and eluding defenders. He has, to an extent. Bigger and larger defenders can still catch up to him in those situations and especially off the rush, forcing him to push the limits of his hockey sense to find plays.

​Hockey sense matters most, but the game remains harder for smaller players who lack explosiveness. We’re now slightly more conservative when ranking elite thinkers who lack physical advantages.

Drafted 60th overall by the Arizona Coyotes as a double re-entry and subsequently traded to the Tampa Bay Lightning, Moser may be the surprise of the NHL this season. He’s posting elite underlying numbers in a high-minute role and imposing himself as one of the best blue liners in the NHL.

There’s no question that the Tampa Bay Lightning system has bolstered Moser’s profile, giving him clear guidelines in which he now excels. But there’s more to the story here. This is a player who has always had the capabilities to excel, and just needed the right fit.

​Jon Cooper calls him the eraser. Moser gaps up hard on opponents, barely giving them space, and defends patiently in his zone, taking away options until he can pounce on the puck. His offensive approach — avoiding mistakes, taking shots on net, and distributing passes to his talented teammates — also helps boost his possession metrics. He’s not giving the opposition easy chances and is being rewarded for it.

While he may not sustain this level of success throughout his career, his current season has significantly elevated his status.

The first lesson here is that while creativity matters among defencemen, finding players with the right tools and mentality may matter even more. Defencemen operate mostly as facilitators. If they can insulate their more creative teammates with their puck management, defensive skills, and calculated approach to the game, they will find success in competitive teams and jump way up in re-rankings.

The second lesson is that toolsy late bloomers finding success in professional leagues may be worth a closer look.

Drafted first overall in 2021, Power still has time to live up to his selection. In moments over the past few seasons, he has, transforming into a top-end play-driver capable of defending at a higher level and pushing the offence.

Anticipating the game like a forward and playing like one in some situations, Owen Power jumps in gaps in the offence, linking passing plays, giving backdoor options, and making the offence flow. But in a team featuring Bowen Byram and Rasmus Dahlin, Power hasn’t always earned the power play minutes he may have gotten in another organization.

Outside of his activations and tactical understanding of the offence, his game has left more to be desired at the NHL level.

A loose gap off the rush and a lack of stopping ability in the defensive zone have cost the Sabres more than a few goals. Power has grown more physical, but he remains more of a stick-on-puck defenceman than a true engager, despite having the stature to play this kind of harder, shutdown game. While we did give him higher marks for his hockey sense and passing in his draft year, we didn’t see him as a true quarterback, but more of a facilitator.

Although we still believe in his potential, so far, our draft-year concerns about his occasional passivity have proven valid.  

Thanks to his impressive breakout campaign this season, Wallstedt is the most legitimate goaltender of the 2021 NHL draft class. While this was expected to be the case in his draft year, when Elite Prospects had him ranked sixth overall, there were a lot more growing pains than anticipated.

Wallstedt is the epitome of an all-around goaltender. His game is based on his tracking and play-reading, which inform his ability to remain positional. While his skating is great, he rarely needs to flash it, instead opting for smaller micro-adjustments, minimizing excess movement

His biggest issue so far has been a lack of higher-end athleticism, which prevents him from stopping back-door plays and one-timers, issues that haunted him with the defensively liberal Iowa Wild the last couple of seasons. Under a more defensively rigorous Minnesota squad, he’s finding success in stopping back-door one-timers by going post-to-post on his goal line. Still, it will likely be what holds him back from becoming a truly elite goaltender.

The major lesson learnt surrounding Wallstedt’s development is to trust in the tools, even when stuck in a less-than-ideal development environment. He looked frankly out of it mentally in Iowa last season due to the constant barrage of higher-danger chances, with his nonchalance bleeding into his few NHL starts. It cannot be understated how much a new season can serve as a mental reset, especially when finally being given a chance to make the NHL full-time after Marc-André Fleury’s retirement.

