It almost feels impossible to designate winners and losers on the day that the NHL draft goes down. The whole point of the NHL draft is to build for the future, and with the inexact science that is the NHL draft, no one really knows who won and lost the day the picks are made.
We all have our judgments, and we can look at the value that some teams got in the annual player selection proceedings. A team drafted a handful of players that you liked and they are deemed winners. Another drafted players too high for your liking, and you call them losers. It feels unfair, but life isn’t always fair and placing judgments is all part of our jobs as analysts and fans of the NHL.
So let’s take a look at a few winners and losers from the 2025 NHL draft.
Winner: New York Islanders
It’s easy to call the team with the first-overall pick the winner of the draft, but everything the Islanders did after the first-overall pick was impressive as well. Trading Noah Dobson netted them two first-round picks at 16 and 17, and despite the desire to trade up, they ended up making the picks. They nabbed Victor Eklund at 16, a player many had in the top 10. The next pick, they selected Kashawn Aitcheson, a player known most for his open-ice hits and strong shot.
In Round 2, they added some beef with Daniil Prokhorov, a big, skilled Russian forward who had been rising up draft boards. They followed that up with Luca Romano, a do-it-all, hard-working forward from the OHL. Tomas Poletin and Sam Laurila, selected in the fourth and fifth rounds, respectively, were excellent value picks as well. The 2025 NHL draft could be transformational for the Islanders.
Loser: The NHL’s Decentralized Draft
From the presentation and technical issues to the vibes and the fan turnout, the decentralization of the NHL draft was an absolute disaster. The first round dragged on an outrageous amount of time with so much dead air and lackluster production value. There were audio issues when teams were trying to talk to players, and even if that wasn’t the case, they had these somewhat awkward interviews that felt like bad Tinder dates when the players were drafted.
The decentralized draft was a half-decent idea, even though the NHL was taking away from what made their draft special. They could have looked at how the NBA or NFL do things and copied bits and pieces, but they tried to reinvent the wheel. The interviews fell flat, the timers that they had on teams were merely suggestions, and they really didn’t seem to have a plan despite boasting about state-of-the-art technology prior to the event.
What made the draft feel the most underwhelming, though, was the fact that the players in attendance were limited, and the fans that showed up could have been counted by a kindergartener.
The NHL should look at last year’s draft at The Sphere and try to replicate that. Bring the draft back to Vegas every year, make The Sphere your spectacle and enhance the fan experience the way that they did in Las Vegas. That’s how you make your draft the best in the world. Whatever they thought they were doing this year wasn’t it.
Winner: Calgary Flames
The Flames have had a few good drafts in a row, and this year was no different. They nabbed a pair of high-end playmakers in the first round in Cole Reschny and Cullen Potter. Both were players who had doubters despite their immense skill and offensive prowess. The Flames knew that taking the upside was well worth it, knowing that they could be rewarded in a big way.
The selection of Theo Stockselius is an underrated pick as the big Swede has a nice mix of skill and passing ability. He wasn’t on many lists to start the year, but he rose quite a bit in the second half. Even the Mace’o Phillips pick was an interesting swing at a player with the profile of a mean, physical defender. Aidan Lane in the sixth round and Ethan Leander in the seventh were also interesting darts thrown at the board.
Loser: Colorado Avalanche
Colorado came into the draft with fewer darts than anyone, and although they added another via trade, the Avalanche weren’t really looking to swing for upside or skill. Their top pick was Francesco Dell'Elce, a 20-year-old defender who had a pretty solid freshman season at UMass, but at 77th overall, there were players on the board that presented more runway development and higher upside with a similar floor. The Avs very well could have seen something they loved in Dell’Elce, but it was a bit of an odd pick.
Linus Funck in the fourth round was an interesting pick with a projectable frame and some good defensive habits. Nolan Roed, the Avs' rounder, had a point-per-game season in the USHL this year and had some flashes of nice playmaking, and as a seventh-round pick, he’s a perfectly solid selection.
The Avs just didn’t have much in the tank when it came to this draft, and they did very little to make the limited picks worthwhile. It’s tough restocking your pipeline when you’re pushing for championships every year, but I don’t think Colorado would change that.
Winner: Carolina Hurricanes
The kings of trading down, the Hurricanes moved out of the first round, but they made three second-round picks with excellent value. They first selected Semyon Frolov, a goaltender who had been skyrocketing up draft boards and was even rumored to be in contention for the first round. They followed that with the pick of top overage prospect Charlie Cerrato, who had a great season at Penn State, showing his growth as a player since his NTDP days.
