Introduction
It’s time to begin Eyes On The Prize’s 17th annual Montreal Canadiens Top 25 Under 25!
The series focuses on the top young talent in the organization, projecting their skills to identify who will compete (or not) for places on the NHL roster in the future, slotting them in among those who are already stars with the Canadiens. Any player born after September 15, 2001, taking us back as far as the 2020 NHL Draft class, was eligible for inclusion.
The pool totals 55 players, tying last year’s record for the most ever. That is a surprise considering that Montreal is now in a position to move out future assets for more immediate help, but the lack of a trade at the draft like the Canadiens have completed in the first years of Kent Hughes’s tenure, and the addition of some relatively young support players in the AHL keep the total the same in 2026. We go into this project with trade rumours surrounding Montreal, so things could change at any moment.
Eligible players
The players considered for this year’s ranking, sorted from oldest to youngest, were:
Player
DOB
Age
Pos
Eligible for 2027
Kaiden Guhle
2002-01-18
24.5
LD
No
Jack Smith
2002-07-06
24.1
C
No
Jared Davidson
2002-07-07
24.1
C
No
Hunter McKown
2002-08-18
23.9
RW
No
Maksymilian Szuber
2002-08-25
23.9
LD
No
Brett Berard
2002-09-09
23.9
LW
No
Dmitri Kostenko
2002-09-25
23.8
RD
Yes
Bogdan Konyushkov
2002-12-20
23.6
RD
Yes
Luke Mittelstadt
2003-01-22
23.5
LD
Yes
Zachary Bolduc
2003-02-24
23.4
LW
Yes
Daniil Sobolev
2003-03-03
23.4
RD
Yes
Sasha Pastujov*
2003-07-15
23.0
LW
Yes
Oliver Kapanen
2003-07-29
23.0
C
Yes
Ethan Samson
2003-08-23
22.9
RD
Yes
Sam Harris
2003-10-14
22.8
LW
Yes
Adam Engström
2003-11-17
22.7
LD
Yes
Emmett Croteau
2003-12-07
22.6
G
Yes
Filip Mesar
2004-01-03
22.6
RW
Yes
Owen Beck
2004-02-03
22.5
C
Yes
Lane Hutson
2004-02-14
22.4
LD
Yes
Juraj Slafkovský
2004-03-20
22.4
RW
Yes
Florian Xhekaj
2004-06-27
22.1
LW
Yes
Vinzenz Rohrer
2004-09-09
21.9
C
Yes
David Reinbacher
2004-10-25
21.8
RD
Yes
Filip Eriksson
2004-11-05
21.7
C
Yes
Jacob Fowler
2004-11-24
21.7
G
Yes
Quentin Miller
2004-12-23
21.6
G
Yes
Makar Khanin
2005-03-17
21.4
RW
Yes
Yevgeni Volokhin
2005-04-06
21.3
G
Yes
Rasmus Bergqvist
2005-06-05
21.1
LD
Yes
Tyler Thorpe
2005-08-11
21.0
RW
Yes
Ben Merrill
2005-11-04
20.7
C
Yes
Maxon Vig
2005-11-17
20.7
LD
Yes
Ivan Demidov
2005-12-10
20.6
RW
Yes
Alexis Cournoyer
2005-12-13
20.6
G
Yes
Cooper Cleaves
2006-01-05
20.6
RD
Yes
Mikus Vecvanags
2006-01-17
20.5
G
Yes
Owen Protz
2006-02-07
20.5
LD
Yes
Bryce Pickford
2006-04-02
20.3
RD
Yes
Michael Hage
2006-04-14
20.3
C
Yes
Logan Sawyer
2006-05-06
20.2
LW
Yes
Aatos Koivu
2006-06-22
20.1
C
Yes
Tyler Deakos
2007-01-30
19.5
RW
Yes
Hayden Paupanekis
2007-02-04
19.5
C
Yes
Alexander Zharovsky
2007-02-22
19.4
RW
Yes
L.J. Mooney
2007-03-08
19.4
RW
Yes
Carlos Händel
2007-03-31
19.3
RD
Yes
Timofei Runtso
2007-07-06
19.1
RD
Yes
Andrew MacNiel
2007-07-25
19.0
RD
Yes
Arseni Radkov
2007-08-05
19.0
G
Yes
Brayden Klimpke
2007-10-08
18.8
LD
Yes
Wesley Royston
2007-11-22
18.7
RW
Yes
Parker Trottier
2008-02-13
18.5
LW
Yes
Jean-Samuel Daigneault
2008-02-15
18.4
LD
Yes
Gleb Pugachyov
2008-03-25
18.3
RW
Yes
* Sasha Pastujov was acquired on July 27 in a trade that sent Sean Farrell to the Anaheim Ducks, after the voting window had closed.
Methodology
To determine the order, EOTP staff members were offered individual ballots, and two members were chosen from among our commenters, with past participants and those with poor moderation histories passed over to find our selections. Joining six of our contributors on the voting panel are Huojian and Packeryammy, whose ballots carried just as much weight in determining the order.
A final vote came from the hundreds of members who submitted a ballot. We received 333 responses this time around between staff and readers, so thank you to everyone who took the time to evaluate players and participate in the project.
The eight individual panellist ballots were removed from the sample used for the EOTP vote. From those that remained, any ballots that had fewer than 25 players ranked were removed, and any ranks on the remaining ballots that went beyond the number a person said they had ranked (e.g. ranks 36-55 for someone who answered “35” for the length of their list) were disregarded.
The result was 143 partial lists and another 174 that ranked all 55 players for a total of 317 ballots making up the EOTP submission. Ranks for each player were averaged across all ballots that had the player in question ranked, and those averages were sorted from lowest to highest to make the community vote.
The same procedure of averaging the results was ultimately used to determine the 2026 order from the nine total ballots included. In Pastujov’s case, the six staff members and two community additions slotted him into their lists, and those eight ballots were averaged to determine his ranking.
What’s next?
If you didn’t save your list and would like to follow along as the players are revealed, make a request in the comments of this article, and it will be sent to the email address associated with your EOTP profile.
Before we begin counting down the players in this year’s series, we’ll take a look at how the pool changed from last year to this, while revisiting the histories of players who are no longer eligible for the project.
Writing opportunities
The annual ranking is just part of our coverage of the young players in the Canadiens organization. When the season begins we also follow the progress of the Junior and minor-league prospects. To that end, Eyes On The Prize is looking to bring two writers onto the staff, a prospect writer to follow players in the North American Junior leagues and NCAA, and an AHL writer to support in our coverage of the Laval Rocket.
We use a percentage-based compensation system at EOTP. The prospect writer will claim 7.5% of the monthly net income of the site, while the AHL writer will earn 5.0%. Each role will come with a subscription to FloHockey, an online streaming service that houses all AHL games and many of those for the CHL and NCAA leagues and conferences. The prospect writer will put together a biweekly summary of the performances of their charges, while the AHL writer will contribute a report on one or two Rocket games per week.
If you are interested in one of these positions, please send an email to habseyesontheprize@gmail.com with the role you’re applying for, ideally with a writing sample. We look forward to reading your submissions, and welcoming new writers to our staff for the start of the new hockey season.