Clarke seems to finally be earning a larger role with the Los Angeles Kings, and he’s using it to showcase his offensive skills more often. He’s activating and looking for plays to slot, linking up with teammates across the ice, and deceiving defenders. Always moving and using his trademark ten-and-two skating, he’s attacking space in front of him, inviting pressure, beating it, and orchestrating passing plays.

All of those plays we saw regularly in his draft year. They made up the core of his projection. To us, Clarke was a powerplay one quarterback in the making, an elite playmaker from the back-end, capable of spotting plays that most didn’t.

What worried our team, however, was Clarke’s knock-kneed skating and how it would influence his ability to defend and escape pressure.

Almost incapable of using his outside edges effectively, the defenceman has had to rely on his deception, stickhandling, and passing skills to move the puck and create scoring chances. His defensive game is almost entirely based on his stickwork and timing. Absorbing rushes in a glide and sweeping at the puck, he can be easily manipulated and shaken. His hunched-over and wide skating posture also reduces his strength in net-front battles, making it harder for him to push back opponents.

In many ways, Clarke is becoming the player most of our scouts envisioned, displaying a similar set of strengths and weaknesses in the NHL as in his draft year. However, we anticipated that he would earn a power play one role and score at a higher rate earlier than he has.

Hughes’ effortless strides and elusiveness make him look like an elite player when he skates the puck in the neutral zone. Just like his brothers, he inherited a high level of talent. But contrary to them, Luke hasn’t developed as much of an ability to influence the game with his tools.

Lacking awareness and anticipation on the offence, he only goes as far as his skating takes him. He can easily complement the plays of teammates, activating and carrying pucks, but if there’s not an evident play to make, he struggles to adapt. I’s the same story defensively. He can jump on passes, intercept them, and push the play up the ice, but he has some difficulty handling 2-on-1s, resisting deception, and rotating against the cycle. His physical play is improving, but he’s not using his skating and size to his full advantage.

Toolsy players placed in large roles tend to continue to develop over their career. Hughes should still prove valuable in a top-four offensive role, matched with highly creative teammates. Borrowing their hockey sense and following the plays they outline, he could facilitate plays and pick up points, but he may always need to be insulated.

​Hughes’ inability to read the game and his high-risk style of play led us to drop him in our ranking in his draft year. We slotted him at 11th overall. That’s where he also falls in his re-ranking. His results aren’t promising, but his usage, production, and remaining development runway give us hope that he may live up to his potential at some point.

Clarke is finding ways to reduce scoring chances despite his limitations. Hughes will have to do the same if he wants to live up to his contract.

​It’s hard to define what a win is in a re-ranking.

​We placed Jackson Blake 73rd in 2021, much higher than consensus, largely because of our Head Crossover Scout Daniel Gee’s input. The Hurricanes drafted him 109th overall. That means they also had Blake significantly higher than this spot.

​Now, Blake is scoring his share of points, while accumulating elite underlying numbers and looking much better than a 73rd overall or 109th overall prospect. There’s something to be said about Carolina’s system and how it may be boosting some players’ analytical profiles, but even when accounting for that, Blake looks like a top-15 player in the class.

Blake plays a highly calculated game, pressuring hard and at the right times. He goes out of his way to help plug holes in his team’s coverage and spots vulnerabilities in the opposition’s coverage, making plays counter to pressure, flashing higher-end stickhandling skills, and manipulating the opposition.

He looks like the perfect middle-six, complementary scorer, a player who can also move up the lineup and give a boost to a top-six line.  

Blake improved his off-puck game noticeably following his draft year, adding pace and becoming a much more projectable defensive player. As re-rankings are always hard on evaluators, we’re going to take the wins where we can find them.

This is not a player we ever expected to rank this high in a re-ranking, but Josh Doan is forcing our hand with the season he’s having in Buffalo. The team is winning and he’s helping push them up the standings.

