The Athletic Hockey Show - Who are the NHL’s top 100 prospects?

Episode Date: April 14, 2026

On a special edition of The Athletic Hockey Show Prospect Series, Max and Scott break down Scott’s top 100 drafted NHL prospects ranking, discussing Michael Misa and Porter Martone in a tier of their own at the very top, some of the biggest risers from last year’s ranking, as well as some of Scott’s favorites, the hardest guys to slot, and the goalies to close things out. Hosts: Max Bultman and Scott WheelerExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Chris FlanneryWatch full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theathletichockeyshowJoin our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/VTm9VjkFSubscribe to The Athletic: https://theathletic.com/hockeyshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Hockey Show Prospect Series. Hey, everybody, Max Boltman here alongside Scott Wheeler for another episode of the Athletic Hockey Show Prospect Series. Last week, Scott and I dove into his prospect pool rankings from the team side. We talked about which teams have moved up the most, whose best position for the future. Today we're going to go a little bit more into the individual side of things, Scott, and we're going to go through your top 100 drafted prospects. And at the top, it's a tier of two.

It's Michael Mesa. and it is Porter Martone, who has had the fantastic debut for the Philadelphia Flyers. Why the gap after these two? I think part of it is just Martone's play. Like had I done this a few months ago, and Martone was excellent in college,

but had I done this a few months ago, I think A, the tier might have been larger, like you might have seen four or five players in that group instead of just two in that first tier. And B, Martone might have been third or fourth instead of second. And I debated, I really, really debated Porter at number one ahead of Mike. The position part of it, the skating part of it, sort of edged Mesa in Mesa's favor.

But the Martone that we've seen over, what is it now, almost 10 games here in the NHL, has been impressive. And not just impressive from a rookie 19, 20-year-old kid stepping into the league standpoint, but impressive from a Philadelphia Flyers roster construction standpoint. Like he has stepped in and immediately not just been a good player for them, but on most nights been one of their very best players. And that is hard to ignore. Everybody wondered about the pace, right? That's always been the question with Porter was just sort of how it was all going to work.

We know he's got the skill level, the vision, the playmaking, the size. He's worked on his consistency of his efforts. level is off puck play all of that has come he's physical he's a competitor but it was just sort of the boots and the feet and i've wondered about them myself at times and it has not been he's been ahead of the play he's been jumping into gaps he's been in the mix and on top of that the skill level and the net front and all of that is there and it's real so those felt like the two and that's not to say that those kids in that tier behind them couldn't join them like a tijigan was very high and you go into sort of that next group of forwards.

Berkeley Caton obviously played the full year in the NHL, Jake O'Brien, Roger McQueen, there's Michael Hayd, the emergence of Michael Hage. There are other players, Anton Frundel, there are other players in that sort of next tier, who I think have a chance to be impactful guys in their own right, but it just feels to me like Misa and Martone deserved sort of a little bit of a bubble of their own. Well, the guy who I was curious about why he wasn't there or at, least the next guy up was Frundel because you talked about how good Martone's been since he got to the league. Frondel has been just as good in Chicago since he arrived. You still have, like you said,

he's in the next year, he's number six. But there's a few guys between him, Zane Perak, Tijigenla, guys who have, you know, certainly great prospects, high pedigree, James Hagan's also just debuted. But man, like, Frondell and Martone right now look like kind of similar level to me, at least for what they've been in the NHL so far. Yeah, I'm a little surprised by just a little surprised by just how much they've played Anton. They've played Anton more for the Chicago Blackhawks than they have for, than he did in Gergarten, right? Like he's playing 18 minutes a night for them.

He's driving his own line. They started him with Badaard, then they separated him from Baderd. He's had success in both spots. That part of it for me is really, really new and interesting. Like I've always been, I've always liked Anton. I think Anton's a very good player. I like the shot and oddly enough, the one-timer hasn't even really popped for him yet. But I did wonder similarly about his boots just in those short little races.

