Demidov Tops Wheeler’s Top 100 NHL Drafted Prospects

The last time The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler published his top 100 NHL drafted prospects in July 2024, Montreal Canadiens prospect Ivan Demidov was in third place, seven months later, he’s in the top spot. It makes sense since the two players that were ahead of him (San Jose Sharks’ Macklin Celebrini and Philadelphia Flyers’ Matvei Michkov) have both graduated to the NHL. Once a player is in the show, he cannot be on the list anymore, which is why Lane Hutson who was number 26 in July, is not on there anymore.

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Wheeler calls Demidov “the most purely skilled forward in the sport” and projects him as a point-per-game, first line, all-star level winger. Montreal has four more players on the list; David Reinbacher at number 24 (he was 38th in July), Michael Hage at 35 (41st last July), Logan Mailloux at number 58 (up from 79 in July), and Joshua Roy at number 82 (down from 68 in July).

It’s interesting that Reinbacher has gone up, even though he’s only played a few minutes of preseason action before he was put out of action by a knee injury. As for Hage, I expected a bigger jump considering his performance in the NCAA (30 points in 27 games). It’s quite a jump for Mailloux who failed to make the Habs this season and is perhaps not performing as they had hoped he would, yet anyways. As for Roy, his slide to 82 reflects his demotion after training camp and is fair enough.

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Wondering why Jacob Fowler didn’t make the list? Don’t worry, this is the top 100 list of skater, the top 20 list of goaltenders will come out on Wednesday and it would be very surprising not to see the Boston College sophomore on there. In July, he was in third place and it will be interesting to see if he’s done enough to overtake Jesper Wallstedt and Yaroslav Askarov since nether has graduate to the NHL on a consistent basis yet.

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