We’ve roughly hit the midseason point in this draft season, and with some major events such as the Monctonian and the CCM Challenge having come and gone we’ve decided to overhaul or 2025 QMJHL Draft Rankings and expand to 60 players. Although opinions are everchanging in this line of work, having meticulously watched the two aforementioned events over the past month I feel quite confident in the list we’re putting out this time around. This draft class looks to be an above-average group of players with potential franchise changing talent at the top, although I’ve been less enamoured with the defenseman than I have with the forwards. At the end of the day this list is a culmination of one scout’s opinion on a multitude of players, but I do feel confident in the work I’ve put in up to this point in the year and will continue to revaluate as the year progresses.
The rankings can be accessed at our 2025 QMJHL Draft Rankings page.
The Big Four
The one constant in my rankings from the start has been the order of the top four players. Bishop Kearney Selects forward James Scantlebury continues to hold the #1 spot in our rankings as he has shown little signs of slowing down with his play across the border. As the youngest player on the 16U Selects squad Scantlebury has amassed 58 points in 32 games, good enough for the team lead by a whopping 13 points. The overall toolkit, compete level and the pace in which he’s able to execute highly difficult plays has helped solidify my stance of him being the top prospect in this year’s draft class.
This brings us to the proverbial elephant in the room, which is the highly-touted 6’4 centerman Alexis Joseph (2nd) who was supposed to be the consensus #1 this season. I don’t believe it’s controversial to say that Joseph has had a shaky start to his draft-eligible season, relative to the standards and expectations on him coming into the year. After finishing as a top-5 scorer last season in the M18 circuit as a 14-year-old player, Joseph currently sits at 15th in both overall scoring and points per game with 32 points in 26 games. In fact, he sits third in draft-eligible points per game behind Zack Arsenault and Zakary Horvat-Édouard (15th). Now I’m not one to take statistical regression at face value, but the on-ice play hasn’t shown much progression either. None of this is to say he’s a bad player in any way shape or form; the only caveat for me is that he looks like the exact same player as he did last year and is scoring in the exact same ways without growing the other parts of his game. He’s an incredibly fluid and dangerous rush attacker who can control pucks at high speeds, dangle through defenders one on one and possesses the shooting ability to beat goaltenders from a distance while in motion while also being a playmaking threat due to his accurate passing ability. In other words, he’s a game breaking transitional player with elite finishing ability, but at 6’4 and nearly 200 pounds the physicality in his game is essentially non-existent and sort of makes his size advantage obsolete, excluding his reach advantage in certain situations. At the end of the day, Joseph has as good an opportunity to be #1 at the end of the year as anyone in this draft class, I just think we need to be honest about what’s happening out on the ice.
I was excited to get a look at both Zack Arsenault (4th) and Malik L’Italien (3rd) throughout the CCM Challenge in mid-December, although it seems like fate had other plans. Arsenault got injured early on in the tournament and didn’t play the majority of his team’s games and L’Italien didn’t attend the event despite being invited to play for one of the QMJHL All-Star teams. For this reason, I’ve decided to leave them at their respective draft positions, and I expect to get plenty more viewings of them in the coming months. What Arsenault is doing production wise in the M18 circuit is absurd, averaging over a goal per game and sitting second in league scoring with 40 points in 23 games. Both players have definitely shrunk the gap between them and the two players atop the field and have, in my view, asserted themselves as legitimate candidates for the first overall pick.
Movement in the Top-10
A new name in our top-5 is Saint-Eustache forward Nolann Héroux (5th), a diminutive yet dynamic centerman who has started to come into his own in the M18 Québec league after what was a relatively slow start. His ability to play with pace and make difficult plays at top speed makes it easier for me to project him to Junior Hockey despite his size disadvantage. His chemistry with teammate Louis-Étienne Halley (8th), another prominent QMJHL prospect, has been nothing short of remarkable as both players continue to rise up our draft board as the season progresses.