And I wondered about his playmaking and what his ultimate offensive ceiling would be. And he hasn't been the production, if you go back and watch his points in the NHL so far, it hasn't been a lot of him creating for himself and playmaking. But he's arriving at Pucks on time. He's around the net. He scored a couple of goals right at the top of the crease. He's made plays off the cycle in terms of driving to the net and sort of wraparounds and that kind of a thing. Power moves off the boards.

I do still wonder a little bit with Anton about the playmaking. Like he just doesn't have this skill and feel on the puck that Amisa or Martone do. But, I mean, he's right in that sort of top 10, right in that second tier. Well, Blackhawks fans can't be too bummed about it because they have eight prospects on this top 100 list. It's them in Nashville dominating the list. Nashville, by the way, was not one. one of the, like Chicago, I believe was your top system when we did that ranking. Nashville has nine prospects in this. It's just, they're, they're missing that frontel.

They're missing that star prospect. Brady Martin, I think, is the highest ranked of the group you have for them. And it's a deep system, though. And so it's a recipe for if the Nashville predators get the right break, get the right piece. And it's going to be tough for them based on where they are in the standings this year. They're probably not going to be picking top five, barring a major break in the lottery. But you get that one star piece and they could shoot up in a hurry. Yeah, those were the top two, nine for the Preds and eight for the Blackhawks in this year's top 100. There were a couple of, a few teams, I believe four teams with seven prospects behind them. Nashville's interesting, though, right?

Because as you sort of alluded to, they don't have the premium, premium, premium guy. But on the flip side, they could have also had more than nine. Like I left players who've played NHL games for them off the list this year. There were four or five guys in my honorable mentions. I sort of listed at the top of this year's article, sort of 20 or 30 guys that were sort of in that, that would be in that sixth tier. There's six tiers in the top 100,

that if I extended it past 100 players, would be in the same tier as the players who sort of rank in the 90s, if you will. And they had multiple players sort of in that groups, including Felix Nilsson, who was unbelievable in the SHL this year. And guys who've played, as I mentioned, guys who played NHL games for them this year.

They've had the emergence of Ryan Ufko, who looks like it was a riser and appeared for the first time on this. list. Ufko's 22, so this will be his own appearance on this list, but just for him to emerge and play his way onto it, sort of adds another piece for them. They've got defensemen like Cameron Reed and Tanner Mollandike and forwards. They do have some skilled forwards. Like, Breaker Lee is one of the most, is a favorite of mine and one of the most talented prospects in the sport from a pure skill standpoint, but they don't have, there are things that could hold

Breaker back. They don't have that true, true sort of teach again some of the names that we mentioned off the top. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, for sure. All right. Well, we talked about some of the guys who have debuted this year and a guy who just debuted is Ilya Proto. He's one of the big risers on your list here. There's a few guys that we should probably talk about. I don't want to overwhelm you all at once. Let's start with Protis. Everyone's familiar with his brother. How similar is Ilya to Alexi? Yeah, Elia after the season a year ago, sort of shot up my list. He was a third round pick. And his draft class and was a fringe guy in my top 100, I must admit, in that year. Then last year in the summer, on the summer version of this list, he's all the way up into the 50s all of a sudden after he was basically a force, like one after Michael Mesa, probably the best forward in the OHL last year from start to finish.

And then it's okay, let's see him do it again. Let's see him have a second season like that at the HL level. He makes the jump to the HL. He could have gone back to Windsor, who were chasing an OHL title this year and played another year of junior, he decided that at 6'5 and 220 pounds that he was ready to take that next step, and he's skilled, and he's got the puck skill is really, really impressive. And then he makes the jump to the HL, and he's a point for game player in the HL as a 20-year-old and dominant at times for Hershey as well.

