Arctic Ice Hockey’s summer Prospect Review will consist of multiple articles this year, which should allow me the room to do a bit more than just throw a bunch of stats & figures out. The True North franchise currently owns the rights to or has signed 23 players that I could consider as part of the prospect pool (24 yrs old or younger). Just over half of those guys were playing with the AHL’s Manitoba Moose or the ECHL’s Norfolk Admirals last season (12), while 7 skaters were suited up with CHL squads, two players were playing down south in the NCAA, and the Jets had one prospect in each of Sweden & Russia’s various hockey leagues.
To kick off my plan to look at the prospects the Winnipeg Jets currently have in the organization, I opted to begin with a look at the players who were on Canadian Hockey League franchises for the 2024-25 hockey season. Since our hockey club doesn’t have any players in the QMJHL, we can turn our focus to the OHL and WHL to start to get to know the young men….who have varying degrees of pedigree to include two former 1st round draft picks, one 4th rounder, two 5th round selections, one 6th round pick, & one 7th rounder.
The WHL was home to three of those prospects, including one of the former 1st round selections in forward Brayden Yager. Acquired last summer from the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for Rutger McGroarty, the Saskatchewan-born center was 3 days too young to qualify for the AHL so he returned for another Junior campaign. The 20 yr old began the year with the Moose Jaw Warriors (30 pts in 21 gms), but when it became clear that they weren’t likely to qualify for the playoffs (finished last in WHL), Brayden was shipped off to the Lethbridge Hurricanes for the remainder of the season. A 5th round selection at the last Entry Draft after putting up 54 pts in 45 games with Karpat’s under 20 club, Marcus Loponen decided to move closer to his new NHL team and signed with the Victoria Royals for his North American debut. The final player suiting up in the “W” was a 7th round pick from the 2023 NHL Draft after putting up 67 points in 68 games, Connor Levis was entering his third season with the Vancouver Giants.
Moving over to the OHL for the remaining 4 prospects, we will kick off with another 1st round draft pick in Colby Barlow. Missing out the chance to play in the AHL by being born a month & a half too late, the Ontario born forward was also forced to return for another Junior campaign. Unfortunately the year didn’t start off great as the Ontario-born winger wasn’t happy with the idea of remaining with the Owen Sound Attack and was eventually traded to the Oshawa Generals. Fitting in with his new team took some time, but it seemed that Colby got continuously better as the year progressed. A 4th round selection last year after putting up 53 points in 64 games, the Niagara IceDogs’ Kevin He became the first ever China-born player to be drafted & signed by an NHL franchise. The London Knights have had a great run over the past 3 OHL campaigns, making the championship game in each of those….and Winnipeg draft pick Jacob Julien has been a part of it all. Selected in the 5th round of the 2023 Entry Draft after only putting up 16 pts in 40 OHL games, the 2-way center took a big step forward last year and was hoping to continue that trajectory in his final Junior campaign. Finally, the Jets chose big Kieron Walton in the 6th round last year after he put up 43 points in 65 games and he was looking to build on that with a bigger role in the Sudbury Wolves’ offense.
Now that we have reacquainted ourselves with the WHL prospects, let us take a look at how they performed in the 2024-25 season in the chart below:
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As you can see from the above numbers, it was Yager leading the way offensively amongst the Winnipeg Jets’ CHL prospects after averaging slightly more than 1.5 points every game this season. The other former 1st round selection, Barlow, struggled to find the back of the net early on in the campaign and that resulted in the sniper being held to less than 40 goals for the first time (32, though he did add another 14 in 21 playoff games to finish with his 2nd highest total). If you included Colby’s strong playoff performance (33 pts in 21 gms) in his points per game calculation, then the winger still wouldn’t have moved up a spot in the category (1.13) despite the new number being more fitting of a higher end prospect.
The biggest strides forward this season were from a pair of forwards selected by GM Kevin Cheveldayoff at last year’s Entry Draft. A grinder with some scoring talent, He hit the 30 goal plateau for the second time of his Junior career, with a career best 36 red lights lit to go along with his 75 point campaign. Yet there was no one who could match the huge leap that Walton took with the Wolves this year, more than doubling his previous career high in points to finish with 92 (38 goals). Both of those prospects ended up signing their first professional contracts with the Jets in the middle of their season, with Kevin signing in December and Kieron inking his deal in April. Chevy’s delay in signing Walton ended up costing them a bit of money, as he used his strong performance to that point to get a bigger contract than He did ($858,333 to $840,000) despite being a later draft pick (6th rd vs 4th rd).
