Preparing for the NHL 2025 Draft
At a Glance
- Details for the NHL 2025 draft.
- Profiling the top incoming prospects for Draft 25.
- A high-level analysis of their statistics and origins.
Welcome to the NHL Draft 25
Last year was the first time we profiled the incoming prospects for Draft 24. It was a ton of fun and we saw great engagement with the posts. So, this year we're going to do another profile of the incoming prospects for the Draft 25 through the lens of an Armchair Scout.
We'll work the analysis through a series of posts that will look at the prospects across different dimensions and profile the top dogs and the underdogs. As we go, we'll provide you with the core prospect dataset(s) that we're curating and a Power BI dashboard, which you can use as your Draft 25 Armchair Scout companion tool.
What are the Details?
The NHL's Draft 25 is being hosted in Los Angeles at L.A. Live's Peacock Theater. According to the NHL, the format will be different from year's past:
This will be the second time Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Kings have hosted the draft, but this year’s will be different; top prospects will be in attendance joined by fans and media, while NHL team executives, scouts and coaches will participate virtually.
The first round will be held June 27 starting at 7PM, with rounds 2-7 on June 28 starting at noon. You can find the draft order of the NHL teams for the first round here.
Profiling the Incoming Prospects
This year marks an interesting and diverse class of talent. Like last year, we're using the Elite Prospects 2025 Draft Prospectus. This is a great guide with comprehensive coverage on the prospects coming into the draft this year.
The guide separates the incoming prospects into detailed reports that provide a breakdown of their strengths and grade them according to EP's methodology. For example, below is Michael Misa's summary card, which includes an elevator pitch, demographics, ranking, position(s), ratings, areas of strength, his overall grade, and so on.
There is a ton of information in this guide, including different skill ratings, statistics, a host of scouting notes, and an overall grade. It's a very comprehensive guide on prospects, so set aside a good amount of time to read through it.
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Crunching the Data
We've taken the basic stats and demographic information for the top 100 prospects and built out our own analysis. For example, we used the data to calculate per game statistics (e.g., Goals per Game, Points per Game, etc.), ratio metrics (e.g., Goals to Points and Assists to Points), penalty metrics (e.g., PIM per Points, Penalty Efficiency, etc.) and adjusted specific stats across each of the minor leagues per the NHL Equivalency (NHLe) factor.
The NHLe factor was an important one for us because we can take Points per Game, for example, and standardize it across the players. According to SBNation:
The NHL equivalency model gathers players who have moved from a source league to the NHL and calculates what percentage of their point totals those players were able to bring with them to the NHL.
We can then create a balanced frame through which we look at all of the players, regardless of what country or league they come from.
Let's dive in!
Exploring the Top Prospects
We'll first look at the top 100 generally and then examine the top 25 at a more detailed, statistical level.
The Top 100
In the top 100 prospects, there's a broad international representation. Canada is leading the way with 40%, with the US and Sweden trailing at 21% and 14% respectively. This is similar to last year, though the proportion favoring Canada in the top echelon is higher than last year.
While it's interesting to see the countries of origin, it's also important to understand the feeder systems; that is, the leagues that are producing the talent. Across the top 100, the top 3 leagues are OHL, WHL and J20 Nationell. These are the same top three leagues as last year and naturally correspond to the top three prospect-producing countries.
Out of the top 100, 66% are forwards, 28% are defense and 6% are goalies. This is relatively balanced and is consistent with last year's divide on players.
The top 100 is a good first look, but things get interesting when you filter it for the top 25 prospects. Most of these players will be targets for the first round, so it's worth it to take a closer look at their stats and strengths.
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The Top 25
According to the Elite Prospects Consolidated Ranking Draft view, the draw from Canada gets more dramatic when you take the top 25 (Canada at 76%, USA at 12%, Sweden at 8%, and Czechia at 4%). Point being: Canada's a major contributor to the top talent in this year's draft cycle.