And now we're seeing him in the NHL. He's already scored in the NHL, just made his debut last week, and he's already got a few points in the league. He's on their top, they slotted him under their top power play. They've got both the brothers on their top power play already right away. and they're they're giving him a look down the stretch here to show what he's made of. And he just continues to show it. And so once you get through the big names, like the top 10, the guys who've been top 10 picks,

I think he's not even in necessarily in a tier behind those guys. Like I think we should be talking about Elia in the same way we talked about Alexi. Both are going, obviously Alexei, we've already seen be a 60 point player in the week. I think that's kind of the tier that we're talking about with Elia as well. Ilya is also playing center. I have him listed as a winger, and Caps fans have kind of given me a hard time about how I keep listing him as a winger,

even though he's playing center in the HL and now playing center in the NHL. I'm not sure whether he'll ultimately be a center in the NHL long term, but if he is a center, there's even more value there. And that's where they've started him. So just a force and extremely, extremely skilled. I actually think in terms of pure puck skill at the same age,

like the hands in tight for that size, that Ilya has sort of a more impressive quality that way than Alexi did. It's an interesting time right now in talking about Russian prospects, because we haven't seen most of them at meaningful international competitions. That's just the way it is right now. And so there's kind of this intrigue around a lot of them. And I woke up to an article this morning from Scott Powers about Roman Kansarov, and the name Karel Kaprisov's getting thrown around.

Obviously, the production this year gives you kind of a license to dream on something like that. Montreal, certainly with Alexander Jarovsky, a ton of buzz right now for these two Russians. What's a reasonable expectation for these guys? And what is the best case scenario for both of those two? I think Roman and Jarowski are both going to be top six-wingers. I think Kansarov's the more premium of those two players. He's smaller. Like Sharovsky's a lean six-foot-two.

Kansarov's kind of a stocky, five-foot-nine, five-foot-10. But in Kansarov, you just have, there's more pace. He's more direct. He's more net focused. Zirovsky's a little bit more of a sort of perimeter feel playmaker. Kansarov just comes at you and he's a high-end skater. I think Kansarov's going to be a top six winger for the Blackhawks long term, even when they're in their contending window.

Like I think that's the kind of player that we're talking about with Kansarov. I think he joins sort of Frundell and Nazar in that sort of tier. We'll see what Nick Lardis becomes. Obviously, they've got Lardis playing there and scoring there at the moment. but I think there's probably only room for one of Lardis and Kansarov in that top six long term as kind of a sub six foot scoring winger. But Kanserov's the real deal. Zorovsky, there are still some more development checkpoints that Zorov has to hit. Like, he's got to get stronger.

And there are things that he's going to have to do. He's going to spend another couple years at minimum in the KHL. Whereas Kansarov, like it's the here and now with KSov now. He led the KHL and goals this year. It's real. And so now we get to see in the next year. So we get to see what he looks like in the NHL. And I'll be fascinated to see how they sort of mix and match all these guys.

And there's a chance that, don't forget, there's a chance that the Blackhawks who are now, I believe, locked into 31st in the standing. So can pick anywhere from first to fourth, but we'll have a top four pick again this year. There's a chance that they draft Gavin McKenna or Yvars Stenberg, right? So suddenly you've got a lot to work with. And then you've got all of the depth guys and Ryan Green is played in their top six this year. and you've got guys like Merrick Vaneker coming. And there's, it's, it's going to be interesting to see how they make that work.

And also how they try to add legit NHL players to that mix instead of these sort of buyout contracts that they've had to, to sort of fill out their roster over the last couple of years. Because it's, the clock is ticking on them to incorporate all these guys, certainly. But the clock, I think, has also now started to tick in Chicago for them to take a step. Yeah. You talked about Ryan Ufko. He's another riser for you here in the predator system. But Calgary has a couple of them. these guys. Maveh Greden is one of them. Ethan Wittenbach, who just had one of the best seasons

of any college hockey player might have had a case as like a Hobie Baker snub there for the Hobie Hatrick at least. Calgary, kind of, you know, again, similar thing. I mean, they have Porek at the top of their system. I think they're still looking for certainly that kind of system defining forward and maybe they're able to find that in this year's class, but they're starting to build up quietly some nice depth as well. Yeah, Greden is, feels like maybe the most under the radar young player in the NHL this year. I know Flames fans because I'm constantly hearing from them about it. Flames fans are extremely excited.

