Welcome to our third annual analysis of all NHL-affiliated prospects and each organization’s prospect pipeline. With rookie camps and tournaments right around the corner and training camps following soon thereafter, there is no better time to get up to speed on the players that will soon take center stage across the league.
The “data score” approach
Today’s analysis is a “data-only” look at the prospect landscape. This is not a traditional scouting assessment of prospects or organizational prospect pools. Think of it, instead, as a supplement to the scouting and analytical work on prospects being published by other sources like Elite Prospects and The Athletic at this time of year.
What do I mean by a “data-only” analysis? As I have done in years past when looking at NHL-affiliated players (or draft prospects), I have organized this player list 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.
In contrast with years past when I looked at only a one-year sample to create this list, this year, I applied this NHLe to three years of scoring data—from the 2022-23, 2023-24, and 2024-25 seasons. More recent play is given more weight. I think this is an important upgrade to the approach and one I will be continuing to iterate on moving forward.
After deriving an NHLe from the scoring data, I then make adjustments for age, height, and position, as well as a modest upward adjustment to the NHLe for low-scoring 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.
NHL-affiliated prospects list eligibility
To be eligible for this list, the player (1) must be a skater on the roster or reserve list of an NHL team, (2) must be younger than 24 years old as of Sept. 1, 2025, and (3) cannot have played more than 50 NHL games. (I adjusted the age threshold downward from 25 years old this year.) This approach yielded approximately 850 players. The full list will be published shortly on the Sound Of Hockey Patreon. Let’s get into the top 200 players and prospect pipelines here.
Top-200 NHL-Affiliated Prospects
While the flow of talent from Russia and Belarus has understandably ebbed in recent years, two players from each country appear in the top ten in our NHL-affiliated prospects list.
Russian Ivan Demidov was widely regarded as one of the most talented players outside of the NHL until his debut late in the 2024-25 season. Igor Chernyshov, also of Russia, boosted his stock in the eyes of scouts and in this data-only analysis by posting 55 points in 23 OHL games in his first North American action. Belarussian forward Ilya Protas followed a similar upward trajectory after lighting up the OHL last season for 124 points in 61 games. Finally, Belarussian defenseman and 2024 No. 2 pick Artyom Levshunov performed well in his first AHL year, posting 22 points in 52 games.
The OHL accounts for half of the top 10, with 2025 No. 2 pick Michael Misa, defenseman Zayne Parekh, and forward Porter Martone joining Chernyshov and Protas. On the college side, Zeev Buium, who played for the University of Denver before debuting for the Wild late in the 2024-25 season, is the sole college hockey representative in the top 10.
Finally, three AHL players round out the top 10: former University of Maine forward Bradly Nadeau, Levshunov, and former Liiga standout and Kraken prospect Jani Nyman.
It may be surprising at first to see Nyman so high on this list, but that’s because he’s been a bit under-considered behind the high-profile centers Seattle has drafted. Two years ago, he scored the most goals by a 19-year-old in Liiga play in 40 years. This past year, Nyman was second in the AHL in goals among rookies, behind only Nadeau. He has scored in exemplary fashion at levels that fellow prospects Berkly Catton and Jake O’Brien have not yet reached. Nyman’s profile heralds a prolific NHL scorer.
Prospect pipelines and organizational outlook
The San Jose Sharks appear primed to improve—and quickly. Even after graduating prospects like Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith, the Sharks have three of the top 18 NHL-affiliated prospects by our Data Score method: Misa, Chernyshov, and defenseman Sam Dickinson.
The Calgary Flames had the most prospects overall in the top 100 with eight. The Anaheim Ducks, Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, Minnesota Wild, St. Louis Blues, and Washington Capitals are next with six. The Seattle Kraken round out the top quarter of the league, as the only team with five prospects in the top 100.