We assigned Josh Doan an F-grade in 2021. He’s now 12th on this list.

Oops.

Playing for a stacked Chicago Steel team in 2019-20, Doan barely scored in his first draft year. He passed through the draft. In a much bigger role the following next season, his production shot up, forcing scouts to re-evaluate his potential. We believed his scoring was propped up by the creative Steel environment and that his skating would limit his NHL potential.

This season, Doan has earned a middle-six NHL role and likely his first 50-plus points season. More than his role or production, however, it’s Doan’s underlying numbers that have led to this re-ranking.

Doan controls games, passing to the right targets, acting as a battering ram on the forecheck, and escaping the wall with the puck. We underrated his small-area skills, notably awareness and ability to hook the puck around sticks to teammates in space. While he lacks skating pace, he makes enough plays in movement, can shield possession, and buy time to make plays. On top of those skills, Doan can also win battles around the net, add deception to his release, and play a patient defensive game based on timing, positioning, and effort.

We missed on a lot more Josh Doan-types in 2020 than in 2021. Sometimes, it takes time to get the necessary feedback to learn some scouting lessons. Now, we give those scoring re-entries more of a look and value players of Doan’s profile a lot more, even if they lack flashy skills and mobility.

In the end, his frame, hockey sense, shooting skills, and physical and defensive play mattered more than his weaknesses.

Usually, if a player has played only one NHL game as a draft-plus-five prospect, there would be alarm bells ringing; however, this is all part of the plan for 15th overall pick Sebastian Cossa. His development has been meticulous, with Cossa only moving up after he’s proven he can dominate at the level he's played at.

Since his draft year, his skating has come along. Those concerns were always overblown. The biggest improvements for him have been using his large frame while reining in his depth. All that’s really left is ensuring he comes into games warm and finding consistency, which will be the true mark of elite upside should he find it.

It’s no surprise that a goaltender who stands at 6-foot-6, with high-end tracking, athleticism, work rate, and skating, has come along as far as he has. Expect him to enter the NHL full-time next season as Cam Talbot’s deal comes to an end, with the starting role in Detroit being a possibility in the not-too-distant future.

For diminutive players looking to make the NHL, there’s no better model to follow than Logan Stankoven. While he has a set of above-average abilities and can make regular plays, it’s his motor that is the foundation of his NHL game.

Not the prettiest skater, Stankoven simply strides and plays faster than everyone else. The puck rarely stays on his stick for long under pressure; he gets it off the wall instantly, creates give-and-goes, and drives inside. Always mapping the ice, he knows where his outlets are, where he has to position, who’s coming behind him, and where he has to send the puck next. He can dangle, deceive, fire off passes, and even score around the net. His varied skills and defensive acumen make him valuable in most situations.

For a time, it looked like Stankoven would shoot way past our draft-year placement in a re-ranking, but he has settled into a role that best fits his strengths and limitations.

NHLers can take advantage of his size or breakneck pace of play, outmuscling and baiting him. Stankoven has to force some plays earlier than most, and his mechanical fluidity sometimes hinders him in tight spaces.

We overestimated how much his quirky skating would affect his play at higher levels.  That was the main reason why we ranked him at 26th overall. Yes, skating mechanics matter, but pace, stride rate, and skating habits matter more as players get stronger and their output grows.

We value technical ability less in our evaluation now and how players use their skating more.

One of the Anaheim Ducks' main problems — a good one to have — is that they’re drafting and developing too many good defencemen. It becomes impossible to play them all in roles that favour their skill set.

Based on his underlying numbers and the way Olen Zellweger has been performing at the NHL level, he should be receiving better deployment, but he’s getting third-to-second pair minutes and only features infrequently on the power play.

Zellweger pushes the offensive play like some of the top quarterbacks in the league. Exploding forward on his first touch of the puck, he grabs all available space, challenging defenders, displacing them, and creating plays around them. Always pinching, activating, and carrying pucks, he’s on the hunt for opportunities to influence the game. He finds them often.