Like they see a kid who just operates at a completely different level than all of their other players. And that includes Matt Coronado and Jonathan Huberto and Nazim Cadry when he was there. Like they have watched him now play for, I think he's played 35, almost 40 games in the NHL this season. And you're talked to people, not just fans in Calgary, but I've talked to people around the Calgary organization. organization, and he just slows it down and picks people apart and just has this incredible,

incredible poise on the puck. You hear names like Kutrov and some of those guys tossed around with him, and he's not going to be that. But Gridden is like Gridden's the top six forward in the league. Like that's the projection on Gridin now. And he was never that sort of 120 point player when he was in Schuinen again when he was in the queue. He was kind of a 90 point player.

And he just took this step this year, both in the HAL, which he was. he was excellent in the first half and even in the NHL of late where it's like, okay, this kid, he's not going to be the best player on the Calgary Flames offensively when they're trying to get it back into the playoffs. But right now, he kind of looks like that on some nights for them. So I had to sort of adjust accordingly. Like he was always a kid that I really liked. I was, I was actually quite high on him in his draft year. And he's been on my, he's been in my top 100 in the past. But he went from being in the top 100 to like a top 30 guy. in the top 100 this time around.

And that's just a testament to the way that he's played over the – like, I think he has like 12 points in his last 13 or 14 games in the NHL, and it's really clicking for him right now. I remember a year ago we were talking about frustration with Dean Latterno, who had been the first round pick, and it wasn't immediate in college. This year, Dean Laterno popped, and how high can this kind of rocket ship ride he's on take him? I think everyone's going to look at him in Dajumontage Thompson. I don't know if that's totally realistic.

But certainly there's a lot more there than the worry would have been a year ago. Yeah, Dean's, and frankly, Dean's a player that I've followed really, really closely. St. Andrews College is across the street from where I grew up and down the street from where I currently live. And when I watched him at Sack about half a dozen times over his course at Sack, and you talk to some of the staff there and even some of the staff at B.C. Once he committed and it was like, okay, this kid's six foot six, six foot seven maybe when it's all. said and done, and he's got legit skill, and he's got finesse, and he's got poise on the puck, and he's, he's, like, they never played him at the net front on the power play. He ran the flank for them on the power play there, and that's a prep school level, so a different level,

but then he makes the jump. Will Smith moves on to the NHL a little unexpectedly for Boston College, and he makes the jump last year when he was supposed to be in the USHL for the full season, and it goes really badly for him, at least for a first overall pick. And people were kind of making light of it and giving him a hard time about it and giving, I remember sitting at U-18s with scouts, scouts giving some of the Bruin staff hard times about it. And then this year he sort of looks like that again. And the challenge with Dean was always he wasn't a,

like he wasn't a power forward. The questions about him at Sack were about his playoff the puck and keeping his feet moving and drifting and floating and being disengaged and people called him soft. And that part of it for Dean kind of lingered into his first year. And then this year he gets an opportunity at the top of a weaker Boston College lineup than the one that we've seen the last couple of years prior, where they were the number one team in the country, two separate seasons,

gets more of an opportunity. And just the skill level starts to pop. And then you start to turn your attention to, okay, forget some of the deficiencies. He's athletic. He can skate. He's got skill. And then you start to, people start to float around Tage Thompson and those kinds of names.

I don't think he's Tage Thompson. I don't think he's Elmer Soderblum to use a Detroit example either. But there's something there. There was something there all along. And then we saw it sort of blossom this year. And I'll be fascinated next year. James Hagen's has moved on. That Boston College team is going to look different yet again.

I'll be fascinated to see if he can do it again. Like just go back and repeat this season as more of the guy with the Eagles. You're saying you think he's better than Soderblum, to be clear. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, just making sure that the listeners are going to be on the same page with that one. All right, let's move on to some of the guys you had the most trouble slotting here. And like, there's a few guys that I think of on these lists. Like, they're typically the guys who are able to put the puck in the net.

