Top Emerging NHL Prospects Defining the Midseason Rankings<\/p>\n
It’s time for the midseason update to our top 150 prospect rankings. The list looks remarkably different from the one prior to the season, mainly due to the 37 players who graduated. For perhaps the first time since I started doing these rankings for RotoWire more than 20 years ago, I don’t have a very strong opinion about which player should be ranked No. 1 on the list.<\/p>\n
Also, a bunch of these players feel as though they’re ranked too high based upon number alone, but the graduations have forced everyone up in the pecking order. I expect a ton of turnover again in the fall when these rankings are updated, at which point the 2026 draft class — which seems like roughly an average group at the moment — will be included.<\/p>\n
(Note: All stats as of February 19, 2026)<\/p>\n
Stay up to date on our latest NHL Prospect Analysis<\/a>, including College Hockey-specific articles on RotoWire.com.\u00a0<\/p>\n 1. Michael Misa<\/a> (C, SJ) Top Emerging NHL Prospects Defining the Midseason Rankings<\/p>\n It’s time for the midseason update to our top 150 prospect rankings. The list looks remarkably different from the one prior to the season, mainly due to the 37 players who graduated. For perhaps the first time since I started doing these rankings for RotoWire more than 20 years ago, I don’t have a very strong opinion about which player should be ranked No. 1 on the list.<\/p>\n Also, a bunch of these players feel as though they’re ranked too high based upon number alone, but the graduations have forced everyone up in the pecking order. I expect a ton of turnover again in the fall when these rankings are updated, at which point the 2026 draft class — which seems like roughly an average group at the moment — will be included.<\/p>\n (Note: All stats as of February 19, 2026)<\/p>\n Stay up to date on our latest NHL Prospect Analysis<\/a>, including College Hockey-specific articles on RotoWire.com.\u00a0<\/p>\n 1. Michael Misa<\/a> (C, SJ) Players Who’ve Graduated Out of Prospect Status<\/p>\n – Ivan Demidov<\/a> (RW, MTL)
