part 1 | Final rankings for draft 2025: positions 1 to 10
Some things have changed, and some haven’t, since our mid-season rankings for the upcoming draft.
Following their late-January, early-February debacle, the Habs bounced back from the 4 Nations Confrontation to finally make the playoffs.
But they also kept their two top-20 picks. They’re just a little closer together than we’d originally envisioned!
Then came the lottery.
Surprise, surprise! The Islanders get the first pick! The Mammoth, the 4th!
As of today, all that remains is to find out whether or not our adopted team, NOS Huileux, will win the Stanley Cup.
In short, with the draft just 20 days away, it’s time to unveil our final top-20 rankings for this year’s draft.
As we did last year, we’ll be drawing up this list with one question in mind: in 15 years’ time, who will have had the best career?
Let’s get started with positions 1 to 10.
Positions 11 to 20 will follow shortly, so stay tuned!
1. Matthew Schaefer | D | Left-hander (1st)
Schaefer hasn’t played a game since his sad and spectacular injury at the CMJ during the holiday season. It’s been a long time!
He was present at the Combine this week and took the opportunity to share his personal experience for a good cause, having lost his mother to breast cancer in February 2024.
Otherwise, almost everything has already been said about him. An exceptional skater, capable of becoming a complete defenseman with considerable offensive potential. You always see a mixture of Heiskanen, Makar and Niedermeyer when you think of him.
That’s just it, the Islanders are lucky… at least in theory.
Because with Schaefer, we’re not in the same territory as with Celebrini and Bedard at the last two auctions. We don’t have the same level of certainty that he will indeed become the best of his crop.
Reason: injuries.
A player with such speed needs to have a better sense of danger than he does of where he is on the ice(awareness). You can’t self-injure yourself by crashing into the post at 100 mph, without lacking a bit of orientation or a sense of the game, can you?
Canada’s Matthew Schaefer went down the tunnel after running into the goal at full speed with his shoulder then hitting the boards pic.twitter.com/TJoyQ3Qcui
– CJ Fogler
(@cjzero) December 28, 2024
And to answer your question, no, I wouldn’t take Schaefer over Lane Hutson. And probably not in front of Cole Hutson either. Both of them know everything that’s going on on the ice at all times…
But Schaefer has all the talent in the world and will undoubtedly learn from this injury.
2. Michael Misa | C/AG | Left-handed (2nd)
There’s no better scoring touch than Misa’s in this draft. The author of 62 goals and 134 points in 65 games outrageously dominated the competition in his 3rd OHL season. Awarded exceptional player status at age 15, Misa, 6’1, 185 lbs, has literally EVERYTHING you could want in an offensive center, in addition to being defensively responsible. Name one offensive quality he possesses.
Some see him having more success on the wing in the NHL, however, and the possibility of him playing on Celebrini’s wing in San Jose could give fuel to that idea.
My only concern with Misa remains: is he good under pressure?
His performances and stats aren’t that great under the biggest lights. After an ordinary series in 2024, including the Memorial Cup, Saginaw’s early exit in the first round of the playoffs this spring, in which he scored just 3 points in 4 games, with a horrible minus-10 differential, might give some pause… Anyway, Misa remains in 2nd place in my rankings, but we’ve rarely seen a player with such stats in the regular season raise so little enthusiasm…
3. Caleb Desnoyers | C | Gaucher (4th)
Will a team dare to pick Desnoyers second, ahead of Michael Misa? The Québécois will become a slightly more imposing center and probably more dominant defensively than the Ontarian, but we think Misa’s offensive touch will ensure he tops Desnoyers (and Frondell) at the finish line.
Desnoyers stands out for his superior intelligence and positioning on the ice, without being a strictly cerebral player. He’s also a hard worker and a technically near-perfect skater (he could do with more explosion), capable of beautiful changes of direction. Without being very flashy on a regular basis, Desnoyers is adept at puck protection, strong along the ramps and proves to be a well above-average passer.
