It’s finally draft week for the National Hockey League and time to reveal my final rankings!
As previously admitted, my focus was primarily on the Western Hockey League this season as a regional scout for The Pro Hockey Group under Jason Bukala of Sportsnet, formerly the director of amateur scouting for the Florida Panthers after breaking into the NHL on Nashville’s staff. Jason has been a great mentor for our TPHG team and provided us with the tools to see prospects from around the world, including SportContract and RinkNet.
That allowed me to really broaden my horizons in recent months after my local club, the Kelowna Rockets, missed the playoffs. Playing catch-up on the rest of this 2025 class wasn’t easy and I’d be lying if I said I could provide detailed reports on all 325 prospects from my final rankings. Perhaps for the Top 100 or my first five tiers but, beyond that, it is simply research and networking to round out my list.
I have been scouting in the public space since 2012 and covering the WHL as a media member since 2002 — back when I was in college and Brent Seabrook was captaining the Lethbridge Hurricanes — so I have made a lot of quality connections throughout the hockey world that I trust for input on my rankings.
I have developed my own conviction over the years, the ability to pound the table for certain prospects that I am higher on than the public consensus. But I do value feedback from my contacts in other regions and countries to help formulate and expand my rankings. And, year after year, I enjoy the process of compiling these rankings and publishing them to stand the test of time.
I put out my Top 64 on May 4 following the U18 worlds, just seven weeks ago, but kept that list relatively short by my standards because I was still doing due diligence and waiting to hear back on so many prospects. And then I circled back on several others once the public had spoken, including some prospect junkies that I respect. I watched the rest of the playoffs through the Memorial Cup and paid close attention to the combine while putting on these finishing touches.
Despite only seven weeks passing, there was quite a bit of movement in my rankings but none in the Top 7, aside from Brady Martin forcing himself into my third tier. I was ahead of the consensus on him but accused of recency bias from the U18s. Upon further review and additional networking, he proved worthy of a Top 10 pick.
The only change in my Top 10, albeit both remaining in the same tier, was Jake O’Brien rising from 16 to 10 and Kashawn Aitcheson falling from 8 to 12. O’Brien could be this year’s Beckett Sennecke and is drawing favourable comparisons to Wyatt Johnston, but I couldn’t be convinced to rank him above a similar centre who I am very familiar with in Cole Reschny (9). I am higher on Reschny than most, knowing he has the character to complement his skillset. That drive should serve him well in a somewhat surprising move to North Dakota for next season.
Matthew Schaefer is still No. 1 for me and Michael Misa is still my top forward, though it sounds like teams are taking a liking to Anton Frondell and Caleb Desnoyers, in particular, as the draft approaches. James Hagens and Porter Martone are still factors for the Top 5, which should be a run of forwards after Schaefer but you never know when a team could reach for a big defender if drafting for positional need. But the option to trade down will be there for blueliners, and we’re hearing there could be more movement than usual in the Top 10, possibly even in the Top 5.
Talking tiers, I bravely expanded my third tier of first-round locks from 7-18 to 8-28. That was a bold move on my part to go big rather than break that group into two tiers, leaving more room for my fourth tier of first-round contenders to crack the Top 32. I am confident in those 28 prospects as first-round talents but less confident in the order they will be selected and how they will develop from there, especially the goaltenders in Jack Ivankovic (24) and Joshua Ravensbergen (28). Justin Carbonneau (26 to 11) and Cameron Reid (37 to 25) stand out as the two prospects who really rose in that third tier for me, both making the jump from my fourth tier.
My revised fourth tier is still vast, with 29-50 as potential first-rounders for me. Vaclav Nestrasil (64 to 30), Bill Zonnon (51 to 32), Ryker Lee (48 to 33) and Mason West (53 to 37), along with a trio of previously unranked Russians in Semyon Frolov (39), Daniil Prokhorov (40) and Kurban Limatov (46) all leaped into that fourth tier. The first four were already in my fifth tier as second-round candidates with potential to crack the Top 50 but now they are in the mix for the first round. Who knows with the Russians but those three are intriguing talents with boom upside to warrant inclusion in my fourth tier.
