We move on to the second installment of my pre-season Top 64. Despite four forwards ranked in my top five, the 2025 NHL Entry Draft hosts a plethora of talent up front, particularly down the middle, with three of the five players in this range being centres.
Furthermore, Sweden looks to bounce back after a relatively weak 2024 class with three players in my top 10. I’ll also be debuting my second-ranked defenceman in the class, who’s likely someone you wouldn’t expect if you didn’t catch my Pre-Hlinka-Gretzky Rankings back in August.
With those teasers out of the way to set the scene, here are my preseason sixth to 10th-ranked players for the 2025 NHL Entry Draft!
#6 – Anton Frondell – C – 6’0” – 196 lbs – Djurgårdens IF J20 – SWE J20
Anton Frondell is a guy I was a huge fan of during my pre-Hlinka rankings. It helps he’s in the Djurgårdens development pipeline, which produced four of my favourite prospects from the 2022 NHL Draft (Jonathan Lekkerimäki, Noah Östlund, Liam Öhgren, and Calle Odelius). I had Frondell ranked fourth back in August, but unfortunately, the durability concerns continue with the high-motor, skilled, instinctual Swede who also had his D-1 ended prematurely last year with an injury.
He picked up another knock before this season started while playing for Sweden at the Five Nations, which will require knee surgery and keep him out for four to five weeks to start the season. It’s his second significant lower-body injury in months, dampening his draft stock heading into the year. I’m still a fan of the centre, who played well at the U18 Five Nations last year and had a ridiculous D-1 in the J20 Nationell with 39 points in 29 games.
Of all the forwards so far, Frondell plays the most refined and mature game of the five; there’s always one of those European players with that description that hovers around the top 10 on public rankings every year. Konsta Helenius, Dalibor Dvorsky, and Joakim Kemell come to mind from the three most recent draft classes. Frondell, for me, is a cut above those players because of his offensive ceiling, although Helenius and Kemell were also very high on my board to start during their respective draft years before dropping off as the season went along.
In the little bit of the Five Nations Tournament I was able to watch this summer (don’t you love it when European tournaments happen during nine-to-five work hours?), Frondell’s off-the-puck play remains rock solid. I love his stick work on the forecheck. He got in nicely with some stick checks to steal pucks, and he’s seemingly always in the right place at the right time. His defensive positioning was strong, and based on draft reports I’ve seen from others who’ve been tracking him over the entirety of last season, it doesn’t look like that was just a one-off occurrence. He’s got the strongest projection to be a two-way forward out of this crop of top prospects.
Don’t get it twisted, though, Frondell showed some really nice deceptiveness on his goal against Switzerland at the Five Nations tournament with a no-look snipe. He can absolutely rip it with the best of this draft class, and his highlight tapes show he’s not some low-event player who plays it safe; he can definitely dangle you out of your jockstrap at any moment.
A great player who competes hard and someone I’m really excited to see this December at the World Junior Championship, Frondell could rise back to my lofty pre-Hlinka rankings if he can put this early season injury behind him.
#7 – Sascha Boumedienne – LD – 6’2” – 183 lbs – Boston University – NCAA
Boumedienne really disappointed me at the Hlinka-Gretzky this summer. I’ve dropped him a tad bit, not because of his performance—it’s far too early in the year to start dropping guys significantly based on one tournament—but because I’ve grown more confident in Ivan Ryabkin and Roger McQueen as I dug into them some more. I had a really good feeling about Zeev Buium during my first rankings last year—I had him at nine, which was pretty high at the time—and I’ve got a similar feeling about Boumedienne this year.
McKenzie’s preliminary rankings to start the season didn’t feature Boumedienne, and while I was surprised, there are some defensive and pressure-diagnosing inconsistencies from him that you can’t just gloss over. At his best, he leverages his length and size to close down opposing forwards, but his motor on that end of the ice has been hit or miss. It was particularly evident when I saw him at the Hlinka-Gretzky, where there were times on the ice when he didn’t look engaged or in any rush to close out to attackers, instead inviting them to attack him. It was a bit baffling, to be honest, given how gifted of a skater he is.
On the other hand, the offensive potential is all there. While I’m unsure who will get power play one responsibilities at BU this year—Cole Hutson will be part of that blueline as well—Boumedienne has all the tools to be one of the premier offensive producers and transition threats from the back end this season in the NCAA despite showing some difficulties dealing with pressure on retrievals for Sweden this past summer.
He’s got a booming slapshot and great natural passing ability on breakouts. Like most Swedish defencemen, he is an extremely smooth and fluid skater. He’s got great four-way skating ability which suggests that if he fixes his motor defensively and grows into his frame, he will be an extremely difficult player for opponents to get past going forward.
Playing in the NCAA should be a welcome challenge for him. If he can swim and not sink defensively while gaining confidence in his instincts and creativity offensively, he’s someone that scouts might change their minds about as the season progresses. Number seven may be a bit high for Boumedienne, but I can’t help but feel that there’s another gear to his play that the NCAA environment might help shake loose.
#8 – Michael Misa – C/LW – 6’0” – 175 lbs – Saginaw Spirit – OHL
The most recent CHL exceptional status prospects are truly hit or miss; for every Connor McDavid or Connor Bedard, you get a Joe Veleno or Sean Day. Shane Wright was the last OHL exceptional status player drafted to the NHL and he had one of the more memorable falls in recent draft memory.
It’s not even as if Michael Misa had a bad or pedestrian D-1. His 75 points in 67 games with Saginaw was pretty impressive and very comparable to Porter Martone, who was my second-ranked forward. Especially given he was playing on a loaded Saginaw team where he wasn’t necessarily the main man, especially post-trade deadline (Zayne Parekh and Owen Beck say hello), there’s potential there that given a central role on the team for the entire year he could outperform his numbers from last season.
