Normally as the season goes along, we’d reveal our prospect rankings in groups of five. However, now that we’re three-quarters of the way through the year and haven’t been able to get most of these columns done, we’re going to change it up and provide the full rankings in one piece.
My apologies for not getting to the full write-ups this year but clearly, it’s not going to happen in the final few weeks. With the trade deadline fast approaching, I wanted to get this out in case some prospects are moved by Friday’s trade deadline for some additional context. In the meantime, I’ll try to do some more prospect stuff in the summer to make up for not having the full prospect columns during the year.
A reminder that these rankings were done early in the season. Some have held up well while others…not so much.
Overview
Here are the criteria that each player had to meet to be eligible to be in these rankings:
1) The player must be 24 years old or younger as of October 1, 2023
2) The player must have no greater than 39 games of NHL experience (including regular season and playoffs)
3) The player cannot be signed to an AHL contract
Here are the departures from last year’s list (previous ranking in parentheses):
Graduated – NHL GP: Juraj Slafkovsky (1), Kaiden Guhle (2), Justin Barron (3), Arber Xhekaj (8), Jordan Harris (10), Jesse Ylonen (19), Lucas Condotta (39)
Traded – Gianni Fairbrother (33), Nate Schnarr (44), Arvid Henrikson (47)
Released – Frederik Dichow (29), Joel Teasdale (43), Jack Gorniak (46)
Rankings
| Player | 2023 | 2022 | Difference |
| D David Reinbacher (1/5, 2023) | 1 | N/A | N/A |
| D Lane Hutson (2/62, 2022) | 2 | 7 | +5 |
| D Logan Mailloux (1/31, 2021) | 3 | 4 | +1 |
| F Joshua Roy (5/150, 2021) | 4 | 11 | +7 |
| F Owen Beck (2/33, 2022) | 5 | 6 | +1 |
| F Filip Mesar (1/26, 2022) | 6 | 5 | -1 |
| F Sean Farrell (4/124, 2020) | 7 | 9 | +2 |
| D Adam Engstrom (3/92, 2022) | 8 | 23 | +15 |
| F Rafael Harvey-Pinard (7/201, 2019) | 9 | 17 | +8 |
| F Emil Heineman (trade, 2022) | 10 | 13 | +3 |
| G Jakub Dobes (5/136, 2020) | 11 | 15 | +4 |
| F Riley Kidney (2/63, 2021) | 12 | 12 | 0 |
| G Jacob Fowler (3/69, 2023) | 13 | N/A | N/A |
| D Jayden Struble (2/46, 2019) | 14 | 14 | 0 |
| F Vincenz Rohrer (3/75, 2022) | 15 | 16 | +1 |
| D Bogdan Konyushkov (4/110, 2023) | 16 | N/A | N/A |
| D William Trudeau (4/113, 2021) | 17 | 30 | +13 |
| D Mattias Norlinder (3/62, 2019) | 18 | 21 | +3 |
| F Oliver Kapanen (2/64, 2021) | 19 | 24 | +5 |
| G Cayden Primeau (7/199, 2017) | 20 | 18 | -2 |
| F Jared Davidson (5/130, 2022) | 21 | 31 | +10 |
| F Luke Tuch (2/47, 2020) | 22 | 22 | E |
| F Cedrick Guindon (4/127, 2022) | 23 | 25 | +2 |
| F Jan Mysak (2/48, 2020) | 24 | 20 | -4 |
| F Florian Xhekaj (4/101, 2023) | 25 | N/A | N/A |
| F Xavier Simoneau (6/191, 2021) | 26 | 26 | 0 |
| G Emmett Croteau (6/162, 2022) | 27 | 35 | +8 |
| F Blake Biondi (4/109, 2020) | 28 | 27 | -1 |
| G Quentin Miller (4/128, 2023) | 29 | N/A | N/A |
| F Nathan Legare (trade, 2023) | 30 | N/A | N/A |
| D Petteri Nurmi (7/194, 2022) | 31 | 37 | +6 |
| F Rhett Pitlick (5/131, 2019) | 32 | 34 | +2 |
| G Yevgeni Volokhin (5/144, 2023) | 33 | N/A | N/A |
| D Luke Mittelstadt (7/197, 2023) | 34 | N/A | N/A |
| F Sam Harris (5/133, 2023) | 35 | N/A | N/A |
| D Miguel Tourigny (7/216, 2022) | 36 | 38 | +2 |
| F Filip Eriksson (6/165, 2023) | 37 | N/A | N/A |
| D Dmitri Kostenko (3/87, 2021) | 38 | 32 | -6 |
| F Alexander Gordin (6/171, 2020) | 40 | 45 | +5 |
| G Joe Vrbetic (7/214, 2021) | 41 | 40 | -1 |
| F Ty Smilanic (trade, 2022) | 42 | 28 | -14 |
| F Jack Smith (4/102, 2020) | 43 | 41 | -2 |
| D Daniil Sobolev (5/142, 2021) | 44 | 42 | -2 |
| F Jakov Novak (trade, 2023) | 45 | N/A | N/A |
Beaudin’s contract was terminated midseason. Filip Cederqvist was acquired from Buffalo after the cut-off for the rankings. He likely would have been slotted in around where Beaudin’s ranking was.
With how many players exited the rankings (by graduating or being traded or released), it was difficult for players to really move down in the rankings which is why there weren’t too many of them. Of the ones who dropped, Jack Smith was the biggest faller. I had held him a little higher to see how his first year of college was which came last season and his struggles suggest that he’s unlikely to get an NHL deal down the road. Meanwhile, the biggest riser was Adam Engstrom who went from a bit of an unknown to one of Montreal’s potential next wave of defenders. With an NHL contract believed to be coming his way later this month, he’ll soon be rewarded for his efforts.
The placement of Reinbacher over Hutson may draw some questions. The fact he hasn’t had a great season this year doesn’t help but when I look at Reinbacher, I see an extremely high floor of a second-pairing player with a chance to be a 20-22-minute player. (Even with how this season has gone, that opinion hasn’t changed either.) And he’s a right-handed shot which helps from a value to the organization perspective. Hutson, meanwhile, has the higher pure ceiling of the two but the lower floor if the defensive and skating questions are exacerbated at the NHL level. Both project to be significant pieces of the future but I went with the safer of the two for ranking purposes.
As for the other high rankings, for goalies, in a re-rank now, Fowler would clearly be ahead of Dobes with the year he has had but Dobes would still be fairly high up there. After a rocky start in Laval, he has played much better as of late and there is still plenty of runway for development. Meanwhile, Roy and Beck were tops among the forwards and that probably hasn’t changed now. Again, I’ll try to find a way to dig into some of the prospects over the summer to pick up some of what was missed by not doing the regular columns this season.