But you wonder, what is it going to look like at the highest level against the best goalies, against the best D? I'm thinking about guys like Cole Eisenman here. Yeah, there's always sort of 30 or 40 names that you swat. Like, when I start building this spreadsheet that we use to populate the user interface, that's on the site, there's always 30 or four names that I slot quickly. And then I move those guys around and I divide them into tiers. And that process is the fastest part of this entire thing. Like you put the Mises and the Frundelles and the Higgins and those guys at the top and then you figure them out. But that happens pretty quickly. And even that the next tier, like that

second tier of defensemen and second tier of center or winger, happens pretty quickly. And then you get into the third tier, that sort of 50 to 80 range on the countdown. And it always becomes really, really hard. You're sort of measuring the smaller guys who look like dogs like a Max Plan for Detroit, for example. You're measuring guys who are playing in the NHL like in Emmett Finney who played in the league

this year. And you're measuring guys who come with some risk. And so you mentioned Eisenman. I think of Eisenman. I think of Jonathan Lechkewarker Mackie who Vancouver Canucks fans are really down on right now. Every time I sort of talk to people about him in Vancouver, they're down on. I think of

Mike Coward who won the Hobie Baker last year and has been a point per game player in the HL this year, but lost out on what was essentially one job up for grabs between him and Matt Savoy. Matt Savoy is another player that's in that sort of range, right? So those guys become tricky to really sort through. If Cole Eisenman reaches his potential, Cole Eisenman probably scores 35 or 40 goals in the NHL at some point in his career. And it's cranking that one-timer on the power play. And he's got power play utility that a lot of the guys, once you get through those 30 or 40 names just don't have, right? But Max Plan's going to play, and Emmett Finney's already playing, and even if there's sort of middle six guys,

I know Emmett has obviously spent a lot of time on the first line this year, but even if there's sort of middle six guys on what you would imagine a contending team looking like, those players have more value than if Cole Eisenman's just an HL scorer. And that, that's the, I find that to be the hardest part of the list. And then the bottom of the list takes shape, shape pretty quickly easy. pretty quickly as well, because then you have sort of the fringe guys who have some flaws or some corks in their games that sort of rounded out. But yeah, it's sort of measuring the guys in the middle of the list that are going to be third-line NHLers and in many cases are already playing in the NHL or the smaller guys who've had a lot of success, like a Max Pont, versus sort of some of those scores and some bigger guys like a Jack Nesbit who sort of projects a little bit differently. Like it's that part of the list is the hardest.

and I could flip those guys like, you gave me a guy at 50 on the list and a guy at 80 at the list, and I could probably make a case in either direction. You talked about kind of some quirks. There is some of that at the back of your list here. Like when I look at the very bottom names on your list, Ivan Ryabkin, I mean, very bottom. This is the top 100. Round out the top 100. Ivan Ryabkin, Bryce Pickford, Benjamin Rauteainen, and Adam Benach.

Fair to say these are some like personal favorites of yours here that you're getting on the list? A little bit. Routi Aynan wasn't really a personal favorite. I've watched a ton of him over the years, but Raoutianin was kind of a kid that I just felt I had to include, just to almost to make people aware of him. Routi Einan set the record for his age class in scoring in Liga this year. And so those records are no longer held by Alexander Barkov

and then some of the big, big names that have come through Finland over the last three, four decades, right? He led that league in scoring. He had almost 80 points in that league. and that league isn't also what it was 10 years ago, if I'm being honest, they've had some financial troubles and those leagues struggled to spend in line with the SHL and now with the National League in Switzerland in particular. But a very, very skilled player who I felt was hard to ignore, like just a ton of puck skill

for a six foot forward. Pickford, again, like just hard to ignore what he's accomplished in the W.HL. over the last couple of years. Benox, kind of a favorite of mine. Last year, we talked so much on our show about that sort of trio of five foot eight, five foot nine guys and where they would go, right? You had Cameron Schmidt, who goes in the third round to Dallas. You had L.J. Mooney, who goes in the fourth round to Montreal.

And you had Adam Bonach who goes in the fourth round to Minnesota. But Knox, the only of those three guys that actually cracked the list. Mooney was not too, too far off. Schmidt is sort of a distant guy in that conversation now, even though Schmidt was actually the one who was drafted the highest and had another successful year scoring in the WHL. But you watch Banach in particular, and he's going to the University of Western Michigan and he'll play with the Broncos next year. And I expect him to have an impact there as a freshman. Bonac is just, he's such a dog and he skates so well and he's so smart on the puck that I felt like he warranted inclusion.

