Desjardins is a cerebral player who reads the game at a high level and uses his exceptional vision and passing ability to generate scoring chances for his teammates. He’s a player who doesn’t need the puck on his stick for long periods of time to be an effective playmaker, instead he thrives on catching defences off-guard with unsuspecting passes through tight seams or smart one touch plays to deflect pucks towards open teammates. There are moments where he’s able to create open looks for himself as a puck carrier by using some finesse to swing around his opponents but his shot is more accurate than it is powerful meaning he was more dangerous in close quarters. As a puck handler, he tends to look for high-risk, high-reward plays which resulted in impressive individual rushes in transition but also moments where he would stick handle himself into difficult situations. Away from the puck, his hustle and excellent situational awareness made him a strong forechecker who swarmed loose pucks and anticipated opponents plays to generate chances off of turnovers.

Desjardins has been one of the more hyped prospects for the 2025 QMJHL Draft due to his outlandish production last year at the 14U level (150 points in 67 games) and his 6’0 and 170 lbs frame. While I can see the vision with a player like Desjardins, he does have some hurdles to climb if he is to become a premiere QMJHL prospect, most notably shoring up his on-puck route decisions and not over relying on his natural ability to create advantages for himself. There were a handful of times throughout the event where he tried to deke through multiple defenders at a time, which lead to a loss of possession and a counterattack the other way. Despite this, I thought he did some excellent work along the perimeter in the offensive zone by utilizing his frame and puck skills in conjunction to create space for himself in small areas of the ice to extend his puck touches. He showed some good scanning habits prior to his touches as well, which allowed him to execute some quick one touch feeds to the middle of the ice in the offensive zone that caught defenders off guard and lead to a high-danger chance.