32. Los Angeles Kings

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Henry Brzustewicz, Vojtech Cihar, Koehn Ziemmer, Francesco Pinelli and Jack Hughes

The end has come for the Los Angeles Kings prospect system. A once great system has seen all of its notable bluechip prospects graduate well past the 100 game cut off and/or have been traded out and are on other squads now. What’s left is not a whole lot. No real bright spots in the pool. They need a lot of everything.

31. New Jersey Devils

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Seamus Casey, Anton Silayev, Lenni Hameenaho, Benjamin Kevan and Herman Traff

I’ve been warning of this day for a few years. The Devils, who have acquired a ton of talent at the draft over the past nine years are so, have graduated all of their studs (outside of maybe Casey). Luke Hughes, Simon Nemec and Arseny Gritsyuk no longer count as prospects and what’s left is very underwhelming. A pool with little to it, at every position.

30. Florida Panthers

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Michael Benning, Gracyn Sawchyn, Jack Devine, Linus Eriksson and Evan Nause

Three Stanley Cup final runs, a bunch of trades involving high picks and here we are. An abysmal prospect pool with little NHL-caliber talent remaining in it. But they had a good run and probably still have some time remaining on their ‘contender window’, if Barkov can return healthy next year.

29. Boston Bruins

Top 5 Skater Prospects: James Hagens, Dean Letourneau, William Moore, Matthew Poitras and Fabian Lysell

The Bruins prospect system has been a bottom feeder for a good while (going on 7-8 years). A big problem of theirs is they routinely drafted low probability, low impact bets with the late 1^st rounders they did keep over the past few years. It’s starting to turn a corner with the addition of James Hagens last year. Statistically the best prospect the Bruins have had in the system since David Pastrnak (drafted in 2014). The pool needs a lot of work but the Bruins are slowly heading for a full rebuild and should see their pool strength increase dramatically over the next few years.

28. Toronto Maple Leafs

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Easton Cowan, Ben Danford, Topi Niemela, Tinus Luc Koblar and Noah Chadwick

An atrocious pool with very little to it. One bright spot is the goalie prospects. Between Akhtyamov and Hildeby they probably have an NHLer there. The pool is going to a nice jump forward, however, with their absolute asinine and improbable lotto win of the 1^st overall pick in the 2026 draft.

27. Dallas Stars

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Cameron Schmidt, Christian Kyrou, Lian Bichsel, Emil Hemming and Ayrton Martino

All the good sneaky adds Dallas has made over the years (Oettinger, Robertson, Harley, Johnston, Bourque, Stankoven) have graduated and are established, impact NHLers. And there’s not much of anything left. You might call bullocks, they’ve found talent before, there’s probably something left in the pool. To which I would say, most of those talents that hit looked a certain way in the model (good to great probability of hitting)… what’s left don’t look anything like that in the model except Cameron Schmidt (model quite likes him).

26. Winnipeg Jets

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Brayden Yager, Brad Lambert, Colby Barlow, Kevin He and Elias Salomonsson

The Jets prospect pool has a couple pieces in there but it’s not nearly deep enough and doesn’t have a lot of ‘star power’ in the top 5. Even notable prospects like Yager and Barlow really took a step back in their production since hitting the AHL. There’s likely some NHLers in the system but I doubt there’s any star power in there.

25. Ottawa Senators

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Carter Yakemchuk, Logan Hensler, Stephen Halliday, Xavier Bourgault and Tyler Boucher

Carter Yakemchuk profiles pretty favorably in the model and there’s some good potential they have a big piece there. Outside of him, there’s likely a few depth NHLers in the mix and then it drops off really fast.

24. Tampa Bay Lightning

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Conor Geekie, Sam O’Reilly, Benjamin Rautiainen, Dylan Duke and Jack Finley

The Lightning have been a contender for about a decade, they’ve won a ton and they’ve traded a lot of picks to get there and their pool is a reflection of this. Not a whole lot there. But Tampa always seems to find something really good out of presumably nothing. Turning Raddysh into a star off the UFA junk pile. Turning Hagel into an all around star player when his ceiling looked to be a solid middle sixer. Benjamin Rautiainen, an overager that Tampa drafted last year, had a massive year in the Liiga this year and is seeing a monumental rise YoY. Maybe he’s their next out of nowhere prospect that they turn into something.

