NHL Draft 25 Top Talent

At a Glance

• Key characteristics of the top ten Draft 25 prospects.
• Summarizing the statistics for the top ten prospects.
• Exploring the outliers in the top ten prospects.

Introduction

This is the second newsletter in our 5-part series exploring the Draft 25. In our first post, we provided some initial details for the 2025 NHL draft, introduced Elite Prospect's Draft 25 Prospectus, and analyzed some of the data from the top 100 prospects.

In this week's post, we're going to focus on the top talent in EP's consolidated ranking for the first part of the post and then will apply the NHLe metric to evaluate outliers within this cohort.

Who are the Top Ten?

Welcome to the second post in our NHL Draft 25 series. This week, we'll do a deep dive into the top 10 prospects, as ranked by the Elite Prospects Consolidated Ranking. There's a ton of talent in the top 10 prospects armed with strong offensive prowess, breakout blueliners and players who can control the ice.

In this breakdown, we’ll explore their known statistics and some calculated ones as well – including the NHL Equivalency (NHLe) metric, production per game, grit, and any red flags we might see. Whether you're a hockey enthusiast looking for your next favorite player or an armchair scout prepping for draft day, this post offers insight into how we analyze the incoming draft talent.

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The following table represents the top 10 prospects from EP's ranking. They are sorted by ranking and include name, position, league, standard statistics, and the NHLe (which is calculated using Points per Game and based on a NHLe factor for each league).

Each prospect comes with a unique value proposition, so let's explore each of the top ten.

Schaefer only played 17 games, but wow — 1.29 Points per Game and 15 Assists. He’s the top defenseman here (and in the top 100), and with a strong NHLe (0.388) he’s doing more than holding his own. If we were pushed to call out a weakness, it'd be too many penalties, though this may self-correct at the NHL level.

Misa dropped 134 points this season. Let that sink in! He’s both a goal scorer (62 Goals) and a playmaker (72 Assists). With the highest NHLe out of the top ten (0.618), his game should translate quickly to the NHL. He does take some penalties, but he’s too good not to stand out.

Hagens doesn’t light up the scoreboard like Misa, but he’s got vision. 70% of his points are Assists; he’s a setup artist. His NHLe is lower (0.320), but he’s super disciplined and rarely penalized. So, while he's not flashy, he is quietly effective.

Martone is the classic big-body scorer: 98 Points in 57 games. He’s also tough, with the third-most penalties in the top ten. With a high NHLe (0.516), he looks like a top-line NHL winger in the making. Discipline may be a concern, but the talent is real.

Frondell plays in a tough Swedish league, and he’s quietly solid. He's less flashy than the others, but very efficient. He's got a good balance of scoring and defense, and low on penalties. He may not be a star, but he’ll get the job done.

McQueen’s got size (6'4") and scoring touch, but he's also racked up penalties.
He averages 2.35 PIM per Game. That’s a problem, unless he learns to control it (or uses it to his advantage in an increasingly bigger NHL). There’s real upside if a team can polish his game, and his NHLe of 0.341 keeps him in the mix.

Eklund’s a trigger-happy forward who knows how to score. But his NHLe is low (0.303), and he doesn’t do much playmaking. Still, he’s gritty and aggressive and might sneak into a scoring role. Call him a shoot-first depth player with upside.

Desnoyers has great balance: 35 Goals, 49 Assists, and a 0.405 NHLe. He’s not as hyped as Misa or Martone, but his stats are right there with them. Good size, good control, not too many penalties. Quietly one of the most NHL-ready in the top ten.

Smith is the second defenseman here. No big goal totals, but 43 Assists and solid puck movement. His NHLe is the lowest (0.230), but he’s reliable and doesn’t take many risks. Might not headline a power play, but he’ll play minutes. Second-pair player with upside.

O’Brien scores a lot and takes almost no penalties: 98 Points with only 18 PIM in 66 games. Best discipline in the class and a strong NHLe (0.445). He’s not flashy, but he’s effective and smart. Analytically? He’s a gem. Underrated and NHL-ready.

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Outliers

In a past newsletter entitled The Howes and Tkachuks: Grace vs Grit, we explored a rare correlation between point production and grit. We wanted to run the top ten through the same analysis, so we used NHLe for point production and PIM per Game (PIMPG) for grit. Players who show both scoring potential and physicality stand out as rare and valuable prospects — often pegged as power forwards or tough, skilled forwards.

We've plotted the top ten prospects in a scatter plot measuring the intersection of NHLe and PIMPG. We then classified the players according to where they landed on the plot. Those who were classified as High NHLe/High PIMPG would exhibit Keith Tkachuk-like qualities.

From the above plot, five interesting outliers emerged for us:

• Porter Martone and Caleb Desnoyers were the highest-ranking point-producing, gritty players. At 6'3" and 6'2" respectively, Martone and Desnoyers have got the size and NHLe to compete in the NHL.
• Michael Misa, again, shows he's a top prospect. He has the highest point production of the lot and is sitting in the average for PIMPG.
• Roger McQueen is almost off the chart – literally. Now, he's 6'5" so has some serious size, but he's not exactly a gentle giant. He's willing to mix it up, and while his point production isn't the highest, it's still respectable.
• Jake O'Brien seems to be the opposite of McQueen. He's a solid point producer, yet less gritty. He's got good size to him at 6'2", but seems to be the most disciplined high-producer in the class.

So, three key takeaways for you armchair scouts:

• Porter Martone stands out as the most balanced tough-skill forward — he's the real “power forward” profile.
• Roger McQueen may be a physical beast, but his high PIMPG suggests risk unless his discipline improves.
• Jake O’Brien could be a coach’s dream — productive, responsible, and efficient.

So, there you have it. A quick tour of the top ten prospects for the incoming class for this year's Draft 25!

Summary

This was the second post in a series on the NHL Draft 25. The first newsletter introduced some high-level details for the Draft 25 and walked through some analytics for the top 100 prospects.

In this week's post, we explored the top talent through the top ten prospects as ranked by the Elite Prospect's Consolidated Ranking. This is an amalgamation of the top analysts. We provided some commentary for the top ten, using their statistics and the NHLe (a standardized metric that represents the potential for how a prospect would perform at the NHL level). We then explored some outliers within the top ten by looking at point production versus grit.

In our next post, we'll look at the top ten teams in the first round to see how well the top talent in this post would match up to their needs.

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