When Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds general manager Kyle Raftis fielded calls from scouts and NHL executives last spring ahead of the 2025 NHL Draft, each conversation ended the same way.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While teams were keen to gather every bit of intel they could on top talents like Brady Martin (the eventual fifth-overall pick to Nashville) and a handful of other prospects available out of the OHL club, inquiring hockey minds also wanted to know about the new kid suddenly starring on the Greyhounds\u2019 blue line, not yet draft eligible but already turning heads.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A mere half season into his OHL career, after being called up from the Bismarck Bobcats of the North American Hockey League in December 2024, defenceman Chase Reid was garnering plenty of interest with his smooth skating, lethal shot, elite puck movement and the vision to match. Skillsets like that don\u2019t appear out of nowhere, but Reid\u2019s arrival and ensuing success on the OHL circuit happened so swiftly, onlookers could be excused for believing his had.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of NHL teams would call,\u201d Raftis says. \u201cWe had four guys go in that draft, so there was lots of talking to teams, and every time you’re wrapping up the phone call, it would be like, ‘Hey, quick question: Where do you think Chase Reid would go in\u00a0this\u00a0draft if he was eligible?\u2019 So right there, you knew he was already a big conversation piece.”<\/p>\n
The talk around Reid has only grown louder, the praise more enthusiastic, in the year since as the defenceman doubled down on last season\u2019s success and continued to climb the prospect rankings ahead of the 2026 Draft, where his is expected to be one of the first names called Friday night.<\/p>\n
An exciting talent with first-round intrigue a year ago \u2014 even with just 39 OHL games to his name at the time, Raftis believed Reid had done enough to play his way into the opening night of picks in last year\u2019s class \u2014 Reid is now the second-ranked North American skater according to NHL Central Scouting and in the mix to be the top rearguard off the board.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe switch flipped very quickly with him, and that’s why I think he’s getting so much attention now,\u201d Raftis says. \u201cLike, every six months, you see where he comes from and where he’s [going]. It’s scary.\u201d<\/p>\n
Raftis knew Reid had potential when his Greyhounds selected the defenceman in the seventh round (125th\u00a0overall) of the 2023 OHL Priority Selection Draft. He saw Reid\u2019s confidence start to build during the Greyhounds\u2019 development camp a month later, and watched from afar as Reid continued to progress close to home with the Michigan-based Victory Honda AAA under-16 team, where he produced at nearly a point-per-game pace in 2023-24.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But while Raftis saw clear potential, and a work ethic to match, in the young Michigander, the GM says he \u201ccould never have fathomed\u201d just how quickly Reid\u2019s talent would develop \u2014 and how high up the scouting ranks he\u2019d rise.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As meteoric as it was, Reid\u2019s progression wasn\u2019t linear. His confidence took a hit to start the 2024-25 season when he was cut from the USHL\u2019s Waterloo Black Hawks \u2014 the team with which he spent a 10-game stint the year prior \u2014 and instead landed in Bismarck with the tier-two NAHL\u2019s Bobcats. There, he toiled as a No. 4 defenceman before getting the call that drastically changed his trajectory.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In early December 2024, Raftis found himself in need of an extra defender while then-Greyhound Andrew Gibson joined Team Canada at the World Junior Championship. The call-up came with no promise of a long-term stay, just an opportunity for both player and organization to see whether things clicked.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe weren’t sure how fast he would jump on board in terms of, you know, it’s a different level, it’s a different speed of game,\u201d says Raftis. \u201cWeek-to-week, you could just see it coming very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Raftis recalls, Reid\u2019s first game with the Greyhounds saw him play about 12 minutes. His second brought a bump up to around 18. And then, says Raftis, \u201cit just took off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Looking back, Raftis credits Reid\u2019s skating as the biggest on-ice factor for his success \u2014 that, and a growth spurt.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“The summer before he jumped on board with us, I think his skating really took a step. He was always a very smart player, always had great offensive instincts, and he started to grow \u2014 I think he was about six feet when we drafted him, and he ended up closer to six-foot-two [when he arrived],\u201d says Raftis. \u201cIt doesn’t matter what level you’re at, when you have a right-shot defenceman that has that size and instincts \u2014 and then all of a sudden the skating started to pop for him \u2014 you could see it coming together very quickly.”<\/p>\n
By early January, when the Greyhounds dealt Gibson to the Oshawa Generals, Reid had already entrenched himself on the Soo roster, proving himself a quick study. By season\u2019s end, he\u2019d racked up 40 points in 39 games, leading all OHL rookies in assists (33) and earning First All-Rookie Team honours.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One year later, he\u2019s built on that first-year success with a sensational draft-season showing \u2014 both with the Greyhounds, where he posted marathon minutes, more than doubled his goal output, and was named to the club\u2019s leadership core, and with Team USA\u2019s world junior squad, where he registered four points in five games in his first-ever international tournament.<\/p>\n
Throughout, he\u2019s continued to evolve, unafraid to take a step back offensively at times to hone his defensive abilities, which resulted in him being recognized in an OHL coaches poll as one of the top defensive defencemen in the league.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he takes a lot of pride in that, because I think he didn’t want to just be a one-dimensional, point-producer, power-play guy,\u201d says Raftis. \u201cHe wanted to be somebody that could be counted on, and obviously he played a ton of minutes with us and kind of proved that.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Reid, who has committed to play the 2026-27 season at Michigan State, Raftis sees similar traits to reigning Norris Trophy-winner Zach Werenski, thanks to his elite skating and puck-moving abilities, as well as shades of John Carlson from the NHL veteran\u2019s junior days: “The big shot, can play heavy minutes, play against your best matchups, that type of thing. That was somebody that kind of stuck out a little bit,” he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Raftis also sees a player driven not to prove his doubters along the way wrong, but rather to prove those who\u2019ve believed in him\u00a0right.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cI think a lot of people think he has this chip on his shoulder \u2014 which he does, and he’s very confident \u2014 but I think it’s more so like, ‘Hey, you guys believed in me, and I’m gonna prove you guys right,'” Raftis says.<\/p>\n
Come Friday night, one lottery team will begin to learn that firsthand.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thinking back to those early scouting calls a year ago, Raftis can\u2019t help but laugh now at how true his quip at the time turned out to be.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were kind of almost laughing about it, like, ‘Wait ’til you see next year!’\u201d says Raftis. \u201cAnd, sure enough.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds general manager Kyle Raftis fielded calls from scouts and NHL executives last spring…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":758362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-758361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=758361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/758362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=758361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=758361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=758361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}