Beyond that, the 5-8 tiers represent second-round candidates (51-115), mid-round considerations with Top 100 potential (116-150), late-round flyers (151-245) and honourable mentions (246-325).
Another category that always captivates me is the overagers, including re-entries. Every year between 30 and 50 previously passed over or unsigned prospects are selected on their second, third or (for Europeans) even fourth time through the draft. So the eligible birth dates range from Jan. 1, 2004 (Jan. 1, 2005 for North Americans) to Sept. 15, 2007.
My top overager for 2025 is right-shot defenseman Bryce Pickford from the WHL champion Medicine Hat Tigers at No. 45 as a first-round contender for me. He is followed by 11 more overagers in my fifth tier of second-round candidates, including three American forwards and a Czech defender in my Top 64. I have 43 overagers ranked within my Top 224, which is around the annual average, and 57 within my Top 245 through my seventh tier of late-round flyers.
My sixth tier is led off by the lone re-entry within my Top 224, that being WHL defender Carter Sotheran — a 6-foot-4 rightie who was on Canada’s radar for the World Juniors at last year’s Summer Showcase but struggled throughout this season with a glaring minus rating for months before recovering and coming on strong again during Portland’s playoff run. He has some health concerns that may have resulted in Philadelphia relinquishing his rights, but I’m still a fan of Sotheran — as evidenced by ranking him higher as a re-entry (116) than his original draft position (135) in 2023, albeit in that same tier of mid-round considerations.
It is a strange down year for Finland, to the point we could see more overagers drafted from that country than first-time eligibles (6-4 in favour of the overagers, according to my Top 224). Sweden stayed strong but trails Canada and the United States for the most draft-eligible talent as we dive into those numbers.
By The Numbers
Within Top 224
By Country
Canada = 88
USA = 49
Sweden = 24
Russia = 18
Czechia = 12
Finland = 10
Slovakia = 7
Germany = 4
Switzerland = 4
Latvia = 2
China = 1
Denmark = 1
Norway = 1
Belarus = 1
Croatia = 1
Kazakhstan = 1
By League
WHL = 48
USHL/NTDP = 48
OHL = 33
Sweden J20/SHL = 27
QMJHL = 25
KHL/VHL/MHL = 13
Finland U20/Liiga = 10
NCAA = 9
Czechia = 4
Switzerland = 3
BCHL = 3
Germany = 1
Slovakia = 1
By Position
LC = 42
RW = 39
LD = 38
RD = 35
LW = 30
RC = 21
G = 19
Total (Within Top 325)
By Country
Canada = 130
USA = 56
Russia = 33
Sweden = 32
Finland = 18
Czechia = 16
Slovakia = 10
Germany = 10
Switzerland = 8
Latvia = 3
Denmark = 3
Norway = 2
China = 1
Belarus = 1
Croatia = 1
Kazakhstan = 1
By League
WHL = 66
USHL/NTDP = 53
OHL = 49
Sweden J20/SHL = 36
QMJHL = 36
KHL/VHL/MHL = 27
Finland U20/Liiga = 18
NCAA = 10
Czechia = 8
Germany = 7
Switzerland = 7
Slovakia = 3
BCHL = 3
Denmark = 2
By Position
LD = 65
LC = 59
RW = 58
LW = 51
RD = 41
RC = 26
G = 25
The positional breakdowns are always interesting, with right-handed centres at a premium again, along with the perennially coveted right-shot defenders. This class of goaltenders gradually grew on me and now I’m seeing value in those middle rounds. I really like my Top 10 at that position, even vouching for my Top 16, but I’m sure there will be closer to 30 goaltenders taken, including some obscure netminders that I’ve never heard of and a number of overagers, considering there are 32 teams drafting.
Without further ado, here are my final rankings — my Top 325 for the 2025 NHL Draft:
Alas, that wraps up another eventful year of scouting and now we all get to enjoy the fruits of our labour while watching the draft play out this weekend. And it sounds like the draft will revert back to being in person next year, so maybe see you there when Gavin McKenna gets called to the stage in 2026!
Fishbowl Sports 
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