Misa is an incredibly dangerous player out in open ice where he uses his skating and slick hands to attack defenders and create opportunities for his teammates with his passing and vision. I think he adjusted well in his second season in the OHL when it came to dealing with tighter coverage and pressure. He looked more comfortable playing a more structured offensive game, but he’s probably still the least physically mature of the forwards listed so far.
That’s not to say last season wasn’t a marked improvement for Misa though, Head Coach Chris Lazary challenged Misa by playing him in all situations last year for Saginaw; there were a few times last season I remember the young centremen sacrificing his body to get into shooting lanes which isn’t something you expect players of his status and skill level to be doing.
While Misa hasn’t necessarily done anything wrong to deserve this ranking, his production hasn’t been in line with the exceptional status he was given. Martone and James Hagens have the benefit of incredible international performances in the most recent calendar year (Misa’s last appearance for Canada was in the summer of 2023), Ryabkin and Frondell were setting records in their respective leagues in their D-1, and McQueen has the most fascinating physical build in the top half of the draft.
Misa will need to take that next step offensively and prove to scouts that he has another gear to hit. I’m a believer in his talent; he’s one of the best skaters in the draft class for me, but he has a talented field to fight through to get back into my top five.
#9 – Jakob Ihs Wozniak – F – 6’3” – 185 lbs – Luleå HF J20 – SWE J20
I fall for this trope of a player every season. Emil Hemming was in my top 15 after a strong D-1 showing on the international stage for Finland and starting his draft year in a men’s league. By the end of the season, his lack of on-puck creativity and ability resulted in him falling to the second round for me.
I felt too often that he was a passenger on his line, who relied mainly on his instincts to find space around the net to score goals. He had an absolute laser beam of a shot which was a weapon for Finland at the WJC but there was a huge reliance on his teammates to do the heavy lifting in transition.
Jakob Ihs Wozniak had a far more productive D-1 in the J20 Nationell than Hemming did in Finland’s U20 equivalent. His 50 points in just 36 games last year made him an early-season favourite to go in the lottery. I love his soft touch with the puck and his vision as a passer, but his Hlinka-Gretzky showing was very underwhelming for me.
While I agree with Austin Kelly from Dobber that he improved his skating this offseason, he looked very perimeter-centric and stationary in the offensive zone all tournament long. Even though his line was pencilled in as a top line for Sweden, it was outshone consistently by the Gastrin–Klingsell–Stenberg line. Two of whom are also draft eligibles in Gastrin and Klingsell.
It was nice to see Ihs Wozniak remain committed to being physically imposing on the forecheck despite his offensive woes, he had some nice hits and wall seals throughout the tournament stepping up on wingers trying to break the puck out but the offense was left wanting. He’s not off to the hottest start with Luleå either (only three points in five games).
I’m hoping he can show more ability on the puck this year as a creator for himself and more aggressiveness in attacking the middle of the ice with his size and frame like some of the power forwards ahead of him in my rankings. If he doesn’t, he’s a prime candidate to fall for me just like Hemming did last year. I still like him and I’m holding out hope but there are a lot of really talented forwards in this year’s draft.
#10 – Caleb Desnoyers – C – 6’1” – 179 lbs – Moncton Wildcats – QMJHL
There was a player in last year’s draft who did all the little things right and was just good enough at about everything with an NHL-ready frame. Those skillsets alone allowed him to maintain a lottery draft pick status all year despite a lack of truly dynamic or exciting traits. That player was Detroit Red Wings first-rounder Michael Brandsegg-Nygard.
In those aspects, Desnoyers is a similarly high-floor prospect who plays a super well-rounded, instinctual game. While MBN’s draft stock was capped by a pedestrian stat line for Mora IK in the HockeyAllsvensken (18 points in 41 games), Desnoyers was the fifth-highest scorer (56 points in 60 games) on a good Wildcats team as a rookie.
Desnoyers had an illustrious D-1 this past season for Canada internationally. He stepped in for McQueen as an injury replacement on Canada’s U18 WJC team en route to a gold medal and then centred Canada’s second line to an encore performance alongside childhood teammate Émile Guité at the Hlinka-Gretzky a few months later. Despite the offense drying up at the Hlinka-Gretzky (just five points in five games), the St-Hyacinthe native was invaluable to Team Canada in every facet of the game.
He was the third or fourth assist on multiple occasions throughout the tournament while also holding the unique role of being on both Canada’s first power play unit and first penalty kill unit. He took a ton of defensive zone draws for Canada, was a monster in the face-off dot, and was sound defensively and engaged physically. His line had countless shifts where they got in on the forecheck, won the puck and then cycled the puck relentlessly, sustaining offensive zone pressure.
Desnoyers also showed a real knack for finding the dangerous areas of the ice all tournament. Despite only one goal to show for it, he was always finding space in the trapezoid for quality chances. He has a strong, accurate shot—although not super deceptive—that I think will allow him to be a productive goal scorer.
Desnoyers’ best game at the Hlinka-Gretzky was easily the gold medal game where he set the tone early in the first with a devastating hit on Vladimir Dravecký followed by some great forechecking shifts. His efforts were ultimately rewarded with his only goal off a nice Cameron Schmidt feed.
Overall, Desnoyers has a complete package that NHL front offices will covet. The puck skills and agility are key factors holding him back but his NHL size with above-average tools in almost every other facet of his game means he projects well even if he isn’t the most dynamic player on the puck. It may not be the sexy pick, but every Stanley Cup contender needs a player like him.
Conclusion
There you have it! Certainly, a mixed bag of players with varying levels of upside and floors but all are players I have real confidence will carve out a role for themselves in the NHL one day. Keep an eye out for next week when the next installment of my rankings covering players ranked 11th to 20th will be released!