23. Vegas Golden Knights

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Trevor Connelly, Lukas Cormier, Jakob His-Wozniak, Arttu Karki and Mateo Nobert

Vegas has traded away essentially all of their notable prospects they’ve ever drafted except for Pavel Dorofeyev. The pool doesn’t have much left and I’m sure the decent pieces that remain, like Trevor Connelly, will be traded out for the next available impact NHLer that is available. I wonder, with how Vegas operates, if they’ll ever have or need a really strong prospect pool. They’ve been going for 8 years with trading out anything they draft. They don’t have their 1^st round pick the next two years either. How long can the train keep running? The prospect pool isn’t turning around anytime soon.

22. Colorado Avalanche

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Gavin Brindley, Oskar Olausson, William Dufour, Sean Behrens and Mikhail Gulyayev

A couple nice pieces to the pool and a really solid goalie prospect in Nabokov. There’s much worse pools out there, especially for Stanley Cup contenders. Brindley and Behrens have some good NHLer potential. I’m still holding out hope for Gulyayev as well. He hasn’t popped yet in the KHL but the early production he showed in his draft year and his speed and shiftiness… hopefully there’s still something there.

21. Edmonton Oilers

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Isaac Howard, Matthew Savoie, Colton Dach, Maxim Beryozkin and Tommy Lafreniere

Howard and Savoie, who the model quite like, still count. Once they graduate past 100 games, it’ll be easily one of the worst pools in the league. Maxim Beryozkin, drafted in 2020, has recently signed with the Oilers. I’ve been waiting for him to come over. He’s always profiled reasonably well… curious if they have anything in him.

20. Minnesota Wild

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Danila Yurov, Carson Lambos, David Spacek, Adam Benak and Riley Heidt

The Wild pool for years was one of the better pools. They continually found value at the draft, and drafted good, high probability bets over the last decade (Kaprizov, Boldy, Rossi, Ohgren, Buium, Heidt, Yurov, Wallstedt all good examples of this). But those high probability bets have more or less all graduated to the NHL. And the remaining ones were brilliantly used in the deal to acquire Quinn Hughes (who else had the package of players that could have pulled that off). As a result, the Wild’s tenure as having one of the best prospect systems in the NHL has come to an end and its heading for the basement.

19. Vancouver Canucks

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Zeev Buium, Jonathan Lekkerimaki, Tom Willander, Braden Cootes and Liam Ohgren

Acquiring Rossi (doesn’t count as a prospect anymore), Buium and Ohgren provided a nice jump to the Canucks U25 player cupboard. Buium especially has a profile that screams future star offensive dman and jumped up the Canucks prospect pool nicely. Canucks pick 3^rd overall this year and are in full rebuild mode now after trading out Quinn Hughes and finishing dead last in the league. With the right picks and a plethora of high picks to boot, the Canucks should have a top 5 pool within the next 2-3 years.

18. Buffalo Sabres

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Konsta Helenius, Radim Mrtka, Noah Ostlund, Jiri Kulich and Brodie Ziemer

Some nice potential in the top 5 (especially Helenius and Mrtka) but a steep drop off outside of those 5, even 4. The Sabres, finally a playoff team, have a nice young core of stars that can hopefully keep their window afloat for the next 5-7 years.

17. New York Rangers

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Gabe Perreault, Liam Greentree, Scott Morrow, Brendan Brisson and Malcolm Spence

The Rangers pool doesn’t have much depth but has a few solid options in the top 5. Notably, Gabe Perreault, who played about half the season with the Rangers already this season, looks to be a strong top 6 piece going forward. He profiles really well in the model (~40% star probability) and seems to have popped right away. Liam Greentree, acquired in the Panarin trade, has a reasonable look to him as well in the model. Morrow, after some massive outlier productive years in the NCAA, hasn’t been able to establish himself as a bonafide NHLer yet but maybe that’s just around the corner.

16. Anaheim Ducks

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Beckett Sennecke, Roger McQueen, Tristan Luneau, Stian Solberg and Lucas Pettersson

The Ducks had a lot of top prospects graduate since the last update (Carlsson, Gauthier and Zellweger). Sennecke, who’s gigantic immediate impact in the NHL has been a bit of a surprise, still remains as their stud prospect.  But the prospect has tumbled way out of the top 5 with the graduations of the three mentioned above. There’s some good depth to the system and Sennecke is now profiling like a star piece for them. Perhaps they’re set up with a young star core and don’t need anymore, but outside of Sennecke there’s likely no more star prospects in the system.