The only other player that Winnipeg has signed to this point is the Knights’ center Julien, who was coming off a career best 78 point season. However other talented players on London’s roster ended up stealing some of his ice-time, making the big forward alter his game more along the lines of an Adam Lowry-type checking role. As you might expect, that resulted in a decrease in offense yet Jacob still was relied on by coach Dale Hunter for the important tasks like nullifying the opposition’s best players and killing off the many penalties the Knights’ took throughout the season.
But all those statistics do is offer us a snap shot in time and that doesn’t tell us enough about how each prospect is developing or what they might some day become in the NHL. To try and help us figure that out, I decided that I would compare the 7 CHL prospects to some of the current Jets who took similar career paths. I opted to look at the development arcs of 5 players who will be wearing Winnipeg jerseys next season, four top sixers in Mark Scheifele, Nikolaj Ehlers, Gabriel Vilardi, & Cole Perfetti, as well as the current captain and bottom six fixture Adam Lowry.
In the graphic below, I have organized how each of the 12 skaters performed in the season prior to their being drafted….so lets see what it tells us:
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First off, I will begin our review of the above chart with a couple of general observations, namely the fact that just because a player averaged less than a point per game in their draft year doesn’t automatically exclude them from eventually becoming a valuable NHLer (like Lowry did, but it might suggest they won’t become fixtures in the top six). The other thing that is hardly surprising to see is that the 6 players picked in the 1st round of drafts were the skaters who had the most points in their draft eligible seasons.
Perfetti probably wasn’t the player you expected to find at the top of the list, but the forward was pretty prolific when he was with the OHL’s Saginaw Spirit. Cole was coming off a 74 point season (1.17 pts/gm) and exploded for 111 points before Winnipeg took him with a 10th overall selection. And that was the end of his Junior career, forcing the young skater to continue his development at the AHL-NHL level. Ehlers, a 9th overall pick, also put up gaudy offensive numbers in his pre-draft campaign, breaking the 100 pt plateau for the first of what would become two Junior seasons before the speedy Dane turned pro with the Jets. Scheifele was a surprise 7th overall pick when Chevy made him the first ever player selected by the newly reformed Winnipeg Jets and obviously the less than amazing 1.13 points per game was probably one of the reasons for that. Yet the Jets’ scouts must have seen something in Mark that others didn’t and they were eventually proved correct when Scheifele turned into what has become a rare thing to find nowadays in the NHL….a top six centerman.
The other current NHLers on the list above include a 11th overall selection in Vilardi and a 3rd round pick in Lowry. The future Winnipeg captain’s draft season saw a slight uptick in scoring from his previous year (0.56 pts/gm to 0.68 pts/gm), though it would have to wait for another Junior campaign before Adam finally flirted with the point per game mark. When it came to Gabriel’s big draft season, he stepped up hugely as he doubled his previous scoring rate of 0.61 points per game to 1.24 and was rewarded by being selected by the Los Angeles Kings in the upcoming draft.
Moving onto look at how the current pool of CHL prospects stack up to those that went before them…starting off with a pair of forwards drafted within 5 spots of each other in the same Entry Draft (2023). Despite Barlow slightly out-scoring Yager (79 to 78 pts in draft yr), Pittsburgh went with the center when they used the 14th overall selection, allowing Winnipeg to pick up the scoring winger in the 18th spot. Both 1st round picks performed well that season and they were accordingly selected in the opening round of the draft by the Jets & Penguins.
The remaining 5 prospects were all selected from rounds 3 to 7 in their respective drafts, though their selection order doesn’t exactly match their offensive outputs in their draft years. Levis had the best scoring rate, yet was a 7th round selection by the Jets, while Zhilkin & He were nabbed in the 3rd & 4th rounds respectively. The bottom two players were understandably late round picks, with Julien getting his name called in the 5th and Walton having to wait until the 6th round.
To continue our journey through these players’ career paths, let us move on to see how each of them did in the CHL the year after they were drafted. Peer at the table below and we can try to figure out which players’ trajectories were continuously on the rise.