Visualizing each organization’s top 100 prospects against 2024-25 regular-season standings points, we see which teams are well positioned now and into the future. Interestingly, only five teams were better than average in the 2024-25 standings and have more than the average number of top 100 prospects (i.e., at least four): Montreal, Calgary, Minnesota, Washington, and Winnipeg. Otherwise, teams are clustered in either the “win now” range (with productive NHL rosters but few top-scoring prospects) or the rebuilding range.
Digging deeper into the list, the Flames and Kraken are tied for the most prospects within the top 200, with 12 apiece.
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[Author’s Note: The ranking and article were updated on Sept. 6, 2025, after an error in the age adjustments was discovered. For example, Jani Nyman moved No. 7 on the originally-published list to No. 9 in this corrected list. I apologize for the inconvenience.]
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Did we miss a player? (It’s possible; the information gathering for this project is challenging.) Do you have any questions? Reach out to us in the comments below or on Twitter/X @deepseahockey or @sound_hockey or on BlueSky at @deepseahockey or @soundofhockey.com.
Curtis Isacke
Curtis is a Sound Of Hockey contributor and member of the Kraken press corps. Curtis is an attorney by day, and he has read the NHL collective bargaining agreement and bylaws so you don’t have to. He can be found analyzing the Kraken, NHL Draft, and other hockey topics on Twitter and Bluesky @deepseahockey.
I think maybe folks have been sleeping on Nyman. Not only has he be scoring at every level, he’s already been playing against men for three plus seasons.
The number of prospects in the top 100 is useful. But I’d be curious to see like a sum of prospect quality by team as well. Calgary stands out as a team with 8 prospects on the list, but only one in the top 50. Compare that to San Jose with 6 on the list, but three in the top 10.
I was looking at that also and noticed that five of Calgary’s eight are below all seven of Seattle’s top 100.
This is a good point. Last time I did a visualization for total Data Score by organization from the top X-number prospects to give a sense not just of the volume of the players in the top group but also the strength of those players. I just created the graph for this year’s top 100 but opted against editing the post to add it, just because it’s fairly linear. Most interesting is at the very top, where the top-four teams are all very close. Calgary is still tops at 378.7 total data score, followed by Montreal at 365.3, then Seattle at 357.9. Right after Seattle is San Jose—which has only have 5 players total, but 4 in the top 15—at 357.7.
Curtis
Very much appreciate your player ranks and especially your individual player breakdowns, but Jani Nyman at #7? Seems fanciful to me. Given one of your adjustments if for height, Jani Nyman’s official height and weight (NHL.com and other sites) is 6’2” 212, as opposed to 6’4” 220 above. Assuming 6’2” would this have a significant impact on JN’s data score?
I used EP’s measurement for all of the players (https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/611825/jani-nyman). From standing near him, I’d guess 6-foot-4 rather than 6-foot-2, but I couldn’t tell you for sure. 6-foot-2 could be right. If so, he’d fall from #7 to ~#12. The height adjustments aren’t that huge, but the drop would be more significant if he were farther back in the pack. He’s in the top tier where there is a good amount of space between each prospect. Put differently, his scoring data is really good. That doesn’t mean for sure it will translate. We’ll see about that.
If I were making a subjective/scouting list of NHL-affiliated prospects, Nyman wouldn’t be that high. I do think he’s underrated, but he’s still behind Catton and O’Brien for me.
I think the NHL combine numbers are the most reliable. At the 2022 combine he measured 6′ 3.5″ and 217 pounds. I belive that was just ahead of his 19th birthday.
Curtis – thanks for the clarification. Lot of differing opinions regarding Nyman’s upside – a fair amount criticism regarding his skating, compete level etc etc. Let’s hope he prooves the crtics wrong.
Just a general FYI, a spreadhseet formatting error resulted in some players not getting age adjusted appropriately. (Bystedt being so high looked out of place to me, and I finally found the reason. He moves from the top 10 to just outside the top 100.) Once the results were normalized, everyone’s score moved around a bit. My apologies. I’ll do better next time. I updated the article.