His game carries a higher level of risk than your typical defenceman and he lacks strength in battles and range in the defensive zone, Zellweger is finding ways to limit chances against by maintaining a deep, explosive posture, bouncing from check to check, and off the wall with loose pucks.

Seeing him play only 11 games at the WHL level and eight at the Under-18 tournament, we underestimated his offensive strengths in his draft year — or how much his elite skating could enable him to take over shifts at the NHL level. He exploded in his draft-plus-one season, adding more deception to his plays and becoming a much more creative playmaker.

We ranked him 28th. This placement looks fair now, considering the role Zellweger is playing, but we believe he has more to offer. Until Zellweger has an opportunity to become the main back-end play-driver on a team, we won’t know his exact potential.

We ranked Ryker Evans around the same spot in our 2020 top-32 re-ranking, believing he showed enough in his original draft year to earn a selection. But in reality, he was a 2021 pick and is still eligible for this exercise. We’re re-re-ranking him now.

If you want to read our write-up on Evans, here’s a link to our 2020 list.

One of the biggest fallers in this re-ranking, Mason McTavish hasn’t lived up to his draft selection. Five years after his draft, he remains more of a project and the Ducks are still awaiting his breakout.

McTavish lacks a clear identity. A playmaker, he can land slot passes and find teammates across the ice, but he’s not the kind of player who controls the ice with deception. He can score goals, but not at a Cutter Gauthier rate. He can play a physical game, but lacks the competitive fire needed to become a high-end checking force. And while he’s technically a second-line centre, his defensive play leaves a lot to be desired. Poor in-zone awareness and puck management are tanking his expected goals against metrics.

In hindsight, our projection and ranking of McTavish look off, like for many other OHLers in 2021.

We saw him as a cerebral centre, making the right plays at the right time and dominating opponents in tight spaces. While his wall game did translate to the NHL, he isn’t becoming a two-way, play-driver, but more of a player who finds his opportunities in chaos. We also aren’t seeing his shooting skills as much as we anticipated.

To earn his reputation as a top-six centre, McTavish will first have to solidify his defensive game and become a more reliable, consistent player.

Another one of our favorite 2021 NHL Draft prospects, Mackie Samoskevich, has earned a role with the Florida Panthers and seen it expand as the team’s injuries have mounted. We ranked him 19th overall. This ranking looks valid in hindsight.

We would be lying, however, if we said we anticipated the kind of player that Samoskevich would become at the NHL level. A creative force in his draft year, possessing top-of-the-draft-class stickhandling skills, and relying on crossover-heavy rush game, he would carve out defences, dangling defenders on first touch, deceiving them, and creating deft passing plays.  

We still see flashes of creativity in his play at the NHL level, but he has also streamlined his game significantly, putting more emphasis on driving the net and insulating his team. Adding strength, developing his wall play, and freeing up his skating helped him become a useful, supportive centre, posting good all-around play-driving results.

Adaptability is one of the biggest drivers of player success. Above-average hockey sense can help players rework their game and use their tools in different roles. It gives them more pathways to success.

If Samoskevich gets more ice-time at some point in his career, his main offensive skills could resurface.

One can draw many parallels between Stankoven and Matthew Coronato. Both players are undersized and skate suboptimally, but their work ethic, fearlessness, and above-average playmaking touch have enabled them to succeed in middle-six roles.

Emptying his energy tank every shift, Coronato motors up and down the ice, getting to loose pucks first, putting in a full effort defensively, and fighting to keep possession. He connects impressive plays, can invite and beat pressure, and score in and around the crease.

We ranked him too low in hindsight, believing that his hunched-over skating would be a bigger issue than it has. It forces him to handle the puck way in front of him, exposing it to defenders. We underestimated his hockey sense, but still gave him higher marks for his ability to support teammates, find space to get scoring chances, and link up passing plays.

