- Chicago tops Daily Faceoff’s 32-team prospect pool rankings, moving up from third
- Toronto climbed nine spots to 15th after landing Gavin McKenna
- Read below for the full top 10 and which contender got stuck at No. 32
The Chicago Blackhawks have the best prospect pool in hockey.
Steven Ellis wrapped up Daily Faceoff’s two-month prospect pool series on Tuesday morning by ranking all 32 systems, and Chicago came out on top after finishing third a year ago. Anton Frondell, Roman Kantserov and Nick Lardis lead a group that stayed loaded even after Sam Rinzel, Artyom Levshunov and Oliver Moore all graduated to full-time NHL work.
The criteria matter here. A player qualifies if he is 23 or younger and has played 50 or fewer NHL games, with goalies capped at 25 years old and a much tighter games limit. That cutoff is why this list looks different from The Athletic’s pipeline rankings from last week, which used a straight under-23 age rule and put San Jose first. The Sharks land second here.
Calgary is third, Nashville fourth and Utah fifth. Washington, Montreal and St. Louis fill out the back half of the top 10 alongside Detroit and Vancouver.
Toronto made the biggest leap of any team that already thinks it can win. The Leafs went from 24th to 15th, and one draft pick did most of the work:
Vancouver posted the biggest jump on the board, climbing from 28th to 10th on the back of a draft that put four top-two-round picks into the system. Minnesota went the other way, sliding from fifth to 26th after its top five prospects from a year ago all shed the label.
Dallas finished dead last. Ellis called the Stars pipeline one of the worst in hockey and pointed at the lack of depth, though he noted the win-now roster makes that a fair trade.
Vegas sits 31st, Colorado 30th and Tampa Bay 29th. Edmonton is 28th, and the reasoning is blunt: seven first-round picks over the past decade and only Evan Bouchard is still in the organization.
Kyle Davidson has already started sorting out what the Chicago group looks like on an NHL roster. The Blackhawks GM said in June that next season is being built with Connor Bedard, Frank Nazar and Frondell all down the middle, which is a nice problem to have and a real one to solve.
Florida is the other one worth flagging. The Panthers ranked 32nd a year ago and moved up to 27th, which is a strange place for a team that keeps winning Cups and keeps trading picks to do it.