2. James Hagens<\/a> (C, BOS)
3. Porter Martone<\/a> (RW, PHI)
4. Anton Frondell<\/a> (C, CHI)
5. Brady Martin<\/a> (C, NSH)
6. Michael Hage<\/a> (C, MTL)
7. Zayne Parekh<\/a> (D, CGY)
8. Tij Iginla<\/a> (C, UTA)
9. Caleb Desnoyers<\/a> (C, UTA)
10. Cole Hutson<\/a> (D, WSH)
11. Roger McQueen<\/a> (C, ANA)
12. Victor Eklund<\/a> (LW, NYI)
13. Ilya Protas<\/a> (LW, WSH): 2024 third-rounder has been brilliant (19 G, 40 P in 48 GP) in first AHL season.
14. Cole Reschny<\/a><\/p>\n
2. James Hagens<\/a> (C, BOS)
3. Porter Martone<\/a> (RW, PHI)
4. Anton Frondell<\/a> (C, CHI)
5. Brady Martin<\/a> (C, NSH)
6. Michael Hage<\/a> (C, MTL)
7. Zayne Parekh<\/a> (D, CGY)
8. Tij Iginla<\/a> (C, UTA)
9. Caleb Desnoyers<\/a> (C, UTA)
10. Cole Hutson<\/a> (D, WSH)
11. Roger McQueen<\/a> (C, ANA)
12. Victor Eklund<\/a> (LW, NYI)
13. Ilya Protas<\/a> (LW, WSH): 2024 third-rounder has been brilliant (19 G, 40 P in 48 GP) in first AHL season.
14. Cole Reschny<\/a> (C, CGY)
15. Igor Chernyshov<\/a> (LW, SJ)
16. Adam Jiricek<\/a> (D, STL): Looked like a future star at World Juniors.
17. Jake O’Brien<\/a> (C, SEA)
18. Justin Carbonneau<\/a> (RW, STL)
19. Konsta Helenius<\/a> (C, BUF)
20. Michael Brandsegg-Nygard<\/a> (C, DET)
21. Jacob Fowler<\/a> (G, MTL)
22. Roman Kantserov<\/a> (RW, CHI): Currently leads KHL in goals with 30 in 52 games.
23. Anton Silayev<\/a> (D, NJ)
24. Carter Yakemchuk<\/a> (D, OTT)
25. Braeden Cootes<\/a> (C, VAN)
26. Yegor Surin<\/a> (C, NSH)
27. Carter Bear<\/a> (LW, DET)
28. Kashawn Aitcheson<\/a> (D, NYI)
29. Cameron Reid<\/a> (D, NSH)
30. Radim Mrtka<\/a> (D, BUF)
31. Cole Eiserman<\/a> (LW, NYI)
32. Bradly Nadeau<\/a> (RW, CAR)
33. Trevor Connelly<\/a> (LW, VGK)
34. Alexander Zharovsky<\/a> (RW, MTL): Has 37 points in 47 KHL games as an 18-year-old.\u00a0
35. Cole Beaudoin<\/a> (C, UTA)
36. Quentin Musty<\/a> (LW, SJ)
37. Andrew Cristall<\/a> (LW, WSH)
38. Dean Letourneau<\/a> (C, BOS): Averaging north of a point-per-game (29 P in 28 GP) in sophomore season at Boston College after failing to score a goal entire freshman year.\u00a0
39. Max Plante<\/a> (C, DET)
40. Joshua Ravensbergen<\/a> (G, SJ)
41. Benjamin Rautiainen (LW, TB): 2025 overage fourth-rounder leads Finland’s Liiga in scoring (62 P in 49 GP)
42. Harrison Brunicke<\/a> (D, PIT)
43. Will Horcoff<\/a> (C, PIT)
44. Adam Benak<\/a> (C, MIN): Undersized offensive dynamo has had no issues (58 P in 35 GP) with move to OHL.\u00a0
45. Felix Unger Sorum<\/a> (RW, CAR)
46. Cullen Potter<\/a> (C, CGY)
47. Jack Nesbitt<\/a> (C, PHI)
48. Sebastian Cossa<\/a> (G, DET)
49. Will Zellers<\/a> (LW, BOS): The last player added to the United States World Junior roster was arguably their best forward.\u00a0
50. Filip Bystedt<\/a> (C, SJ)
51. Cayden Lindstrom<\/a> (C, CBJ): 2024 No. 4 overall pick has one goal and seven points in 23 games in first season at Michigan State.\u00a0
52. Jett Luchanko<\/a> (C, PHI)
53. Liam Greentree<\/a> (RW, NYR): Recently traded to the Rangers from Los Angeles in the Artemi Panarin<\/a> deal.\u00a0
54. Vaclav Nestrasil<\/a> (RW, CHI)
55. Jack Ivankovic<\/a> (G, NSH)
56. Dmitry Gamzin<\/a> (G, NYI): Sporting a 1.65 GAA and .935 save percentage in 32 KHL games.\u00a0
57. Lynden Lakovic<\/a> (LW, WSH)
58. Nikita Artamonov<\/a> (LW, CAR)
59. Matvei Gridin<\/a> (C, CGY)
60. Joakim Kemell<\/a> (LW, NSH)
61. Bryce Pickford<\/a> (D, MTL): Pickford — a defenseman — has 33 goals in 42 WHL games.\u00a0
62. Eduard Sale<\/a> (LW, SEA)
63. Charlie Stramel<\/a> (C, MIN): Has rebounded in a major way for Michigan State. Seems like a prime candidate to be moved at the trade deadline.\u00a0
