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

Spence is a competitive, fast, detailed, hardworking player who can get out in transition or attack off the wall. He plays the game with intention, sticks with plays and has decent-though-not-dynamic skill. He plays with pace on and off the puck, keeps his feet moving and gets up and under sticks to win back possession. He has worn an “A” and been a real play-driver for the Otters the last two years as a late 2006 birthday. He again wore an “A” for Canada and stirred the drink with his pace, effort level, skating and shot at the 2024 U18 worlds. He was invited to the World Junior Summer Showcase in back-to-back summers as well. Though he’s a winger, he has played a few games at center over the last two and a half years, and has some real versatility to his game in multiple areas. There are upside questions about his skill level and playmaking (is he just going to be a really good third-liner?), but he’s a very likable style of player. He’s competitive. He can be a bit of a pest, but also plays an honest, straight-line game. He has a quick catch-and-release motion. He’s consistent. And he was owed more on the stat sheet last season than his numbers indicated (he had plenty of looks in my viewings and lost 10 pounds in season because of a split tongue and infection that made it hard for him to eat and swallow for a spell). Despite his early second-round selection, I viewed him as a late-first pick because of his projectability even though the offense hasn’t really popped (he did still have a very respectable 82 points in 74 combined regular-season and playoff games on a team that didn’t have a ton of talent around him, especially after Matthew Schaefer’s injury).

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241