We did have some shakeup in the bottom half of our top-10, including two new faces in Toronto Marlboros forward Maxwell Branton (6th) and Châteauguay Grenadiers forward Olivier Charron (10th). I’ll admit I was late to the party on Branton, but the viewings I got of him this past month showed me the high-end tactical playdriving centerman he really is. The rumours are that he’s applied to be eligible for the OHL Draft in April, but for now he remains one of the more intriguing center options out of Eastern Canada. Charron was a player who didn’t really pop when I’ve seen at Hockey Québec events last season and over the summer, but his play with his club team this year has turned me into a huge fan of his game. He’s as dangerous as any forward prospect with the puck on his stick, combining fluid skating ability with high-end puck skills that allows him to carve through defenders and get himself to the dangerous scoring areas on the ice. He’s currently tied for 4th in rookie scoring with 29 points in 26 games and is poised for a strong second half of the year.
High Debuts
A couple of our highest debut players for this ranking’s iteration are defenseman Louis-Félix Guay of the Saint-Hyacinthe Gaulois and Julien Nadeau of the Collège Notre-Dame Albatros, who come in at 20th and 21st respectively. Guay is a player who I’ve had on my radar since the summer, and his strong play in December left me no choice but to include him here. He’s one of the purest offensive defenders in the entire class, showing immense confidence with the puck in attacking situations along with the ability to utilize manipulative and deceptive tactics to create plays out of nothing from the offensive blueline and in. He’s probably the best powerplay quarterback I’ve seen up to this point, and his 17 points in 27 games (the leader among all rookie defenders) does little to dispel the notion of him as a high-end offensive defenseman. There are still a few kinks to be worked out in his game, but I can clearly see a role for him at the next level. Nadeau on the other hand is a more well-rounded defenseman who makes aggressive stops off the rush while showing intelligent activation tactics in the offensive zone to work his way into space ad create looks for himself. He wasn’t able to play in the CCM Challenge due to injury, but I had seen enough out of him through league play that I knew this is the range where I wanted him to be. The second half will obviously be very telling, but I wouldn’t be surprised if both these defenders end up somewhere in my first round at seasons end if their developmental trajectories continue.
I wanted to highlight a pair of Laval-Montréal forwards as well in Loic Brunet (27th) and Jayden Napon (32nd), with both forwards making their debuts on our list after strong performances at the CCM Challenge in December. Brunet was a player I highlighted early on, even when the points weren’t coming his way, I saw a skilled and heavy forward who possesses plenty of projectable tools for the next level. He seems to have found that extra offensive gear as he’s now up to 17 points in 22 games and has even earned a spot on the Rousseau-Royal’s top powerplay unit. With Napon I see a player who can transport the puck up the ice with speed and create chances at a high rate off the rush, albeit he’s still a bit raw in other aspects of his game. The statistical production won’t jump out at you with 17 points in 27 games, but the developmental runway with a player of Napon’s archetype could pay dividends for a team on draft day.
The Maritimes Class
Overall, I think this is a relatively strong class for Atlantic Canada, even if our rankings don’t necessarily reflect that due to the overall strength of the Québec group this season. Branton is our top-rated Atlantic prospect right now at 6th overall, but I debated between him and Benjamin Veitch (7th) for that top spot quite extensively. Veitch is a player who I think QMJHL teams are going to fawn over thanks in large part to his physical makeup in conjunction with his strong shooting mechanics and finishing ability, and I could easily see him making his way into the top-5 at seasons end just due to him being such a projectable player.
Vaughan Kings defenseman Quinn Norman (12th) is another player who could creep his way into the conversation of top Atlantic Canadian prospect come seasons end. There may not be a better skater on the backend than Norman in this entire draft class as he blends beautiful four-way mobility along with aggressive instinctual play off reads to shut down plays in transition time and time again. The question with Norman will be can his offensive game develop enough to where you’re comfortable taking him higher than these other prospects. He’s definitely had some flashes of strong playmaking off the rush and is willing to activate at opportune times, I’m just not sure at this juncture if he’s a bona fide PP1 quarterback.
Top Nova Scotia prospect Phenwick MacLean makes his debut on our rankings at 26th overall thanks in large part to an impressive performance at the Monctonian Challenge. He had a bit of a rocky start to his draft-eligible season but since then has settled into his own and has been able to flash his high-end shooting and goal scoring ability on a more consistent basis. I wouldn’t necessarily call him a playdriver, but he’s one of the purest shooters in this entire class which should make him highly sought after come draft day. He currently sits top-5 in rookie scoring in the Nova Scotia U18 circuit with 29 points in 26 games and has only looked better with each viewing as of late.
If you ever want to chat about the QMJHL Draft or just hockey in general, you can find me at @ARobScouting on twitter. Thanks for reading!