So yeah, that is kind of how that bottom took shape. Riabkin, I mean, Reabkin was two points. the most productive, more productive than T. Jiginla in junior hockey this year, like over two points a game after he got sent down. He started the year in the H.L. with the Chicago Wolves. Obviously, a very, very highly, sort of high-end guy was once viewed as a top five, 10 pick in his draft class. Then there's attitude issues. There's weight issues. He bounces around on teams. He gets suspended a couple of times. He gets healthy scratched in the MHL. He comes over to the USHL. Like his draft year was just a mess. The Carolina Hurricanes take a flyer on him in the second

round start him in the NHL this year. He wasn't quite ready for that. He goes back to the queue and he's the most dangerous forward in the queue all year long, including side by side Justin Carbono and guys who were first round picks. So again, just another player flawed for sure, but

felt like he warranted inclusion on the list. Yeah. I'm always trying to get you in Corey to take a little victory laps and you're both so resistant to it. I know because it can go both ways. But you've had a couple nice calls here that I do want to shout out here. One of them's Gabe Perot. We talked a ton about Gabe. It's not like nobody knew who Gabe Perot was, right? He was,

he was historically productive at the US NTDP. But the conversation was always at the size with the skating, what was going to translate. We've all seen the answer to that. And you've been banging the drum for Gabe the whole way. Yeah, Gabe's a favorite of mine. And there's a reason that we do the players I was wrong about and not the players I was right about, because fans enjoy that more. Like, they want to see us. And I think it's, I think from a transparency, we don't, we don't learn a lot from the guys that we hit on. We learn more from the guys that we miss on. So I always enjoy that process. But yeah, Gabe was sixth on my ranking and he went 22nd overall. And I think if you redo that draft in five years time with what I expect is coming for Gabe and I expect he's

going to be a true top six winger for the Rangers here. He might not go sixth, but he's going a lot closer to six than he is to 22. And I just think the skill level and the playmaking, we've talked about it so much, I've talked about it so much on the show and in my writing, I think it's pretty unique. Like the way he sees the ice, and we're already seeing it in the NHL. We're seeing sort of after they traded Panarin and sort of the team took a little bit of a different shape post-deadline here, we're seeing guys get opportunities there. And he's a player that has just looked, not necessarily dynamic,

offensively because he doesn't he's not breaking ankles and scoring end-to-end goals in the way that the sort of transcendent players do. But just inside the offensive zone, when he gets the puck on his stick, he just has such a calm and poise about him to pick things apart and to make plays. And he is highly skilled. And I think he's got an underrated nose for the net and was always more competitive. Like he'll track back and lift pucks off of guys up and under their sticks and that kind of a thing. And I think he's a better skater than people ever get.

gave him credit. And it's just, it is really starting to come now for Gabe. I always felt when I watched that line with him and Ryan Leonard and Will Smith that he was way closer to those guys than they gave him credit. And then on many nights, both at the NTDP and at Boston College, that he was the play driver on that line oftentimes. Um, so it, yeah, it's nice to see him. Those guys were always going to go straight to the NHL like Smith and Leonard did. And Gabe was always going to have to linger in the HL and prove it a little bit. That's part of just where he was drafted as well. But it is really nice to see him sort of clicking now. And I think there's no looking back sort of moving forward here for him.

Another guy you were a big believer. And I think all of us on the hockey show really liked Michael Hage. He's had a great college career. I was very surprised, actually, to see the news this week that Michael Hage is going back to the University of Michigan for his junior season. I thought we might be seeing him in the playoffs for Montreal this year. First off, thoughts on that decision and what it means for Michael Hage. But second, like what has made Hage so successful in college hockey?

