NHL Draft 2025 ranking: Matthew Schaefer leads Corey Pronman's top 125 prospects list
Today, we release my final big board for the 2025 NHL Draft. I may make some mild tweaks after going to Dan Milstein's camp and seeing some of the top Russians, but for the most part, this is the end product after getting as much information as possible from last week's NHL Scouting Combine and throughout the season.
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As the season went along, the 2025 draft class began to look better. It's still a slightly below-average group, without true star power at the top other than Erie's Matthew Schaefer, but this top 10 group projects to produce numerous high-quality NHL forwards.
Ranked players are placed into tiers and given tool grades. Tool grades are based on a scale with six separate levels, with an eye toward how this attribute would grade in the NHL (poor, below-average, average, above-average, high-end and elite). 'Average' on this scale means the tool projects as NHL average, which is meant as a positive, not a criticism. Skating, puck skills, hockey sense and compete for every projected NHL player are graded. Shot grades are only included if a shot is notably good or poor.
Player comparables are my best attempt at giving readers an idea of what I think these prospects could realistically become in the NHL.
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; photos of Michael Misa, Matthew Schaefer, Porter Martone: Michael Miller / ISI Photos / Getty Images)
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New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Which 2025 NHL Draft prospects can help Buffalo Sabres find more toughness?
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That's the problem NHL teams are trying to solve. Even as the game has become faster and more skilled than ever, the physical element of the sport hasn't gone away. If anything, the Panthers' run has amplified the value of that playing style. Bennett, Matthew Tkachuk and Aleksander Barkov set the tone for a lineup full of gnarly competitors. The night before media and testing day at the 2025 NHL Scouting Combine, the Panthers and Oilers played a double-overtime classic in Game 2 of the final. Connor McDavid's show-stopping move on his assist was a highlight, but Bennett, Tkachuk and Brad Marchand, players who combine skill with truculence, also made a big difference in the game. The Panthers don't get to the Stanley Cup Final three years in a row without a few players who are miserable for opponents to play against. Not only are other teams around the league starting to recognize that, but the prospects themselves are gravitating to that style of play. Maybe it's just the particular batch of prospects available in the draft this year, but these players are modeling their game after different types of players. When players fielded questions about who they try to emulate, the Tkachuk brothers came up often. So did Bennett, Capitals forward Tom Wilson, Jets captain Adam Lowry, Flyers forward Travis Konecny and Lightning forward Brandon Hagel. In their own way, each of those players brings a nastiness to the game. What those players all have in common is that they aren't bottom-of-the-lineup players. They are tough but skilled enough to play in the top six. Advertisement 'I think it's how hockey should be played,' said Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds center Brady Martin, a projected top-10 pick. 'Nowadays, that's what wins championships. It's not always the most skilled players. It's the guys that want it the most. That style of play is coming back.' Martin is one of the heaviest hitters available in the 2025 NHL Draft. That he can combine that with scoring ability is why he's likely getting picked in the top 10. You don't have to watch Martin for long to recognize his toughness. But it's not always easiest to spot which 17- and 18-year-olds will bring a hard-nosed playing style when they get to the NHL. 'You can get tendencies on players in terms of their ability to play a tough or aggressive style of hockey,' Sabres associate general manager Jason Karmanos said. 'Of course, we look for players with those elements. Depending on what level they're playing at, it's not as easily detectable. Some players that are physically underdeveloped may have it come a little later in that regard. Especially if they're playing in a league against men but they have a boy's body.' The Sabres are a team that has lacked the hard edge the Panthers have in their game. They tried to address that by adding Beck Malenstyn, Sam Lafferty and Nicolas Aube-Kubel to their roster last summer. But it helps to have some of these players coming through the prospect pipeline, too. These 17- and 18-year-olds won't make the Sabres a harder team to play against tomorrow. Still, the process needs to start somewhere. The players who are capable of playing high up in a lineup and have toughness aren't easy to acquire in trades and free agency, either. That's why the draft can be a useful mechanism for finding these types of players. Since Kevyn Adams became the Sabres' general manager, there has been some criticism that they've been drafting too many smaller skill players, particularly at forward. Of the forwards the Sabres have drafted in the top two rounds under Adams, only Anton Wahlberg was bigger than 6-feet tall. Prokhor Poltapov, Zach Benson and Konsta Helenius all have a competitive playing style, but until the Sabres are playing in bigger games and those players physically mature, it will be tough to gauge what type of jam they really have. 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Of course, if you overcompensate for physicality at the expense of skill, you end up with a prospect pool full of bottom-six players. The rare find is a player who can play high up the lineup and has the 'hardness' to his game. This class has a few candidates. Martin is one such player in the top 10, but he's not the only one. Brampton winger Porter Marton plays a rugged style but has the hands and goal-scoring touch to be a top-line player. He's already been forced to learn the balance that the Tkachuk brothers deal with regularly when it comes to being an agitator. 'It's on my time,' Martone said. 'I don't let other people take me off my game. I don't need to be doing that every single time. You see Tkachuk in the playoffs. He chooses when he does create that stuff. For myself, I'm a very offensive player and like to create plays, so I can't spend all of my time in the penalty box.' 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Give your team some juice, get them fired up.' What will be worth watching is how much these players get boosted by the way the Panthers have dominated the last few years. The way every player on that roster is committed to playing a competitive style of game all over the ice is the biggest thing separating them from the rest of the league. And there's no question the Sabres need more of that if they're going to become a team that is consistently playing in the postseason. Nobody in this draft is necessarily going to help the Sabres end the drought next season, but building that attitude has to start somewhere. (Photo of Michael Misa and Brady Martin at 2025 NHL Scouting Combine: Bill Wippert / NHLI via Getty Images)
Associated Press
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New York Times
2 hours ago
- New York Times
Would Bruins GM Don Sweeney trade the No. 7 pick?