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Looking back into the past, we can see that all four of the NHLers-to-be were able to increase their point production the season after being drafted. The biggest offensive gain came from Vilardi, who increased his points per game by 0.57 after becoming property of the LA Kings. Next up is our example of why you shouldn’t discount later round draft picks, as Lowry increased his output by 0.35 pts/gm. Then there is the Great Dane, who produced 0.31 points per game more after becoming a Jet as Ehlers came so close to hitting the 2 pts/gm plateau in his final Junior season. To round out the NHLers, Scheifele took a Bambi-step forward by increasing his scoring by 0.21 points per game while he was filling out his youthful & tall frame.
When it comes to our current group of prospects, lets go through them from most improved to least improved in the point production department. That means we have to begin with Julien, who went from hardly playing to securing a full time top six role to explode for 78 points in 67 games and a 0.76 pts/gm increase from the previous season. This year, Walton came very close to beating that though, as the big center went from 43 to 92 points with an increase of 0.73 pts/gm as he finished near the top of the OHL scoring race. Next up is Yager, who scored a career high 35 goals & 95 points after being drafted by the Penguins, an increase of 0.51 pts/gm. A mid-draft selection, He also showed some promise this season when he increased his points per game rate from 0.83 to 1.21, an increase of 0.38. Zhilkin is the last prospect that had an upward trajectory, with a 0.10 pts/gm increase as he scored 29 goals between the Kitchener Rangers & Guelph Storm.
Levis was unable to maintain his near point per game production rate after he was drafted, seeing his pts/gm fall by 0.14 but that could be expected from a 7th round draft pick. However, it is not exactly what you want to see when it comes to your higher end prospects, yet a slight set back also befell Barlow in the 2023-24 campaign. The sniper did hit the 40 goal plateau for the second time, yet the fall off in assists led to a -0.14 pts/gm reduction from Colby’s previous season.
Alright, just one more graphic to get through and then you can give your eyes a rest. Our final chart is showing how the six players that remained in the CHL for another season did, so let us see who’s stars were rising and whose was falling in this one.
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In this chart, the two NHLers-to-be continued their steady development with one last Junior hockey season. All of a sudden Bambi turned into a stag (I know that’s not the expected development path) when Scheifele became an offensive weapon with a 1.76 points per game average, an increase of 0.42 from his prior best. Lowry continued to chug along too, inching his way up to a 1.22 points per game average for a 0.19 improvement.
Unfortunately the current group of forward prospects didn’t follow suit, as only Levis was able to manage a measly 0.03 scoring increase (from 0.85 to 0.88). The next “best” was Yager, who still had a solid season (1.52 pts/gm) yet saw his production slip by 0.15 pts/gm in a season split between Moose Jaw & Lethbridge. Then came Barlow, who’s slow start ended up costing him with a 0.18 pts/gm decrease, yet if you included the post-season in the calculations that figure would improve to a 0.03 drop. Finally we end with Julien, who ended up losing his top six role as well as powerplay looks and that resulted in a 0.33 points per game decrease.
Final Conclusions:
Before I start trying to draw any conclusions from this lengthy review, I first must remind myself that the NHLers that I am comparing the Winnipeg Jets current CHL prospects to are a very small sample size of the future big league player pool and certainly is top-heavy (three 1st line talents, one 2nd line, & one better than normal 3rd liner).
So with that taken into consideration, I will try to move on from my disappointment that none of the CHL Seven has had a completely rising development trajectory and discuss each players’ pros & cons.
Brayden Yager:
332 pts in 265 WHL games (1.25 pts/gm) over his Junior career. 129 goals over that same span (0.487 goals/gm).
Yager came the closest to matching the learning curves of 1st liners like Scheifele, Ehlers, & Vilardi throughout his Junior career. The 20 yr old did have to deal with a mid-season trade and his final year’s stats did improve slightly once he found his way to Lethbridge (1.52 pts/gm for the year, but 1.57 with the Hurricanes post-trade). Yet Brayden’s smallish frame (6′ 170 lbs on PuckPedia) could limit him to a more of a 2nd line role at the NHL level.
I don’t expect Yager to become a big goal scorer with the Jets in the future, as his 0.487 goals per game rate in Juniors doesn’t scream sniper to me. The Saskatoon-born player does possess a solid work ethic & on-ice awareness that helps him on both sides of the puck…by helping him be a strong 2-way center defensively and then using that vision to set up his linemates for quality scoring chances. Brayden has good skating speed and when you combine that with the fact that he has shown positive signs at the face-off dot (53.4% in this years’ WHL playoffs), Winnipeg might have finally found a 2nd line centerman option for the near future.