He still reminds me a lot of Jonathan Toews, but a little less dynamic. I’m inclined to agree with him on this one!
Caleb Desnoyers player comparison is this #Blackhawks Stanley Cup winner… pic.twitter.com/3YhgWUjnYr
– The Prospect Don (@TheProspectDon) June 7, 2025
We know that the Canadiens like him a lot and that he’d love to play for the Habs. But will the Habs like him enough to make an irresistible offer to the team about to draft him? And what would such an offer look like?
It would take a lot more than first- and second-round picks. The clubs likely to draft Desnoyers will want solid value, which would force the Canadiens to part with some of its young core…
4.Anton Frondell | C | Left (3rd)
Perhaps it was Desnoyers’ excellent series and Frondell’s ordinary U18 that finally put the Québécois just ahead of the Swede at the finish line. But it’s a very tight race between these two complete future centerpieces.
In addition to a sharp sense of play all over the rink, Frondell already possesses impressive physical maturity, as well as a powerful skating stroke and shot. He’s probably less likely than Misa to become a first-line player and a big point producer, and I don’t think he’s as good a passer as Desnoyers. But will he be any less useful to his team, given that he’s one of the best shots in the draft? He’s the kind of pivot who should be playing big minutes late in the season and in the playoffs, even if his U18 hasn’t been sparkling…
5. Porter Martone | AD | Right-hander (6th)
At 6’3 and over 200 lbs, many dream of Martone becoming the NHL’s next big, hard-hitting power forward. While the Ontarian is not afraid of a strong game, he is first and foremost an excellent passer and a very crafty, creative player with excellent hands and a great deal of finesse.
An average skater technically (his knees aren’t at 90°), he’s still agile and quick on his feet.
Corey Perry and Mark Stone come to mind when you watch him in the offensive zone. Like those two, he can also anticipate the play and steal pucks with his long range.
I had my doubts about him over the winter – does he dominate because he’s older (he’ll be 19 in October) and bigger? – but I’ve come around. Even if we don’t always like his defensive retreats, Martone is just too smart on the ice and too good with the puck – excellent quickness of execution – to miss.
Clearly a future top-6 NHL winger… and a good one.
6. James Hagens | C | Left-handed (5th)
Hagens may be the second most “beautiful talent” in the draft, but he didn’t exactly set tongues wagging this season at Boston College, where he played alongside Ryan Leonard (8th, 2023) and Gabriel Perreault (23rd, 2023). The American nonetheless had a good junior world championship at the center of the same two Sparrows, but did he dominate the competition as a result?
We simply had too many expectations of him after his absolutely phenomenal U18 last spring, following which everyone – myself included – saw him coming out on top in 2025… It’s now not out of the question for him to leave the top-5 in June. Perhaps he didn’t live well with the pressure of his draft year , even if he still believes he deserves to be picked first. Is he suffering from Shane Wright syndrome? Was the leap to the NCAA more complicated than he anticipated? Who knows?
The fact remains that if we tell you his style and talent are reminiscent of Logan Cooley or Clayton Keller, it’s hard to place Hagens lower than the top-6.
An excellent future #2 center, ideally behind a solid, larger #1 center? A top-6 winger? In short, he remains a dynamic, fast and creative forward who will score several hundred points in his career.
7. Jake O’Brien | C | Right-handed (9th)
Right-handed center, 6’2, 98 points in 66 games, good for 9th in OHL scoring at age 17, intelligent in both directions of the rink, superb passer, great creativity, good work ethic, good shot, O’Brien has moved up a few spots in this ranking since last February. However, he needs to improve his stride mechanics (average skater for now), his face-offs and his physical strength (175 lbs…).