15.  St. Louis Blues

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Dalibor Dvorsky, Jimmy Snuggerud, Justin Carbonneau, Adam Jiricek and Logan Mailloux

The Blues are starting to build out a formidable pool. Snuggerud and Dvorsky provide some decent star bets. The system has some nice, growing depth to it as well. And trading for goalie prospect Marcus Gidlof as part of the Schenn deal with the Islanders was a solid add to the goalie pool. The pool’s top 5 is lacking well behind some of the best pools however. It’ll be important to build that out over the next 3-4 years with legit bluechip star pieces.

14. Columbus Blue Jackets

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Jackson Smith, Cayden Lindstrom, Luca Del Bel Belluz, Jordan Dumais and Luca Pinelli

The Blue Jackets only a few years ago had one of the very best pools in the league. Many of their stud prospects are now in the NHL, having a real impact (Fantilli, Johnson, Mateychuk, Marchenko) and they’ve dropped off. As well, while there’s still some good depth and options available, especially in their top 5, Lindstrom, a 4^th overall pick in 2024, has really fallen off (mostly due to injuries) since being drafted. He was drafted to be a big piece of their future. That’s currently looking very uncertain, especially in the model.

13. Utah Mammoth

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Tij Iginla, Caleb Desnoyers, Daniil But, Dmitri Simashev and Cole Beaudoin

Utah has some solid pieces in the top 5 although surprisingly not a massive amount of star potential. The model likes Iginla and Desnoyers but they’re certainly not guaranteed stars. Far from it. Overall, their pool is middle of the pack all over, in terms of their top 5, depth and goalie prospects.

12. Pittsburgh Penguins

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Ben Kindel, Rutger McGroarty, Own Pickering, William Horcoff and Bill Zannon

The Penguins pool has been building the last few years and is starting to turn a corner. They’ve found an immediate impact player in Kindel, who maybe evolves into a star over time. Still a long way to go but the depth of the system is a strong point. Since Dubas has taken over, he’s added a lot of pieces to the pool with some chance of making the NHL. The more of these you have, the more players will eventually trickle through to the NHL. The pool certainly lacks gamebreakers in their top 5 but it has a good foundation to grow.

11. Nashville Predators

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Brady Martin, Yegor Surin, Matthew Wood, Joakim Kemell and Tanner Molendyk

The Predators system is middle of the pack across all 5 categories. It’s been building over the past 2-3 years. Yegor Surin saw some nice production growth in the KHL this year and has some good star potential to him. Brady Martin, taken 4^th in 2025, doesn’t profile like a star but could certainly be a strong two-way center that chips in 40-50 points a year.

10. Detroit Red Wings

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Axel Sandin-Pellikka, Emmitt Finnie, Nate Danielson, Max Plante and Carter Bear

The Red Wings pool has some good depth to it (lots of options to hit). The top 20 picks as well as recent Hobey Baker winner Max Plante provide some good NHL options, although there’s not much star potential in it.  The goalie prospects, Cossa and Augustine, both profile reasonably well in the model and one or both should provide a good NHL option down the road for the Wings. That stud, near guaranteed star (e.g., Demidov) alludes them, however.

9. Carolina Hurricanes

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Alexander Nikishin, Bradly Nadeau, Ivan Ryabkin, Nikita Artmonov and Joel Nystrom

The Hurricanes, who haven’t had a top 5 since they drafted Svechnikov in 2018, have a solid pool, built on depth. They are excellent at grabbing good value later in the draft and have built up a solid pool with 23 reasonable NHL bets because of it (more than any other team). Even with some graduates recently like Jackson Blake and Seth Jarvis (Nikishin soon to cross over too), the Hurricanes continually have a good deep system to draw from and plug holes on their roster. Of note, Ivan Ryabkin was once regarded as a top 10 pick for the 2025 draft but had a wonky all over the place draft year and fell to the very end of the 2nd round where the Hurricanes snagged him. His production returned in his D+1 (in the Q). Keep your eyes on him for a few years down the road.

8. New York Islanders

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Matthew Schaefer, Calum Ritchie, Cole Eiserman, Victor Eklund and Kashawn Aitcheson

All it took was two really solid drafts from the Islanders, and Matthew Schaefer hitting as an immediate superstar dman in his first 82 games, and the Islanders have quickly rose from a pool in the mid 20’s to one in the top 10. Their top 5 skater prospects is one of the best groupings of any team. Fantastic goalie prospects. Just need another star prospect and build out the depth some more and they’ll be ready to go.

7. Washington Capitals

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Ryan Leonard, Cole Hutson, Andrew Cristall, Ilya Protas and Terik Parascak

A sneaky good prospect system that has been rapidly growing the last 3 years. The top 5 is loaded with NHLer caliber talent, with even a star or two in the fold (the model loves Cristall and Hutson fwiw). Good depth all over except at the goalie spot, where they have the worst regarded prospects (model-wise) in the entire league.

