Last week, Chicago Hockey Now reacted to a couple of lists compiled by The Athletic’s Corey Pronman, including his updated NHL pipeline rankings and his top 156 players/prospects under 23. While the Chicago Blackhawks’ entire prospect pool was well represented in both columns, one player in particular didn’t garner much respect from Pronman.
That would be 21-year-old winger Nick Lardis, who’s coming off a solid first professional season in 2025-26 with the Blackhawks and their minor-league affiliate Rockford IceHogs. In his first 41 career NHL appearances, Lardis registered 10 goals and five assists for 15 points, while playing mostly in a bottom-six role that didn’t fit his true offensive nature. He averaged only 12:40 per game while playing with the Blackhawks.
When in the AHL with Rockford, Lardis played a top-six role exclusively and was featured on the team’s top power-play unit. He made the most of his opportunity as the IceHogs’ offensive focal point, recording 32 points (18G, 14A) in 35 games.
Since being drafted in the third round of the 2023 NHL Draft, Lardis has faced questions about whether his smaller stature would prevent him from succeeding at the highest level. A lack of size never slowed his scoring during his junior career in the OHL, as he became the first player since John Tavares in 2006-27 to record 70 goals in a single season. However, the NHL is an entirely different beast.
Only one year into his pro career, it’s impossible to project how things will pan out for Lardis. He still has much to prove before becoming a solidified piece in the Blackhawks’ rebuild, but he’s off to a strong start. He scored at a 20-goal, 30-point pace as a rookie, even though he wasn’t put in an ideal position to succeed when in the NHL. Lardis also impressed with his skating speed and how well he stood up for himself physically against grown men.
Yet, Pronman doesn’t seem to believe much in Lardis’ chances of developing into a top-six forward. Or much of any NHL forward, for that matter. Pronman listed Lardis as the 16th-best player under 23 in the entire Blackhawks’ pipeline, behind Samu Alalauri and Nathan Behm. He also excluded Lardis from his list of the top 156 NHL players/prospects under 23.
Additionally, Lardis did not make the cut in Pronman’s recent list of the top 100 NHL players and prospects under 23 selected outside of the first round of the NHL Draft, which seems unfathomable. For reference, Pronman’s colleague, Scott Wheeler, had Lardis going 19th overall in his 2023 NHL Re-Draft earlier this summer. Opinions vary from analyst to analyst and writer to writer, but excluding Lardis among the 100 best day-two draft picks in recent years is strange, to say the least.
To be fair, putting these types of lists together, compiling and ranking the top young players and prospects from all 32 NHL clubs, is no easy task. Pronman deserves plenty of credit for all the work he puts in and the analysis he provides. But it’s also worth the reminder that this is the opinion of only one person. Because of his size, Lardis is a somewhat polarizing prospect, and both scouts and analysts have had varying thoughts on him for years.
Even without Lardis, the Blackhawks still had five prospects ranked among Pronman’s top-100 U23 players selected outside round one, including two inside the top 20. Roman Kantserov (No. 4) and Ryan Greene (No. 16) lead the way, while Xavier Villeneuve (No. 54), Alalauri (No. 61), and Behm (No. 75) are featured in the second half of the list. It’s another reminder of the incredible job general manager Kyle Davidson and the scouting department have done on day two of the NHL Draft recently.
There’s also a case for a few more of the Blackhawks’ day-two selections to be on Pronman’s list. Ryan Roobroeck (2026 2nd), John Mustard (2024 3rd), and AJ Spellacy (2024 3rd) remain young and unproven prospects, but each has legitimate NHL upside.
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