Don Sweeney is nothing if not thorough. He engaged 14 head coaching candidates before identifying Marco Sturm as his preferred target. He attacks problems from left, right, top and bottom. It is no surprise, then, that the Boston Bruins general manager is considering every possibility ahead of the 2025 NHL Draft. That includes moving the No. 7 pick. Advertisement 'We will use the draft capital and try to improve our hockey club this year and moving forward in every capacity possible. It might mean making the selection,' Sweeney said Tuesday. 'But it won't mean we weren't having conversations that say how we improve our hockey club today and moving forward.' You can understand why other GMs would query Sweeney about the No. 7 selection. Difference-making players have been picked at that position, including Matvei Michkov, Quinn Hughes, Clayton Keller and Mark Scheifele. Pick No. 7 represents a good opportunity for a team to draft an impactful prospect who would earn three years of relative peanuts on an entry-level contract. Those are the reasons, then, that such trades almost never happen. Sweeney ran his first draft as GM in 2015. Within that stretch, only one top-seven selection has been moved at this time of year. On June 23, 2017, the first day of that year's draft, the Arizona Coyotes traded Tony DeAngelo and the seventh pick to the New York Rangers for Derek Stepan and Antti Raanta. The Rangers used the pick to draft Lias Andersson. In retrospect, trading No. 7 was worth it for the Coyotes. Stepan, 27 at the time, scored 14 goals and 42 assists in 2017-18. Meanwhile, Raanta posted a .930 save percentage in 47 appearances. Andersson scored three goals and six assists in 66 career games for the Rangers before he was moved to the Los Angeles Kings for a second-round pick. Other players the Rangers should have considered at No. 7 include Martin Necas, Nick Suzuki, Robert Thomas and Jason Robertson. The fact that the 2017 trade is the exception and not the rule, however, proves how valuable clubs consider the No. 7 pick. By now, with the NHL Scouting Combine complete and the draft just over two weeks away, teams are finalizing their lists. GMs and scouts are excited about the chance to make their selections. Advertisement As a rule, they don't trade high-end picks when the draft is this close. This is not to say the Bruins won't break the mold. One of Sweeney's first tasks is to supply new coach Sturm with NHL players. The seventh selection, in all likelihood, will not collect his first NHL paycheck until 2026-27 at the earliest. Sturm needs help today. If, to use the 2017 example, it gets Sturm a veteran center like Stepan was at the time, the first-year coach would jump on the trade call to help it guarantee approval. 'I haven't had a coach worry too much about draft capital,' Sweeney said with a smile, 'other than if you're going to use it to improve his current club. That would always be the recommendation of the coach.' But one of the things Sweeney learned during the coaching search was how far the Bruins have slipped when it comes to incorporating young players. It is a valid critique. Matt Poitras, the No. 54 pick in 2022, only stuck for 33 games up top in 2024-25. Fabian Lysell, the 2021 first-rounder once considered a possible Jake DeBrusk replacement, scored one goal in 12 games. Johnny Beecher, the team's first-round selection in 2019, scored just three goals. Whoever the Bruins pick at No. 7 would have a far greater likelihood of making an NHL impression. It could be Jake O'Brien. Maybe it will be Brady Martin. Both play center. The Bruins are short-handed at the position. In 2003 and 2004, the Bruins used second-round picks to draft Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci. They were seismic selections. Sweeney has noted, following the centers' retirements, how drafting pivots of their caliber does not happen often, especially given how late the Bruins had traditionally picked. Sweeney has also observed how rarely game-changing centers become available on the trade market or in free agency. When it happens, the cost is through the roof. The draft, then, is the most efficient button Sweeney can push for dramatic improvement.
