Tampa Bay Lightning Draft Recap 2025

Tampa Bay Lightning Draft Recap 2025

Welcome back to Scouching’s 2025 draft recap series. Today we are looking at the Tampa Bay Lightning. Now, they’ve continued to be a strong NHL team thanks to some of the draft picks that have become periphery players there and this season I feel like they might end up with a few more of those even though they didn’t have a pick in the top 50. Starting things off with Ethan Zada at 56. I’ve seen Zada quite a bit this year and I feel like there are players like him everywhere these days. He is a perfectly fine, smart, all-around well-rounded player in the right spots, making good reads off the puck, making smart, simple plays, and in the right system. I feel like he could eat some minutes. I don’t think there’s a huge amount of offensive upside with him with regards to his playmaking or his finishing ability. He’s not the most physical guy in the world, but he just goes out and plays hockey pretty well. He was a player that didn’t really move the needle a whole lot for me, which at the OHL level, players like that don’t really scratch the right itch in my work, but considering the sort of hockey sense that he seems to have, I can see why a team would value him here. At 108th overall, they drafted a re-entry in Benjamin Routyan, a player who I believe has been invited to Toronto Maple Leafs rookie camp over the past year, was undrafted last season, and had a pretty good year in the pro level in Finland and Liga. I was lucky enough to see him in person a couple of times at the World Juniors over the new year. Ratien’s more of an offensive leaning guy. He’s more of a finisher. He had some big moments at the World Juniors. The pace of his game isn’t amazing. The skill level isn’t super high where I could see it working in the NHL. He’s been productive. Decent re-entry player with some good offensive ability, and that’s totally fine for this area of the draft. At 127th, Tampa drafted Aiden Foster, and I kind of liked what I saw, but only in a limited capacity. This guy is pretty big and he is physical. This guy runs around throwing hits. And if you want a bottom six guy who maybe has a little bit of skill here and there, decent pace in his game as long as it’s sort of up and down the ice and following play off the puck and he does have a physical edge in his game. And if that’s really what you’re looking for in the middle rounds of the draft and you think you can get anything out of that in the NHL, then all the more power to you. Of all of the guys that I’ve watched that I had never heard of since the draft, he might be one of the few where I look at in a physical role and go, “Yeah, that’s the kind of intensity that the NHL calls for, I think he’s a bit of a long shot.” But even with a limited ceiling, I do see a bit of a floor with Foster that in the right scenario a coach could play him. At 151st, they drafted Everett Baldwin. And Baldwin is a guy who I was really up and down on this year. I think there’s something there. He’s skilled and very, very confident for a defenseman. This is a guy who scores a lot of goals, but it’s not from just having a really great point shot. He is a player who will step up into the offensive zone, challenge defenses below the goal line, challenge them deep in the offensive zone. I just don’t know if the overall package of talent is there yet to really project to the NHL. The skating ability is good, but not really high-end. The agility, the footwork, the skill level, it’s all, I think, something that he wants to be further along than it is. And I like that about him. So, I feel like as a development case, this is a guy you let develop, maybe in the USHL for another year, then go off to college for a while, and you just see what happens with him. Because I do think that the longer you let this guy sort of take a step, take another step, take another step, the better you’ll be rewarded, rather than thinking that he’s this high-end prep school offensive defenseman that you stole in the mid rounds. There’s a willingness to play a certain way that I think will require time and development, but it could get there. I’ve liked Baldwin this year and if I had to make a list of a hundred players rather than 80 that I think have a good NHL shot, Baldwin probably would have been at the tail end of that list. I just feel like the runway is a little bit long relative to some of the guys that I had ranked. At 193rd, they drafted a re-entry goalender in Caleb Hy. This is a guy that I have seen very little of over the last little while. There’s not a ton of numbers that are in his favor. I’m not going to really pass judgment. That’s 193rd. This is one of the four seventh round picks that they made this year. I probably would have looked elsewhere for a goalender, even a re-entry one. At 206th, they drafted Roman Lutzv. Now, Lutv is a player that is another re-entry. I watched him last season a little bit here