Inside Wheeler’s Shocking Summer 2025 NHL Prospect Rankings: Who’s the True Future Star?

Luneau is one of the most underrated prospects in the sport for me and a player I’ve long had a lot of time for. He was the first pick in the 2020 QMJHL draft and looked like a surefire first-rounder through the Youth Olympics (where he was an alternate captain) and into his strong rookie season in the QMJHL (where he won the league’s defensive rookie of the year award). And while it took him some time to get back to that status after a knee procedure cost him the summer, preseason and first three games of the regular season in his draft year, he hit his stride in the second half of his post-draft season, was the QMJHL’s defenseman of the year three years ago and was clearly the league’s most complete defenseman by a long shot (logging huge all-situations minutes and driving offense in a big way while playing a matchup role against the opposition’s best). Two years ago, in his rookie pro campaign, I thought he looked like a stud in the AHL and NHL early on, and he was clearly a cut above all of Canada’s other defensemen in practices and the Red-White scrimmage in Oakville for World Junior Selection Camp before a serious infection to that knee hospitalized him and derailed his season (he would have been Canada’s No. 1 D and changed the look of that World Juniors team in Gothenburg). Last year, though he didn’t make the full-time jump to the NHL that I think he was on track to make by now pre-infection, Luneau was one of the best all-around D in the entire AHL, driving offense and play in significant minutes. I’m a firm believer that he has to be in the NHL next year and that if that’s not with the Ducks that they should move him so that he can play where he belongs somewhere else.

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