Here’s a player who could cause a bit of a surprise at last year’s Sennecke and break into the top-6. But if logic is anything to go by, it’s at #7 that O’Brien’s heart will start beating a little faster. This other Ontarian will have to put on a lot of muscle mass over the next few years, but the end product could be well worth it. Not as good a skater as Sennecke, nor as imposing, he’s a bit of a light version of the man who was picked third in 2024.
8. Carter Bear | C/AG | Left-hander (7th)
Intensity, liveliness, dynamism, responsibility, efficiency. Bear, 6’0, more often than not the F1 in check forward, is a constant “double threat” in offensive territory. His overall profile is a little reminiscent of Tij Iginla, whom I liked last year. An unorthodox skater (leaning too far forward), Bear still gets from point A to point B with his pedal to the floor. But he also thinks the game at high speed and regularly wins his battles for the puck with a ” dog on a bone ” approach. Intense and dedicated all over the ice, Bear knows where to go to score goals and create chaos. He scores many of his goals in the slot, with sharp, precise shots or deflections, qualities that translate very well to the NHL.
As the playoffs prove every year, you win with guys like Carter Bear in your line-up, and Everett would no doubt have liked to count on him. Still, he seems to have recovered well from his Achilles tendon injury, and I don’t think it will really affect his draft ranking.
Fueling under pressure, in love with his sport, the guy just seems to have the perfect personality for a market like Montreal. He also finds a way to excel on the power play, where he’s often very aggressive on the puck carrier.
Having made meteoric progress over the past three seasons, Bear is a sure bet and could become a “spark plug” that wouldn’t hurt a club like the Canadiens…
Habs officials have met with him on several occasions, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they tried to select him on June 27. Could an offer like this be enough?
9. Radim Mrtka | D | Right-hander (8th)
It would be surprising if there weren’t at least two defensemen in the top-10, and Mrtka is the second-best defenseman in the draft, according to my observations. Mrtka, a bit of a personal “darling” of mine in 2025, has made a seamless transfer to Seattle (WHL) from his native Czech Republic’s top professional league. He often played more than 27-28 minutes.
Author of almost a point per game in Canadian junior during his first 30 games, his production slowed a little in the final stretch of the season, but nothing to worry about, as he played for a fairly weak club, barely qualified for the playoffs, where Mrtka did not do badly without being brilliant (3 pts in 6 games, -3) against Everett (without Carter Bear).
The nearly 6’6 giant moves with an ease reminiscent of Tyler Myers and Vladimir Malakhov, and shoots dryly and effortlessly like the latter. Although we’d like him to be a little more truculent, he’d be a damn fine option for the Habs on the right side of defense. A top-4 defenseman capable of eating up big minutes any day of the week.
The Habs, undoubtedly a little worried about their right-side backup, have spied and met with the Czech on several occasions in recent months. Considering the Austrian’s history of knee injuries, it’s fair to wonder whether Mrtka might not have a more successful career than Reinbacher, even though the latter may have more talent and robustness in his game..
A complete defender with an outstanding physique who will probably reach his true physical maturity in his mid-twenties, Mrtka isn’t that far from the NHL. He just needs to get a little stronger and a little meaner in front of the net.
10. Brady Martin | C/AD | Right-handed (N/C)
The riser of the last few months. After a very good season but short series in the OHL with a bad club in Sault Ste-Marie, the burly, abrasive Martin has been a very solid contributor to the U18, recording no less than 11 pts in 7 games.
An adept of the zone near the goalie, a distributor of brutal body checks, some are already comparing his game to Sam Bennett, playoff hero of the last three springs. We’re even starting to hear Martin’s name in the top-5..
But it’s also possible that Martin has little offense to offer in the NHL and will become a third-line center or a sturdysecond-line winger. Already at or near physical maturity, he may already be very close to his ceiling, and what you see is what you get.
But, as with Carter Bear, the proof is in the pudding: if you want to win, you need guys like him, and that’s going to be worth a lot of money on June 27.
We’ll soon be reconnecting with positions 11 to 20. A little bird tells me that some of you might be interested… #16-17MTL