While Coronato shot past our bottom-six projection, he may not establish himself as a true top-six driver either, the role Calgary likely envisioned for him. He may remain more of a middle-six worker, scoring a point every other game for as long as he can power through his inefficient stride and sustain his pace of play.

A change in coaching staff was supposed to unlock Kent Johnson, bringing him back to his 2024-25 level, when he scored 57 points in 68 games. But after a tryout in a clear top-six role, Johnson is being sheltered again, receiving fourth-line minutes. Boosted by an extremely high on-ice shooting percentage, his 0.84 points-per-game 2024-25 scoring season is in danger of being an anomaly in Johnson’s career.

At the NHL level, Johnson can carry the puck across zones, decelerating and accelerating, changing lanes, and slipping the puck under sticks to get his team into the offensive zone, where he can continue to show his playmaking skills. He can deceive the opposition and beat goalies cleanly with shots from the slot.

But his game lacks the foundation to become a consistent top-six threat. Lacking strength in battles, he struggles to win them and generate offence from the wall. He forces plays, turning the puck over and putting his team in a scramble, and while his stickhandling ability remains high-end in the NHL, some mechanical skating quirks continue to limit the effectiveness of his hands.

All of those weaknesses were present in Johnson’s game in his draft year, but considering his lack of physical maturity and the big jump he made from the BCHL to the NCAA, we believed that he would erase some of them as he aged. We also valued his motor, but his lack of defensive awareness and instinct continues to cost his team.

Some players do take significant leaps in their development, leveraging their high-end assets to become even better players. Johnson didn’t. Too talented for a bottom-six role but not enough for a top-line role, industrious but not defensively conscious, he may struggle to find a role on a competitive team without significant changes to his game.

Never did we anticipate that Oliver Kapanen, a player we ranked 65th overall, would score 20 goals in the NHL, let alone do it in his rookie year and in 63 games.

In our review of the performance of Under-23 forwards at the Olympics, we called him the ultimate plug-and-play facilitator. Some elements of his game remind us of Sean Monahan, who started his career next to Johnny Gaudreau. While Kapanen himself lacks special elements, he borrows those from teammates, using their playmaking or physical skills to get passes in space and fire off of them. He also provides a safety net for others, rotating above the play ahead of turnovers and removing attacking possibilities for the opposition.

That being said, his individual (18%) and on-ice (14%) shooting percentages make us believe that his rookie season may be the best of his career. Pucks go in at an unsustainably high rate when he’s on the ice and his underlying metrics don’t paint him as a play-driver or a player having a higher level of defensive potential.

In the end, Kapanen may just have found himself in the perfect spot at the perfect time, next to an emerging Ivan Demidov and a Juraj Slafkovský entering his prime.  

If he can grow into his role, sustain his production, and keep a second-pivot role in the Habs’ lineup over multiple seasons, he will rise significantly on this list.

For a time, it looked like Zachary Bolduc may ascend to a top-six role, using his surge with the Blues in 2024-25 as a springboard to a large role with the Canadiens. But after a few weeks of impressive performances, the forward went back to his baseline, mostly functioning as a speedy checker.

Our team questioned his hockey sense in his draft year, seeing him as a toolsy scorer, but not a player whose offence would translate to the NHL.

What we didn’t anticipate was that Bolduc would recycle those tools into a checking game and become a legitimate pressure machine, boosting his defensive metrics. Rare are the forwards who manage to completely rework their identity as they develop. If he can maintain his pace of play and put up the occasional goal, he will continue to earn minutes as a bottom-six forward.

We’ll never know what Cole Sillinger would have become if he had more developmental seasons. The Blue Jackets rushed him to the NHL. He did perform well for an 18-year-old rookie in 2021-22, scoring 31 points while holding his own defensively, but what should have been a jumping-off point became his baseline.

