NHL Pipeline 2025: Unveiling Shocking Surprises and Hidden Gems from Every Team’s Prospect Ranks
Digging into the 2025-26 NHL Pipeline Rankings, it’s clear this isn’t your everyday prospect list. I’ve taken a deep dive into each franchise’s budding talent pool—handpicking the cream of the crop, offering honest tool grades, and laying out realistic expectations for these young guns as they carve their paths to NHL prominence. These rankings span all 32 teams, stacking their future cores side-by-side to see who’s really got the juice to ascend and who might be stumbling in the shadows. Age matters here—if you’re 22 or younger come September 15, 2025, you’re in the spotlight; a method that brilliantly balances stars already lighting up NHL ice with those raw minor leaguers still hungry to prove their worth. There’s no flawless way to pin down eligibility for prospects—but after juggling every angle, this approach feels just right, though feel free to challenge it. Over four days, starting Aug. 25, we’ll unravel the rankings from the league’s basement dwellers to its brightest hopefuls—stay tuned for the crescendo on Thursday.
Welcome to The Athletic’s 2025-26 edition of the NHL Pipeline Rankings, where we look at the future of the NHL team by team.
Every team has a ranking, a write-up and tool grades of the best young players in its organization, with a projection of what is expected of each player. Those core groups are then ranked from 1 to 32 to show how each compares to the rest of the league.
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Player eligibility is determined by age. A player is eligible if he is 22 years old or younger as of Sept. 15, 2025. This encompasses almost every prospect selected between the 2021 and 2025 NHL Drafts. This is done to include a team’s top prospects without aggressively graduating players who have a lot of prime development years ahead of them, even if they are already in the NHL. This does have the effect of, at times, including star NHL players while leaving off players who are still in the minors and have a chance to make the league. There is no perfect way to create player eligibility for a prospect ranking. This method has become my preference after trying all the other options; your method may vary.
This story will be updated with eight teams per day over four days (between Monday, Aug. 25 and Thursday, Aug. 28), starting with the bottom teams in the league. The top teams will be revealed on Thursday.
(Illustration: Will Tullos / The Athletic. Photos: Sean M. Haffey, Minas Panagiotakis, Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
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