A data-driven look at the 2025 NHL Draft top prospects

With leagues around the world winding down their seasons, and the 2025 NHL Draft just a month and a half out, we are entering draft rankings season. As is typical, NHL Central Scouting was the first major public service to finalize its 2025 NHL Draft ranking. We’ll be watching closely as the reputable lists continue to roll in because we publish a consensus ranking called the “Big Board.” The Big Board usually drops a week or two before the draft.

In the mean time, with all regular-season data in the books, we have our final “data-only” draft prospect watchlist for you. This year we did a preseason watchlist and a midseason version too, if you want to see what things looked like earlier in the process.

The Data Score watchlist

We organize our watchlist by “Data Score,” a rough metric we came up with here at Sound Of Hockey. Data Score begins with the bedrock of an NHL equivalency (“NHLe”). NHLe is a method to compare the scoring proficiency of players in the various professional and junior leagues across the globe. I used Thibaud Chatel’s model, which is the most up-to-date public research in the area. Check out Chatel’s Substack for an in-depth discussion of NHLe. For this project, I used Chatel’s newest model, which has been updated to account for 2024-25 season data, and applied it to player scoring data from the 2024-25 regular season.

From that basic NHLe, I then make adjustments for age, height, and position, as well as a modest upward adjustment to the NHLe for low-scoring, draft-eligible players playing in high-level professional leagues. I then normalize the resulting output and call it the prospect’s “Data Score.” This number no longer projects NHL scoring but is (hopefully) useful in describing the relative strength of prospects. I’ve gone through the methodology in more detail previously here and here.

Answering a few additional questions up front: First, this is a skater-only list. Second, I use a 15-games-played minimum threshold to be included on the watchlist. Third, scoring from international events (such as the World Junior Championship) is not included. Fourth, data from all levels of club play is included in calculating “Data Score.” However, for simplicity, the watchlist below actually displays the scoring data for only the highest league reached by the player. (For example, Radim Mrtka’s line displays his 10 games in the Czech Extraliga, Czechia’s highest pro league, before coming to North America to play in the WHL for the Seattle Thunderbirds and compiling three goals and 32 assists in 43 games.)

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I don’t consider this a prospect “ranking” in the traditional sense. I am not engaging in the challenging process of subjective prospect-to-prospect comparison here. Instead, I’m simply providing a list based on scoring and other translatable measures to facilitate further analysis or discussion. I suspect this is how the best-run NHL teams use NHLe data or other data-based measures.

Without further ado, here are the top-200 first-time-eligible draft prospects in Data Score:

Here are the top-200 re-draft prospects (prospects that were previously eligible but didn’t get selected) in Data Score:

The full Data Score watchlist is approximately 9000 entries long and will be made available shortly to Sound Of Hockey patrons.

Big picture data takeaways

This draft has solid high-end talent and depth in the forward group playing in the CHL. The Canadian-born class is also solid, generally speaking. It looks relatively weak in most other areas

The very top of the draft is, at best, average. Defenseman Matthew Schaefer and forward Michael Misa are blue chip players, but their data profiles fall short of last year’s top pick, Macklin Celebrini. Indeed, two other players from the 2024 class, Zeev Buium and Zayne Parekh, arguably had better data than anyone here. (To be clear, as a scouting matter, I’d prefer Schaefer to Buium or Parekh.)

The blue line class is also thin at the top. Schaefer is the only blueliner in the top 16 on the watchlist.

The European class is relatively barren, saved only by two Swedish forwards from Djurgårdens IF, Anton Frondell and Victor Eklund, each of whom could go in the top 10. Czechia’s towering defenseman Mrtka may also be drafted in that range, but it wouldn’t be surprising if no other European players get selected in the first round.

Finally, after a strong run, it was a down year from the United States National Team Development Program. At this point, I think it would be an upset if any Program player is drafted in the first round.

Focusing on first-time eligible prospects, the OHL continues to be the top development league. The top four prospects on the watchlist, defenseman Schaefer and forwards Misa, Porter Martone, and Jake O’Brien, all hail from the OHL. The OHL also has 30 of the top 200 first-time-eligible players on the watchlist, more than any other league. The WHL tracks in second with two top players, Ben Kindel and Cole Reschny, checking in at Nos. 5 and 6 on the watchlist, and 29 players overall on the list. The first non-CHL player on the watchlist is NCAA forward James Hagens at No. 7.

Breaking down the first-time eligible prospects by nationality, Canada has the most prospects by far in terms of volume (74 of 200) and total “Data Score” value. The United States trails by a significant margin and is followed by Russia, Sweden, and Finland, in that order.

Prospects notes

As mentioned, one use of the watchlist is to identify players that lack public buzz and notoriety as potentially undervalued targets. A few names stand out at the top. Kindel is No. 5 of the watchlist, despite being ranked 21st among North American skaters by NHL Central Scouting. Likewise, Reschny is No. 6 on the watchlist and No. 25 for NHL Central Scouting. Both players are 5-foot-10 and likely fall into the “size concern” category, but both have been highly active and engaged as junior players (though in slightly different ways). Each could be a nice value for a team in the mid-to-late first round.

Most notable, perhaps, are two BCHL players, Jeremy Loranger and Kale Dach, who check in at 16 and 18 on the watchlist, respectively. Loranger led the BCHL in scoring with 105 points, which was the fifth-most by a BCHL player in the last 15 years. His production puts him among the company of Bradly Nadeau, Tyson Jost, Alex Newhook, and Kent Johnson. Even so, he is barely ranked by most public sources. Size will certainly be an issue for Loranger (5-foot-8), but the data likely warrants at least a flyer pick. If teams are willing to roll the dice on the 5-foot-7 Cameron Schmidt (No. 43 for NHL Central Scouting), they should at least consider Loranger too.

Dach has bit more size (5-foot-11) and a very strong BCHL scoring profile (87 points, second in the BCHL). Even so, he, too, may be significantly undervalued by NHL Central Scouting, which has him as the No. 136 North American skater. The data suggests there may be more there.

What’s next?

Our 2025 NHL Draft coverage is just getting into gear here at Sound Of Hockey. As the draft gets closer, we’re planning to publish the Big Board, a seven-round Seattle Kraken mock draft, and much more. If you need more in the short term, check out our recent first-round mock draft, our post-Lottery analysis of five players who could be available to the Kraken at the No. 8 overall pick, or just drop us a question or comment below. You can also reach us on X @deepseahockey or @sound_hockey or on BlueSky @deepseahockey or @soundofhockey.com.

Header photo of Seattle Thunderbirds defenseman Radim Mrtka taken by Brian Liesse, courtesy Seattle Thunderbirds.