The EP ranking is a blended ranking taken from some of the best hockey analysts in the industry. (You can also see the individual rankings across the analysts.) But, we wanted to mix it up a bit and view the players through a standardized production lens, so we calculated the NHLe for each player (using their Points per Game - PTSPG).
We then re-ranked the list with NHLe in descending order. This is a narrower statistical view that biases forwards (and offensive defensemen) and represents the potential production for a prospect at the NHL level. Note that we've also drawn a line for those prospects that fall above the 2024-2025 league average for Points per Game (0.322).
From the above, a few observations jump out:
- Broadly, there's a lot of top talent with NHLe above the current NHL average from Canada. This speaks well of their development programs and competitive leagues.
- Michael Misa is a strong goal-scorer and playmaker – a rare combination. The EP Prospectus reads well for Misa. For example:
He is capable of speeding past opponents and drawing complex rush patterns in the neutral zone...[and]...drives east-west, under and over teammates’ routes, slows down and accelerates, and slips pucks under sticks, always keeping defenders on their heels.
- Matthew Schaefer is a solid offensive defenseman (among the top forwards) and there are a handful of decent playmakers in the top 10 (> .800 APG). Schaefer is another top prospect hailed by the EP Prospectus:
Past the offensive line, capable of passing, shooting, and dangling, defense has few counters. He spots teammates in every direction, making both one-touch plays and elaborate, deceptive feeds. Attacking down, he grabs the spotlight and draws opponents to him, before turning and relaying the puck across. He sprints for backdoor plays and fires shots and passes in the right spots for teammates, enabling their next play.
- We may have a few underdogs in the list with some of the lower-ranked prospects having decent goal-scoring abilities, e.g., Carter Bear (12), Caleb Desnoyers (8), Justin Carbonneau (16), and Cameron Schmidt (25).
Also, there are a couple of potential beasts on this top 25 list. For example, Lynden Lakovic, Roger McQueen and Rodim Mrtka are all taller than 6'4". Mrtka clearly holds the heavyweight title, but all of them could be forces with some strength conditioning and pro-level training.
Applying the NHLe Metric
If we use the NHLe metric as a key production metric, our top 10 looks pretty damn stellar. At this point, we're basically ignoring the EP's scouting report and intangibles and only going on NHLe, but even that produces an all Canadian list of prospects who are balanced goal-scorers and playmakers and for the most part have proportionate size.
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The NHLe is calculated using Points per Game, so to gauge goal-scoring vis-a-vis NHLe, it's helpful to plot the GPG against the NHLe. When we do this, we get a different view of the prospects and their potential in the NHL.
From this visualization, you can see that:
- Players towards and in the top right (like Michael Misa and Porter Martone) demonstrate both high raw goal-scoring production and strong NHL translation potential.
- Players closer to the bottom left (like Brady Martin and Matthew Schaefer) have lower NHLe and raw GPG, indicating either lower offensive upside or roles less centered on scoring.
- Matthew Schaefer, the only defenseman in the top 10, holds a respectable NHLe (0.388) — excellent for a blueliner. Defensemen generally score less, so his value is impressive within this cohort of forwards.
All told, the incoming prospects are an exciting group and there's a ton more to explore.
Summary
This was the first in a multi-part series that covers the NHL's Draft 25. In this post, we introduced you to the Draft 25 and analyzed the incoming prospects. We used the 2025 Elite Prospect draft ranking as our starting point and then built a dataset with several calculated metrics.
We provided you with a first glimpse of the top 100, showing their home countries, the feeder leagues and positional breakdown. We then calculated the NHLe (using Points per Game) and analyzed the standardized point production for the top 25 and top 10.
As we move forward in this series, we'll deep dive on the top talent, the hidden talent and what talent specific NHL teams may need. And in the process, we'll try and do a little matchmaking. We'll close the series by walking through an Armchair Scout dashboard that we're creating for the Data Punk Hockey community.
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