6. Philadelphia Flyers

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Porter Martone, Denver Barkey, Oliver Bonk, David Jiricek and Jett Luchanko

Even with the graduation of stud prospect Matvei Michkov (who’s crossed over 100 games), the Flyers have a nice prospect pool, with many good caliber pieces. Michkov and Martone are trending to be star pieces. Additionally, Zavragin gives them a legit goalie prospect who profiles very, very well in the model.

5. Seattle Kraken

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Jake O’Brien, Berkly Catton, Jagger Firkus, Lukas Dragicevic and Nathan Villeneuve

The Kraken are in the top 10 in all 5 categories. Solid top 5, headlined with Jake O’Brien and Berkly Catton as the potential star pieces. Good depth with 17 pieces in the system with a 30%+ probability of making the NHL. A good goalie prospect system with Vyazovoy and Saarinen. It’s a bluechip star prospect away from being a top 3 system.

4. Chicago Blackhawks

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Anton Frondell, Artyom Levshunov, Oliver Moore, Roman Kantserov and Sam Rinzel

Even with Nazar and Bedard graduating recently, the Blackhawks still have one of the best top 5 prospect pools in the NHL. Anton Frondell, who was the #1 ranked prospect in the Hockey Prospecting 2025 Top 32, has massive star potential and showed flashes of it already in his brief stint in the NHL at the end of the year.  Levshunov also looks the part of a future star dman. Kantserov has been putting up some astronomical numbers in the KHL the last few years.

The system also has good depth to it outside of the top 5 with players like Lardis, Vanacker, Behm, Nestrasil and West showing well. They’ll add another big piece at 4^th overall in this year’s draft. They’re locked and ready to quickly build into a playoff team. Their goalie prospect system doesn’t appear to have “the guy” in the system yet. That could be a focus point in the next few drafts.

3. Calgary Flames

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Zayne Parekh, Matvei Gridin, Cole Reschny, Ethan Wyttenbach and Hunter Brzustewicz

The Flames have had a couple stellar drafts in a row. They’ve added some formidable NHL, even star, pieces and it has also served to quickly build out their depth. Their depth (players with a 30% chance of becoming an NHLer) is one of the tops in the league.  There’s the skaters in the top 5 but you also have the likes of Kerins, Mews, Honzek, Basha, Curran, Misa, Suniev, Stockselius, Othmann, Castagna, Potter, Lane and Morin who all have reasonable NHLer probabilities. The surge of Ethan Wyttenbach this year in the NCAA has provided the Flames a legit, possible star, prospect almost out of nowhere.

Wyttenbach, a 5^th round pick of the 2025 draft, led the entire NCAA in points as a freshman and saw production in his first year of college that is usually only reserved for top picks that have turned into stars/superstars in the NHL (Kariya, Eichel, Celebrini, Fantilli, McKenna, etc.).

They’ll be adding a boat load more at the 2026 draft, where they hold 2 1^st round picks (one at 6^th overall) and 4 2^nd round picks. The Flames are well positioned to have one of the very best pools in the league, that is continually added to replenish the stock, over the next few years.

2. Montreal Canadiens

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Ivan Demidov, Michael Hage, David Reinbacher, Alexander Zharovsky and Bryce Pickford

Even with the graduation of superstar Lane Hutson from the top 5 pool, the Canadiens continue to hold one of the best top 5 skater pools in the NHL.  Demidov looks to be a guaranteed star (is already producing like one in his rookie year), while Zharovsky and Hage also have tons of star potential. They also continue to have one of the deepest pools in the league with over 20 options with a decent chance of making the NHL. I like this meteoric rise that Bryce Pickford is on right now too… really neat story, hope he hits big time!

1. San Jose Sharks

Top 5 Skater Prospects: Igor Chernyshov, Sam Dickinson, Michael Misa, Quentin Must and Luca Cagnoni

Even with the graduations of star talents Macklin Celebrini, Will Smith and William Eklund, the Sharks top 5 is still off the charts and loaded with potential star talent.  Their depth is also really strong. And add to it they get to pick 2^nd overall again this year (somehow).

The 2026 draft class has some high potential star talent at the top end and the Sharks will almost certainly end up with one of those quality options. A pool this deep and talented will be adding one of McKenna, Stenberg, Reid, Carels, Malhotra or Verhoeff… just unfair. No holes really to their system. They should be done drafting in the top 5 for the next decade with how loaded their system is and with how young their core roster is.