Toward the end of the round, they took the ultimate swing on Ivan Ryabkin. Coming into the year, Ryabkin was a player that some thought could be a top-10 talent. His season in the MHL as a D-1 center was fantastic. He was putting up numbers that were comparable to some of the best Russians drafted in recent years, like Ivan Demidov and Matvei Michkov. This season, everything fell apart. He looked slow, uninterested, and his game wasn’t working at any level in Russia, pro or junior.
A move to Muskegon in the USHL saw him rekindle some of his playmaking touch but the he evolved into a violent, chippy player who was using his physicality as a means to impact the game. If the Canes can get him to find a middle ground and get back into shape, Ryabkin could be a steal, but it’s a swing for the fences.
In Round 3, the Hurricanes snagged two Russian defenders in Kurban Limatov and Roman Bausov. They added two mobile, defensively oriented blueliners who bring some size and snarl. Limatov, in particular, is a player who looked like a first-round talent at times this year because of just how fluid his defensive game can be and some flashes of puck-moving ability.
The bets on undersized Swedes late looked like absolute steals for the Canes. Sixth-round pick Viggo Nordlund was the most productive player in Swedish junior hockey this season, bringing dynamism and skill in bunches. With one of the final picks of the seventh round, Carolina took Filip Ekberg, a player who had so much promise coming into the season, but a slow start after moving to the OHL for his draft year soured his stock.
His second half looked infinitely better, and he showed that he adapted his skilled, possession-based game to the OHL’s north-south style quite well, bringing elements of both to the table by season’s end. He then followed it up by leading the U18s in scoring. Picked 221 out of 224 players, that’s incredible value.
Loser: Tampa Bay Lightning
Much like Colorado, they get added to the losers category simply because they were a team with very little ammo, picking just once inside the top 100. The players they did take were all guys with floors close to their ceilings, and none of their ceilings are particularly high. They added Ethan Czata in the second round, a player who will go as far as his motor will take him. He shows some flashes of skill, but he projects as a bottom-six project at this point.
The Lightning followed that up with a skilled overager in Benjamin Rautiainen from Finland, who had an age-20 season in the Liiga. It was a nice swing on an offensive winger with some nice hands. Next up was Aiden Foster, who is a heavy hitter with a decent shot but a limited upside at best.
My favorite pick of theirs came in the fifth round when they took Everett Baldwin. The prep defender has nice mobility, slick offensive skills and could be an exciting prospect. His development will take him to Providence College, so Tampa can let him develop slowly and then maybe they’ll have something on their hands.
The one interesting thing about Tampa’s draft is that they had four seventh-round picks. Goaltender Caleb Heil is an interesting late swing in net. Roman Luttsev is a high motor center who didn’t look out of place in limited KHL action this year, and he tore it up in the junior league. Grant Spada is a defensive specialist who has a huge frame and needs to fill out. Marco Mignosa is a 20-year-old who works hard and had a breakout season in the OHL this past season. None of these players are ultra high-upside, but they are all fine swings to take late.
Winners: New York Rangers
The Rangers had a sneaky good draft despite not having a first-round pick. They had Malcolm Spence fall into their laps in the second round after being a potential top-15 guy for most of the season. The hard-working winger has a nice touch of skill and pace to his game, showing both a physical edge and a finesse game with the puck.
Sean Barnhill, their first of two second-round picks, is one of the more underrated defenders in the draft with excellent size and mobility. He understands his role as a defensive stopper, and he plays it quite well, and there are some flashes of potential offensive skill that pop up from time to time as well.
Mikkel Eriksen is a player who showed some deceptive skill and a dual-threat offensive game in the Swedish junior ranks while taking on a lead role for Norway internationally at both the U18 and U20 levels. At pick 111, there was really solid value in an underrated project.
At pick 139, the Rangers took one of my favorite later-round swings in defenseman Zeb Lindgren. With solid size, good mobility, and a knack for making plays at both ends of the ice, Lindgren flew under the radar for much of the season. There always felt like so much untapped potential for Lindgren that a swing this late made for a great value pick.
Later picks like defenders Evan Passmore and Felix Farhammar were nice value late on guys that could develop into solid pros, even if not at the NHL level. The Rangers were undoubtedly good at the 2025 NHL draft, and they should be happy with the haul they got.
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