Well, the big thing that has sort of happened with Hage that was the one thing he had to show everybody was, can he be a driver? Like, everybody watched him play in Chicago, and they knew he was a high-end skater. They knew he had skill. They knew when he was skating that he could make plays and he had pace. He was always six foot one, right? Like, there was always going to be a body that he could fill out. He was also lean, and it wasn't lean because he struggles to put on weight. It was lean because he had shoulder surgery in his 16-year-old season in Chicago and lost a son.

of training and was just a little bit behind that way through through just just gym time that that his peers had had. He's always had a very sort of athletic frame. And so now he's starting to fill out. He's up over 190 pounds. Part of the reason he went back is because I think they think he can get to like 200, 202, 203 and that be his playing weight. But this year, the question with Hage was, A, is he a center or a winger? And B, is he a play driver? And that the play, if he's a play driver, that probably means he's a center. So they kind of go together. And, and, and just off-puck habits and some of that needed to come as well. And he was a play driver for them this year. Like, it ran through him. He wasn't playing off of other guys. He wasn't only doing it on the power play.

It was five on five. It was every night. It was down the middle. And that is, I think, what has really sold people on the potential. And it just, it, it sort of makes you wonder about the one thing that they need in Montreal, right? Like, the, the, big question in Montreal for the last three, four years is we've got to get a second line center to play behind Michael Hage. And Oliver Cappanin has done a nice job as a rookie in the league in that role this year. But that's not Oliver Cappanin's role for a Stanley Cup winning team, right? So they need that. They need ideally Oliver Cappin is your third line center. And if Hage can be that for them, it kind of changes everything for them, even though he doesn't change everything

from a talent standpoint in the way that a Slavkovsky or a Hudson or a Coughfield do, I don't going to be that level of player for them. But he might be an invaluable one in that if he becomes the second line center, they don't have to chase it. They don't have to overspend on it. The young group gets to continue to be cheap. And that young group, if you look at what Caulfield and Slavkovsky and all those guys are making, it's a cheap core, Suzuki, too.

It just, like, they're already very well positioned. But if Hage can fill that role, it's hard to look at many organizations around the league who are in a better spot, especially if Jacob Fowler's, a number one goalie, which I also think he's capable of being. So everything's coming up Montreal Canadians these days, it feels. And I didn't even mention Ivan Demadov in all of that. Who is going to have to get paid eventually? But yeah, it's, the Hage becoming a two C is, would be monumental for them. We'll come back to the goalies in a second here. The last guy I really wanted to ask you about was Riker Lee. You mentioned him earlier. I know he's a

favorite ears as well. He's ahead of a guy who's one of my favorites, Noah Oseland. And with, With what Noah Osloen's shown in the NHL this year, I was fully expecting to see Noah Osland ahead of Riker Lee on this list. You have Lee ahead. So I know he's one of your guys. Go to Bat for him here. Why is Riker Lee in the top 30 on your list? Yeah.

And Noah's been excellent this year. Like I should preface that he has been, especially defensively, he has been excellent for that team. He skates, he's always skated at an NHL level. He's an excellent, excellent skater. The question with Ocelain was always sort of, is he going to put the puck in the net? Like he's a skinnier kid and he has added weight.

but he always sort of made a ton of plays and was detailed, detail oriented, and his coaches adored him, and he penalty killed at lower levels, and he was a two-way C type, and he could play make and pass, but it was like, is he only going to be a 10 or 15 goal guy? It was kind of the question with Ocelain, and even if he becomes that, if he's got 30 or 40 assists, that's a very valuable sort of 40 to 50 point player in the league, and I think that's sort of the projection for Ocelain. The projection for me with Lee, and again, another one of those guys that maybe comes with a little bit more risk.

But if Lee hits and he hits on a roster that desperately needs talent, they're going to put him in positions to succeed in Nashville. And they need him to succeed in that role. And from a skill standpoint, like Riker has a chance to be steel, like a steal of the draft type if he hits. And maybe the likelihood of that is is much lower than it is of Osslin, who's already a 30 point player in the league, becoming a 40 or 50 point player in the league. But like, I think Riker's got a chance to be a 60 or 70 point top.

six-winger power play one threat, scores five or ten highlight real goals a year kind of player at the NHL level. And there's just not a lot of guys. Once you get through the Tijiginlas and the Mises and the Higgins and the Katins and the Dan YAs and the Roger McQueen's and those sort of true pre-guise that we all know are premium guys. And I think protests has joined that group. Once you get through those guys, there is not a more skilled player than Riker.

