The 2025 version of our Pensburgh Top 25 Under 25 countdown list rolls on with a look at a Ron Hextall-era draft pick, 2021 second-rounder, Tristan Broz.

Catch up on the previous entries for this year:

Acquired Via: 2021 NHL Draft (Round 2, Pick 58)

Height/Weight: 6-foot, 205 pounds

The highest draft pick from the Pittsburgh Penguins’ 2021 draft class, Tristan Broz got his first real taste of professional hockey last season with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins after appearing in two playoff games for the club at the tail end of the 2023-24 season.

Broz’s acceleration in his development can be traced back to his transfer from the University of Minnesota to the University of Denver in 2022.

After putting up only 11 points in 36 games with the Golden Gophers, Broz found a renewed role with the Pioneers. By his junior year, he had career highs with 16 goals and 24 assists over 43 games while helping Denver capture its 10th NCAA championship.

Broz was front and center for that championship-winning Pioneers squad, also netting two overtime goals in the NCAA tournament.

Fast forward to the 2024 Prospects Challenge, and Kirk MacDonald, the Penguins’ AHL coach, singled out Broz for the improvements to his game.

“He attacked with a lot of pace and speed,” coach MacDonald said at the time. [He] and Koivu were great together and made a lot of plays. Great job finding some space, like on that first goal, finding that weak‑side dot for that seam.”

This time last year, PensBurgh was also profiling Broz’s ascent from lowly freshman to key contributor on a championship team. We didn’t know then what we know now about Broz’s first professional season (more on that below), but Broz has continued to ride an upward wave of momentum to this very day.

Described as a fierce competitor, Broz’s 200-foot game and leadership, traits that earned him acclaim with the Pioneers, almost immediately carried over when Broz joined the AHL.

Broz’s start to last season saw him record 12 goals in his first 27 games, along with seven assists. For his play, he also found himself in a top-six role, often sharing the ice with fellow prospect Rutger McGroarty.

However, entering 2025, Broz was shut down with a rough case of mononucleosis (commonly shorthanded to mono), causing him to miss nearly six weeks of game action.

Speaking last season about the adjustment he had to make from college to the professional ranks, Broz, like many young players, noticed how big a change it was to play games on a more frequent basis, while also discussing the changes in styles of play.

“The schedule, for one, you, obviously, play a lot more games than you do in college,” Broz said. “Then I would say the style of play is a lot more possession-based. In college, you rarely see teams take (the puck) back and organize controlled breakouts.”

Broz ended up as one of the Penguins’ leading goal-scorers, notching 19 goals in 59 regular-season games played. He was also second on the team with six power-play goals, second to Valterri Puustinen’s seven power-play tallies.

In the postseason, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton was eliminated by the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, the AHL affiliate of the Philadelphia Flyers, 2-0, in a best-of-three first-round playoff series. Broz led the team in scoring during that brief appearance, with one goal and two assists in the two games that were played.

Speaking during the 2025 Prospects Challenge, Coach MacDonald was impressed with how Broz battled through adversity last season and completed his first pro season on such a high note.

“I thought he did a great job. He was playing outstanding there, and then he got mono, and it just obviously derailed him a little bit. It’s just tough. Sometimes you get an injury or something, and at least you can do something, like you can do some sort of training, and for basically three weeks, I don’t think he could do any physical activity. So, he basically started from square one again. I thought he did a good job getting himself back and going by the end of the year. He actually did play really well in the playoffs; I thought competed hard, scored a big full goal for us. I think he’s going to be a huge year for us. I think, like, a big thing to remember, is he only played center, basically, for a year and a half. And he’s done a great job with it. His reads are really good. I think he’s going to take a bigger role in our penalty kill, assuming he’s with us. I know he’s coming here with the goal to play [in Pittsburgh], but from that standpoint, I think like there’s opportunity for him to have a big role this year and then knock on the door, ‘cause I really thought, before he got mono, he was he was gonna play [in Pittsburgh].”

It’s been a quick, if unexpected, ascent for the Minnesota native. Perhaps everything has “clicked” for the 22-year-old forward.

In any case, Broz figures to see more ice time at the AHL level this season to perhaps put the finishing touches on his development. A call-up to the NHL club can’t be ruled out during the upcoming season, either.

Broz may turn out to be another example to show that a player’s development is never a straight line.

If the goal-scoring ability translates to the NHL level, we may have a conversation down the road about him entrenching himself in a top-six role.

However, suppose he makes it to the NHL on a more permanent basis. In that case, envisioning Broz as a middle‑six forward with two‑way responsibility and secondary scoring upside may be the safer bet to make.

Given the trajectory of Broz’s development from 2021 to August 2025, we may look back at Tristan Broz as one of the few success stories of the otherwise forgettable Ron Hextall era.