Sillinger boasted some obvious skills in his draft year, a vast arsenal of release and dangles. He also drove inside repetitively and crushed opponents. But he also tunnel-visioned on plays, missed obvious passes, and played hero hockey. His upright skating stance limited his agility and explosiveness.

So far, the weaknesses in Sillinger’s game have defined his career more than his strengths. At the NHL level, he’s missing plays and seems to struggle to process the game at higher speeds. While one can’t fault his defensive effort, the results aren’t following due to a lack of engagement technique and awareness.

We’re not as confident in Scott Morrow’s future as we were a year ago, when he was taking over shifts with the Chicago Wolves, freezing defenders with shot-fakes, activating, and finding passing seams.

Despite trading for him and Adam Fox’s injury for a time, the New York Rangers haven’t been inclined to unleash his offensive skills in a top offensive role. Looking at the team’s recent history with prospects' usage, they may never trust him for those duties, removing his only pathway to sustained success.

This future would make our ranking of Morrow (52nd overall) look like a better one in hindsight. His skating, the main weakness we identified in his play, looks like a significant limiter at the NHL level, preventing him from recovering after a miscue and shaking opponents as well. Just like in his draft year, he’s often a stride or a stick length away from making a defensive stop, doesn’t anticipate incoming plays, focuses too much on the puck, and gets beaten by speedy opponents.

Wanting to avoid making mistakes and keep his minutes, Morrow streamlined his offence at the NHL, hiding his strengths and exposing his weaknesses further.

We’re still putting Morrow in our re-ranking, considering his remaining upside. With some luck, he may get the opportunity to showcase his quarterbacking skills and become a point-getting player at the NHL level. To get there, however, he will have to improve his mobility and defensive game.

Braeden Bowman is turning into a bit of a do-it-all forward.

Winning puck battles, breaking the puck out from the wall, driving the net, and connecting passing plays, he drives the play anywhere in the lineup. He can replace injured top-sixers, slot as a net-front forward on the powerplay, and help shut down the opposition. While it’s his motor that shines the most in his shifts, he’s capable of more advanced plays, like beating goalies cleanly coming down the wing or making seam passes.

If Bowman continues to make these plays regularly, he will earn a long career in the NHL.

As he didn’t play in the 2020-21 season and spent the previous season in the GOJHL, it was unreasonable to expect a scouting team to spot his potential. He was a true late bloomer.

Fyodor Svechkov is centering the Nashville Predators’ fourth line. He’s performing well enough, making quick transition plays and battling for pucks. But on a more competitive team aiming for a long playoff run, we’re not sure he would keep the same role, given his lack of size, physical skills, or the pressure game teams prefer in their bottom-six.  

We identified those weaknesses in his draft year, but believed that his hockey sense would still enable him to carve out a role at the NHL level. Although Svechkov rotates well and mostly picks the right plays, he’s not creating enough advantages for his team, defensively or offensively.

In hindsight, we overestimated the impact he would have at the NHL level. Hockey sense matters most, but it has to be backed up by a higher level of skills. While Svechkov was a good student, making the right plays and rotating to the right spots, he didn’t often show advanced playmaking skills.

Now, we grade hockey sense more conservatively. The players who receive the highest marks do more than apply the details of the game. They’re actively manipulating opponents, breaking their coverage and actions, and creating plays that aren't there on first glance.

At one point, scouts projected Aatu Räty as the likely first overall selection in 2021, but he slowly started dropping on boards in the season that preceded the draft. We kept him at 20th on our board, respecting his track record. In hindsight, we should have dropped him slightly further.

More mature physically or mentally than their peers, or possessing better tools, some prospects reach their peak earlier. They don’t always stay top NHL prospects. Most of the time, one is better off letting those fallers drop instead of trying to stop their descent too early.