The feet are the have always been the issue with Riker. he's got below average feet, but he's way more competitive than I think people realize. And I could see him going, like he had 30 points playing on their third line this year and was the fourth leading score behind the three players who played on Michigan State's first line. That's Daniel Russell, Porter Martone, Charlie Stramel. He had, he was just under a point per game. I think he had like 35 points and 36 games kind of thing. I would not be surprised if Riker Lee has 45, 46, 47 points for them next year.

And is their top, their leading scorer on that team next year with all three. three of those guys on the first line, having moved on there. I think that's the kind of player that we're talking about here. All right, let's close with the goalies then. One of the players who I've been monitoring most closely through this year, because I keep checking the HL goalie stats at monitoring how Sebastian Coast is doing. Obviously, I cover the Red Wings mostly during the season. Sergei Murashov has been right there with him, if not ahead of him, the whole year for the Penguins.

He's kind of come out of nowhere. How does he stack up with some of the best goalie prospects? in the NFL systems right now. I think he's right there now. I have Fowler sort of in a tier of his own. I truly believe that Jacob Fowler is going to be a 60 game a year goal tender. And if his body can hold up, I think that's what he is. There are questions about, there have been questions in the past about his body and his fitness.

He plays at 230 pounds. And those guys, whether it's Freddie Anderson or you go down the list of guys who've played at that weight over the years, they do have a tough time playing that number of games, especially with the shots that they face and the quality of chances that everybody's facing in the NHL now. But Fowler, for me, is already the goalie in Montreal. I think he should be their game one starter. He was good again last night.

As we record this, he's up above it. I think he's around 905, which seems like I think 905 in the NHL is now the new sort of 915 in the NHL. But after Fowler, like you get into the big names, right? You get into Augustine and Kosa in Detroit. You get into Andrei Anov, who was drafted in the first round last year, Joshua Ravensburg and who was drafted in the first round last year. Michael Harabble, who was tremendous at UMass this year and has had some positive starts in Tucson in the H.L already.

Those guys are kind of the names that everybody talks about when they talk about the top goalie prospects in the sport. I think Muroshov and Igor Zavragan as well, who's playing in the KHL right now, third round pick of the Philadelphia Flyers. Those two guys are right in that mix. And again, you mentioned the Russians off the top and maybe Russian prospects almost flying under the radar in recent years because of the lack of a U-18 and U-20 showcase for them. And Zevragan and Murshov fit into that. Like they, I think they'd be viewed differently. They probably would have been drafted higher.

All of that is sort of a part of the conversation with them. But they belong with the best of the best in terms of the top goalie prospects in the sport. right now. There is always like a little bit of parsing to do though, right? Because you can have a top 10 goalie prospect and that guy ends up being like a 30 game player in the NHL. Like which of the top prospects on your goalie list do you think are, let's let's not set the bar at 60. Let's say 45 plus game a year types when they're in the NHL through through the prime of their career. I'm not saying next year or anything like that. Yeah, I think Ravensburg and Harabal Fowler are going to be that. I think one of the two Detroit guys becomes that and it'll be fascinating to.

see which of which of the two emerges. I think Murshav, it will be that and might be the soonest to be that. Like, it feels like they're going to hand the net over to him next year and Mershavs going to have an opportunity to play that number of games. I'm not quite sold on Andrianov, Ravensbergen and Zavragan, but they also have an opportunity to be that. But you're probably, I think of those top 10 in my top 20, I think seven or eight of them have a real chance to become that.

Yeah, awesome. Great stuff from you, as always, Scott. Make sure everyone you go read this. It's Scott Wheeler's Top 100 drafted NHL prospects. You can find that on The Athletic. That is going to do it for us today. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Athletic Hockey Show Prospect series. You can catch more of a... I don't need to shout out Chris Peters today because Chris Peters isn't here,

but you should still check out his work over at Flow Hockey, and we'll talk to you soon.