Throughout the entire 2025 Draft cycle, I have noticed a lot of chatter about how this draft class is not great. Many scouts have said this class is weaker than average, and it seems like many NHL organizations agree based on how many draft picks, specifically 1st rounders, have already been traded.
I always had some doubts about this, though I could understand the discussion when it comes to the top five or something similar. A draft with Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel up top is much better than one with Nail Yakupov and Ryan Murray, but I always thought that after that, every draft class should end up being pretty similar.
When we put some data into it, an answer starts to develop. As it turns out, my intuition was pretty spot on about prospects outside the top 5-10. Until this draft class that is… The 2025 Draft is projected to be a weak class. Just how weak? Let’s take a look!
For this entire process, I am using prospects’ draft year star odds to evaluate the strength of their respective class. When I compare a draft’s top five to other years, I am using the players selected in the top five. For the 2025 class, I will be using the five highest-ranked players by a consensus public scout opinion. This will give us the best approximation for what we can expect to happen on draft day.
The first thing we can look at is simple. What were the average star odds for all prospects for each draft class? Since I only have 196 ranked prospects for 2025, I’ll be using players selected in the top 196 picks for every draft class to avoid the massive amount of lower-ranked players bringing down the class average. Here are the results of that for every class in the past 15 years and the average (in red) for that period.
Based on this, it looks like the 2025 class is about average, similar to past classes like 2018, 2017, and 2014. Just based on first glance, I would say it seems about right. None of those classes had any generational talents up top like Macklin Celebrini, Connor Bedard, Jack Hughes, Connor McDavid, and Auston Matthews.
The 2018 class had some great players like Quinn Hughes and Rasmus Dahlin, but also some notable misses like Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Filip Zadina, and Vitali Kravtsov. 2017 will be remembered for Nico Hischer and Cale Makar (Makar had low DY odds, which makes the ‘17 class look weaker here than it probably actually is), and the 2014 class is remembered for making up half of Florida and Edmonton’s Stanley Cup Final squads. Despite the stars that make up these classes, I think it's safe to call them all average.
I don’t believe that just looking at the 2025 class this way is enough, though. When you hear people talk about the strength of a draft class, you usually hear two things mentioned: the stars up top and the depth later on. I want to take a look and understand how the 2025 class measures up in both of these standards.
Up first is the star power. We can do this by comparing the average star odds among the top five picks. Here’s what that chart looks like.
There is a lot of variance here which lines up with my intuition from before. It’s easy to see strength differences among the top players since sometimes you get generational guys and other times you don’t. Based on this, the 2025 class’s star power seems to be average.
I’d say that makes sense. My model isn’t the highest on Matthew Schaefer due to his limited sample size, but it still sees him as a possible star defenseman. Michael Misa projects very well, and projected top-five picks Caleb Desnoyers and Porter Martone also project well. Some might say that this class lacks star power up top, but I believe that notion comes from the stacked 2023 class and guys like Celebrini and Demidov in 2024.
Unfortunately for the 2025 Draft, it being average ends after the top five picks. The 2025 class is well below average in every other category. Here are four charts that show the strength, or lack thereof, of this class’s depth.
It’s clear here that 2025 falls well short in its depth, specifically in the late 1st round and on. I keep double and triple checking my work, thinking that I messed something up, but nothing. It seems like the 2025 draft class has the worst depth we’ve seen in a long time. To be exact, this hasn’t been seen since the early 2000s when drafting was even more of a crapshoot and size was even more overrated than it is today.
I’m sure NHL organizations have done this work themselves and have gotten similar results. My biggest question is, how do teams navigate such a weak class? They could try to move their 2025 picks for 2026 ones, but that takes two teams to agree. It wouldn’t make sense for the other team to move future picks for picks in a weak class unless there’s a guy they really like.
In conclusion, if I had to put a label on how strong the 2025 Draft is, I would say that it's average in the top five but well below average everywhere else.
This doesn't mean there won't be any great players selected next week. What it probably means, however, is that teams won't be getting as much star talent from Day 2. I would expect teams to instead target size later on, even more than usual. Whatever happens, the 2025 Draft will be very interesting to watch...