Räty looks like he’s found a depth NHL role with the Vancouver Canucks this season. He’s performing well in his minutes, but may lack the offensive upside necessary to rise in the lineup. While his skating improved, it remains a weakness. It prevents him from reaching players on the forecheck, making use of his physical abilities, and exploding to open ice. He’s forced to make more of his plays under pressure.

There were many other concerns around Räty’s game in his draft year, ranging from his tendency to tunnel vision to the way he set up his shot. Some of those proved unfounded; others continue to limit his game to this day.

If you were drafting Carl Lindbom in his draft year, it was because you valued his quick footwork and knew that if he could build a game around that mobility, you might unlock a real prospect. The Vegas Golden Knights took the chance with the third-to-last pick of the draft, and so far, it looks like a winning bet.

Lindbom’s skating is still the basis of his game, with super quick feet that allow him to roam the crease with ease. His tracking has improved since his draft year, too, as he handles clean shots well and reacts well to rebounds. However, he’s still a bit erratic with his depth, especially on second attempt saves.

Coming into this season, Lindbom was expected to get more NHL playing time, but with the rise of Akira Schmid and a tough start from the Swede, Lindbom was sent back down to the AHL. He was  named an AHL all-star for his second straight season. With Vegas’ woes in net this year, it would not be surprising if Lindbom got another extended look next season. He’s on the path towards a tandem-level projection at the NHL level.

Elite Prospects assigned Lindbom an ‘F’ grade in his draft year, due to hesitations around the well-roundedness of his game. Lindbom proves that smaller, battler goalies with great athletic profiles remain worthy of consideration as NHL prospects and for the draft, even as the NHL shifts to a more size-above-all mentality between the pipes.

Isak Rosén couldn’t find a spot in the Buffalo Sabres’ lineup, even though he performed like an NHLer in the AHL, improving every season. His move to Winnipeg could help his NHL outlook, but the team’s poor development track record may be hard to overcome.

His career so far exposes the issue with players of his type. While Rosén is skilled offensively, his abilities don’t grade as top-six caliber. And while he can play a checking role and improve his physical skills, coaches prefer bigger, stronger players in those duties.

In his draft year, while Rosén moved gracefully under pressure while carrying the puck, we worried about the translatability of his offensive game, given his peripheral play, lack of physical skills, and high-end playmaking. We ranked him lower than the consensus. It proved to be the right call, even if in theory, his good-but-not-great assets should be enough for a top-nine role

Ville Koivunen deserves his NHL chances. Not only is he continuing to produce at a high rate in the AHL and has put together some strong performances at the top level, but he has also been one of the unluckiest players in the entire league this season. Pucks simply didn’t go in when he was on the ice. More of them should.

A cerebral, but low-pace playmaker, Koivunen was one of the favorites of our team and especially our Dir. of European Scouting, Lassi Alanen, in his draft year. While his hockey sense remains the best aspect of his game, Koivunen has adapted his game to North America, developing more physical and checking skills, adding pace, and finding ways to keep feeding pucks to teammates.

We continue to believe he will establish himself as a play-driving, top-nine winger in the NHL. His defensive numbers have already looked promising in his stints.

Even if he doesn’t make it, Koivunen’s transformation in the AHL is another testament that smart, detail-oriented prospects tend to find ways to adapt their game more often than others.

Jöel Nystrom, a player we ranked 63rd overall in 2021 as a re-entry, earns the last spot on our list. He was drafted in the seventh round, but proved this season that he belongs in the NHL, earning a contract extension.

An industrious, high-motor defender, willing to jump into plays, Nyström proved to be more than an adequate replacement for injuries during his 37 games, posting above-average play-driving results in top-four minutes.

It’s more likely than not, considering his smaller stature, that Nyström remains a replacement-level or bottom-pairing quality defender in his career. Playing that role well would still likely cement him in the top-32, given the class's weakness.

Honourable Mentions: Samuel Helenius, Ryan Winterton, William Strömgren, Logan Mailloux, Emil Lilleberg, Zachary L’Heureux