64. Malcolm Spence<\/a> (LW, NYR)
65. Lenni Hameenaho<\/a> (RW, NJ)
66. Henry Brzustewicz<\/a> (D, LA)
67. Sacha Boisvert<\/a> (C, CHI)
68. Nick Lardis<\/a> (LW, CHI)
69. Vojtech Cihar<\/a> (LW, LA): Had a legitimate case to be named MVP at World Juniors.
70. Leo Sahlin Wallenius<\/a> (D, SJ)
71. Jackson Smith<\/a> (D, CBJ)
72. Mikhail Yegorov<\/a> (G, NJ)
73. Sam O’Reilly<\/a> (C, TB)
74. Carter George<\/a> (G, LA)
75. Brodie Ziemer<\/a> (RW, BUF)
76. Oliver Bonk<\/a> (D, PHI)
77. Daniil Prokhorov<\/a> (RW, NYI)
78. Marek Vanacker<\/a> (LW, CHI)
79. Eddie Genborg<\/a> (RW, DET)
80. Semyon Frolov<\/a> (G, CAR)
81. Pyotr Andreyanov<\/a> (G, CBJ)
82. Petr Sikora (C, WSH): 2024 sixth-rounder was another standout for the Czech World Junior team.\u00a0
83. Emil Hemming<\/a> (C, DAL)
84. Ryker Lee<\/a> (RW, NSH)
85. Trey Augustine<\/a> (G, DET)
86. Ivan Ryabkin<\/a> (C, CAR)
87. David Reinbacher<\/a> (D, MTL): No. 5 overall pick in 2023 is yet to make NHL<\/a> debut.\u00a0
88. Lucas Pettersson<\/a> (C, ANA)
89. Stian Solberg<\/a> (D, ANA)
90. Jani Nyman<\/a> (RW, SEA)
91. Egor Zavragin (G, PHI)
92. Terik Parascak<\/a> (RW, WSH)
93. Cameron Schmidt<\/a> (RW, DAL)
94. Teddy Stiga<\/a> (LW, NSH)
95. Jagger Firkus<\/a> (RW, SEA)
96. Carson Rehkopf<\/a> (LW, SEA)
97. Ethan Wyttenbach<\/a> (LW, CGY): Long Island native and 2025 fifth-rounder leads NCAA in scoring for Quinnipiac (21 G, 51 P in 32 GP) by wide margin.\u00a0
98. Blake Fiddler<\/a> (D, SEA)
99. Kim Saarinen<\/a> (G, SEA)
100. Sascha Boumedienne<\/a> (D, WPG)
101. Kurban Limatov<\/a> (D, CAR)
102. Mason West<\/a> (C, CHI)
103. David Edstrom<\/a> (C, NSH)
104. Ryan Ufko<\/a> (D, NSH): Flirting with a point-per-game pace (40 P in 44 GP) in second full AHL campaign.
105. Seamus Casey<\/a> (D, NJ)
106. Kieron Walton<\/a> (C, WPG)
107. Michael Hrabal<\/a> (G, UTA)
108. Tanner Molendyk<\/a> (D, NSH)
109. Julius Miettinen<\/a> (C, SEA)
110. Hampton Slukynsky<\/a> (G, LA)
111. Alfons Freij<\/a> (D, WPG)
112.\u00a0Luca Cagnoni<\/a> (D, SJ)
113. Kasper Halttunen<\/a> (RW, SJ)
114. Danny Nelson<\/a> (C, NYI)
115. Tristan Luneau<\/a> (D, ANA)
116. Colby Barlow<\/a> (LW, WPG)
117. William Moore<\/a> (C, BOS)
118. Brayden Yager<\/a> (C, WPG)
119. Sergei Murashov<\/a> (G, PIT)
120. Maveric Lamoureux<\/a> (D, UTA)
121. Anton Wahlberg<\/a> (C, BUF)
122. Otto Stenberg<\/a> (C, STL)
123. Charlie Cerrato<\/a> (C, CAR)
124. Shane Vansaghi<\/a> (C, PHI)
125. Ryder Ritchie<\/a> (RW, MIN)
126. Ilya Nabokov<\/a> (G, COL)
127. Milton Gastrin<\/a> (C, WSH)
128. Nathan Aspinall<\/a> (LW, NYR): Hulking 6-foot-7 winger currently leads OHL in scoring (77 P in 53 GP).\u00a0
129. Bill Zonnon<\/a> (LW, PIT)
130. Theo Lindstein<\/a> (D, STL)