and there, and there were some things that I liked about his game. He was on my list last year for a bit of time, but not too much. I liked what Lsev brought to the game. He’s a bit of a stronger, more powerful, energetic offensive guy who I think overplays the sort of skill level and pace of play he naturally has, but you can get away with that in the Russian Junior League at times. I thought he took a big step this year with regards to the energy and sort of the skill that he plays the game with. But again, I didn’t really see him as a guy that was sort of dominating the MHL and looking at and going, man, if I had drafted this guy and he played like this this year, I’m thinking I got a huge steal. He did have a productive year. He brings a pretty interesting balance of abilities. And as a late round draft pick, you take a swing on and leave in Russia. Yeah, I totally understand it. At 212th, they drafted Grant Spatada from the G Storm. And Spot is a player that I recognized the name but didn’t have any notes on over the course of the season. He was playing with G, which was a team that I saw a little bit this year, and I didn’t really see a whole lot while re-watching him postdraft where I really felt that there was a ton of value there. Decent skater. He seems like an okay reader of defenses, breaking pucks out, making passes, a little bit of deception in his game. Just moved the puck pretty well. Decent instances of pinching up in the offensive zone, sort of trying to look for some offense, but never really struck me as a player where I go, “Okay, this is his specialty. This is his role. This is what he does really, really well.” A bit of physical play here and there from him, but again, nothing that really stood out. Maybe there’s another blank slate player here like an Aiden Foster perhaps or an Everett Baldwin that they can mold into something over the next little while, but it’s a CHL seventh round draft pick. I imagine with the new rules going to college, you’d be able to keep him around for a little while longer and they might think there’s something there with him. And with their last pick in the draft, their fourth seventh round pick of the year, they drafted 2005 OHLer Marco Mossa. Now, Mnosa was a player that I’ve seen quite a bit this year, mostly because of him playing with guys like Brady Martin and Travis Hayes with the Sue Greyhounds. I have been doing a bit of work on Chase Reed, who came to the Sue Greyhounds, and Mossa was playing on the ice with him a little bit. I don’t think with Mossa there’s this 2005b born elite OHL player that’s going to dive right into the AHL and do a great job and move on to the NHL pretty quick. I don’t really know what the logic is behind taking Mossa because he didn’t really stand out in a lot of the situations that I saw. Little bit of a good finisher. You know, swings wide in the offensive zone with some good footwork. Creates opportunity for himself decently well. Didn’t really pass my smell test as a two times undrafted player where I went, “This is a guy I need immediately because on the ice, I wasn’t really moved all that much. It’s one of the last picks in the draft. Maybe someone just likes him on the staff and whatever. It’s your fourth, seventh round pick. With that out of the way, the Tampa Bay Lightning get a 3B from me. I don’t think they necessarily took a whole lot of really big upside swings, and I don’t know how much they’re going to get out of this draft class. Ethan Zada, if there was a 3A or 3B player in my database this year, he probably would be a good example of it. I don’t see a huge amount of upside there, but there’s nothing really wrong with him. guys like Routean and Baldwin and Lutsev and maybe Spatada. There are hints of something there that might be nurtured into an NHL player of some kind, but I think they’re all a little bit of a ways away and their style of play is a little bit difficult to project. Maybe Aiden Foster is a physical guy who can play in the lineup at some point filling in some kind of role. Caleb Hy goalender, who knows? Marco Mossa, I didn’t see a ton, but I don’t really care. It’s really late in the draft. I don’t see anything being a huge huge upside steal except maybe if everything goes well, Everett Baldwin could be a nice bet. And with that, we’re going to call it. If you like the video, definitely like and subscribe. 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The Tampa Bay Lightning made some big moves at the 2025 NHL Draft — and in this video, Will Scouch goes through each of their picks and shares his thoughts on the players they selected. From first-rounders to late-round swings, Will breaks down what stood out, what might work, and what could be questioned.

At the end, he gives his overall thoughts and a final grade on the Lightning’s 2025 draft class.

#NHLDraft #Lightning #Scouching #HockeyProspects #TampaBayLightning

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