One big positive for the youngster is that it should be easier to earn head coach Scott Arniel’s trust with a solid defensive game in his repertoire and that could lead to an earlier NHL look than some of the more offensively minded prospects in the organization. Another plus is that Yager is right handed and Winnipeg doesn’t have a lot of those in their forward corps. The Jets’ organization has typically been very conservative when it comes to bringing their prospects up to the NHL level….and I don’t really expect that to change when it comes to the 20 yr old Canadian. While the injury to Lowry might provide an opening for a prospect to start the year with the big club, I fully expect Brayden to get the chance to continue his growth with the Manitoba Moose in 2025-26.
Here is how DobberProspects.com’s PNHLe statistic is projecting Brayden Yager’s NHL potential at this point:
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Colby Barlow:
245 pts in 230 WHL games (1.06 pts/gm) over his Junior career. 148 goals over that same span (0.644 goals/gm).
Barlow is undoubtedly a goal scorer….with an impressive 0.644 goals per game rate over his Junior career while averaging 37 goals per season. Solidly built at 6’1″ and close to 200 lbs, the left winger kept seeing his points per year drop each season after he was drafted. I tried to find an easy explanation for this, but while his Owen Sound club wasn’t very good in his post-draft season, they only had 6 points less as a team compared to the one Colby averaged 1.34 pts/gm with. The following season saw him miss training camp before finally getting the trade he wanted, so that might offer a partial reason for the Canadian’s slow start to this most recent season. However, the Ontario-born forward showed signs of his upper ceiling in the playoffs this past season when he amassed 33 points in 21 games for a 1.57 pts/gm average.
From the little I have seen Barlow play, I don’t think he is really going to be a play driver at the NHL level. That doesn’t mean that he can’t become a useful middle six scorer though with further development. The left hand shooter has the build to be effective in board battles in the offensive zone, but I believe that the winger’s focus will be on improving his skating and rounding out his defensive game with the Manitoba Moose next year.
While his stock has definitely dropped since Winnipeg drafted him, I have seen many people with hockey knowledge still indicate their belief that he will become a productive 2nd line point producer. There is work left to do, but to paraphrase a commonly held hockey belief, “you can teach many things, but the ability to score goals in bunches isn’t one of them“.
Here is how DobberProspects.com’s PNHLe statistic is projecting Colby Barlow’s NHL potential at this point:
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Kieron Walton:
148 pts in 177 WHL games (0.860 pts/gm) over his Junior career. 64 goals over that same span (0.362 goals/gm).
If this past season is a sign of things to come, then 6th round selection Walton might be the best late draft pick Winnipeg has had since they picked Connor Hellebuyck in the 5th round of the 2012 NHL Entry Draft. The 6’6″ forward piled up 92 pts this season, good enough for the 9th most points in the entire OHL and has dramatically lifted his potential ceiling.
I doubt that the 19 yr old & 216 lb player can match his huge leap in production from this season (up 0.73 pts/gm), so it will be more about maintaining that level of play while working on the things that the Winnipeg Jets’ development staff have identified. The big Canadian got the chance to play 4 games with the Manitoba Moose after his OHL season ended and hopefully that showed him some of things he needs to improve to play with the “big boys” of professional hockey. I can’t wait to repeat this whole process next summer to see how Walton does in his last year in Sudbury, where another 90 point season could launch him into the conversation for Team Canada’s World Juniors roster.
I know that a lot of fans were hopeful that Kieron might eventually turn out to be that hulking top six center that the Jets really need, but a constant decrease in the number of face off attempts each season likely means that the Toronto-born player will be a left winger at the professional level. Yet that might be the only disappointing thing about Walton’s development thus far…as he is coming off an impressive 38 goal campaign and will be looking to continue his upward trajectory in his final Junior season with the Wolves. According to DobberProspects.com’s PNHLe statistic, they are projecting Kieron Walton’s NHL potential as a top line winger at this point:
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Kevin He:
162 pts in 193 WHL games (0.839 pts/gm) over his Junior career. 88 goals over that same span (0.456 goals/gm).
The Beijing-born forward has improved for each of his 3 OHL seasons to date, increasing his point totals from 34 to 53 to 75 points. After hitting the 20 goal plateau in his debut campaign, He has followed that up with back to back 30+ goal seasons. So far, Chevy & the Jets are looking pretty smart for trading up in the 4th round to select Kevin in the last draft and landing the 2nd highest scoring player on the IceDogs.