131. Riley Heidt<\/a> (C, MIN)
132. Ethan Czata<\/a> (C, TB)
133. Samuel Honzek<\/a> (LW, CGY)
134. Nathan Behm<\/a> (RW, CHI)
135. Felix Nilsson<\/a> (C, NSH)
136. Cole McKinney<\/a> (C, SJ)
137. Logan Hensler<\/a> (D, OTT): Has been arguably the most disappointing prospect in the entire sport this season. Usage is down for the University of Wisconsin and was dreadful at World Juniors.\u00a0
138. Eric Nilson<\/a> (D, ANA)
139. LJ Mooney<\/a> (C, MTL)
140. Dmitri Simashev<\/a> (D, UTA): Had no goals and one assist in 24 NHL games this season. Has been much better (23 P in 35 GP) with AHL Tucson.\u00a0
141. Jacob Kvasnicka (RW, NYI)
142. Mikhail Gulyayev<\/a> (D, COL)
143. Jordan Dumais<\/a> (C, CBJ)
144. Elias Salomonsson<\/a> (D, WPG)
145. Haoxi Wang<\/a> (D, SJ)
146. Brad Lambert<\/a> (C, WPG)
147. Tomas Poletin<\/a> (LW, NYI)
148. Max Psenicka<\/a> (D, UTA)
149. Adam Kleber<\/a> (D, BUF)
150. Ethan Procyszyn<\/a> (C, ANA)<\/p>\n
– Matthew Schaefer<\/a> (D, NYI)
– Sam Dickinson<\/a> (D, SJ)
– Alexander Nikishin<\/a> (D, CAR)
– Zeev Buium<\/a> (D, VAN)
– Artyom Levshunov<\/a> (D, CHI)
– Berkly Catton<\/a> (C, SEA)
– Ryan Leonard<\/a> (RW, WSH)
– Beckett Sennecke<\/a> (RW, ANA)
– Gabe Perreault<\/a> (RW, NYR)
– Dalibor Dvorsky<\/a> (C, STL)
– Danila Yurov<\/a> (RW, MIN)
– Axel Sandin-Pellikka<\/a> (D, DET)
– Yaroslav Askarov<\/a> (G, SJ)
– Calum Ritchie<\/a> (C, NYI)
– Jimmy Snuggerud<\/a> (RW, STL)
– Matt Savoie<\/a> (C, EDM)
– Isaac Howard<\/a> (LW, EDM)
– Easton Cowan<\/a> (RW, TOR)
– Sam Rinzel<\/a> (D, CHI)
– Jonathan Lekkerimaki<\/a> (RW, VAN)
– Rutger McGroarty<\/a> (RW, PIT)
– Tom Willander<\/a> (D, VAN)
– Nate Danielson<\/a> (C, DET)
– Logan Mailloux<\/a> (D, STL)
– Liam Ohgren<\/a> (LW, VAN)
– Noah Ostlund<\/a> (C, BUF)
– Oliver Moore<\/a> (C, CHI)
– Ben Kindel<\/a> (C, PIT)
– Scott Morrow<\/a> (D, NYR)
– Brennan Othmann<\/a> (LW, NYR)
– Daniil But<\/a> (LW, UTA)
– Matthew Wood<\/a> (RW, NSH)
– Jesper Wallstedt<\/a> (G, MIN)
– Noah Laba<\/a> (C, NYR)
– Arseny Gritsyuk<\/a> (LW, NJ)
– Max Shabanov<\/a> (LW, NYI)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Top Emerging NHL Prospects Defining the Midseason Rankings It’s time for the midseason update to our top 150…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[462],"tags":[5,55615,4,465,466],"class_list":{"0":"post-469143","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl-draft","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-minor-league-stats","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-nhl-draft","12":"tag-nhl-entry-draft"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116123936142150133","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}