A high energy grinder with good hands might just provide Winnipeg with a valuable left winger in the middle six…with a shot at moving his ceiling even higher if you believe the PNHLe chart at the end of this section. The 6′ 180 lb forward missed out on the opportunity to suit up for the Manitoba Moose due to a nagging injury after his season ended, but Winnipeg’s development staff will be working with him over the summer to identify areas to improve in his final season with Niagara.
Another player that I will be anxious to follow up during next summer’s review, as he could continue his positive progression or take a step back like our next prospect ended up doing. Here is how DobberProspects.com’s PNHLe statistic is projecting Kevin He’s NHL potential at this point:
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Jacob Julien:
148 pts in 172 WHL games (0.860 pts/gm) over his Junior career. 49 goals over that same span (0.285 goals/gm).
A 5th round selection in the 2023 NHL Entry Draft, Julien increased his point total massively the following season with 0.76 more points per game on average. Unfortunately due to a decreased role, his 54 points this past year made his PNHLe rating plummet.
The 6’4″ centerman is tall & lanky (190 lbs), but from the Junior & Memorial Cup games I watched him play he seems to be good in the face-off circle and is responsible defensively in his own end. His hometown Junior club, the London Knights take plenty of penalties, so Jacob has had plenty of opportunities to work on his penalty killing skills under a superb coach.
At one point, I was hoping that the big Canadian would end up developing into the Jets’ future version of Adam Lowry, but that may be a bit optimistic unless he takes a step forward with the Manitoba Moose next year. I am still on board with the 20 yr old turning into a valuable bottom six piece for Winnipeg eventually, but it may take a season or two of marination in the AHL before that happens.
Here is how DobberProspects.com’s PNHLe statistic is projecting Jacob Julien’s NHL potential at this point:
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Connor Levis:
234 pts in 287 WHL games (0.815 pts/gm) over his Junior career. 99 goals over that same span (0.345 goals/gm).
The first unsigned prospect in this review, Levis has completed his CHL career and will switch to the Bowling Green State University of the NCAA for the 2025-26 season. The 20 yr old was a decent point producer at the Junior level and I was never quite sure why a player who came close to a point per game average in his draft year wasn’t selected until the 7th round. However Connor’s failure to take a step forward over the next couple of years showed the scouts knew what they were talking about.
While I have never personally seen the 6’1″ center play myself, the scouting reports often point to his board battling abilities as one of his major strengths. The Vancouver native’s NHL rights are kind of up in the air at the moment, as the opening of the NCAA to Junior players has resulted in the need for a new agreement regarding the length of the drafting team’s rights since the two leagues currently have different rules.
It will be interesting to see how Connor Levis’ jump to the NCAA will play out, but at this point the probability of him becoming an NHLer seems hit or miss.
Marcus Loponen:
44 pts in 65 WHL games (0.677 pts/gm) over his Junior career. 19 goals over that same span (0.292 goals/gm).
Our final prospect is difficult to assess, since I only have one season of Junior stats to work with and that involved Loponen having to learn a whole new style of hockey in North America. So I think the 2025-26 season with the Victoria Royals will say a lot about his potential as a future NHLer.
The Finn’s 44 points last year was the 6th highest from forwards on his club and the 6’1″ center avoided any long scoreless droughts in his debut season. Marcus is said to have a variety of shot types to fool opposing goalies and used that ability to light 19 lamps in his first season. While technically a center, the 19 yr old definitely had issues at the dot last season, so that will be one of the many things the Jets’ development staff will be looking for him to improve over the next year.
Marcus Loponen is at least a couple years from challenging for a spot on the Winnipeg Jets roster, but that is only if he shows he can adapt his play to the game on this side of the pond.
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Well that finally brings us to the end of this lengthy article (if in fact, you are still with me after so many words). I am planning on tackling the remaining prospects on the Manitoba Moose & in other leagues eventually, but I am uncertain exactly when those articles will be posted. One thing I heard about Dmitri Rashevsky is that his KHL club has tendered him an offer and he has also had a Zoom call with Chevy & the Jets’ staff. It is now up to the 24 yr old Russian to decide which path he wants to take.
Did you learn anything from this painfully long article? Which of these prospects do you see eventually donning a Winnipeg Jets’ uniform? Would you keep the higher end prospects like Yager & Barlow in the fold or should Chevy dangle them in a trade that could improve the Jets next season? Hope everyone is enjoying their summer as best as they can, despite the wide spread fires sweeping across Canada. Here’s hoping for a bunch of rain!!
