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2024 HLINKA GRETZKY CUP — Top 10 2025 NHL Draft Prospects

Posted on by Derek Neumeier

The 2025 NHL Entry Draft is almost a full calendar year away, but the work that goes into the decisions that will be made that weekend has already begun in earnest. Scouts always need to gather a dizzying number of views on the top prospects, which includes both regular season games and special events.

Even ones that happen in the heat of summer, such as the 2024 Hlinka Gretzky Cup, which just took place entirely within the past week up in the host city of Edmonton, Alberta.

Hockey teams from eight different nations took part in this under-18 tournament, fielding rosters that featured many of the best players in the entire world who were born in the years 2007 and 2008.

Canadian forward Gavin McKenna, the budding superstar who plays for the WHL’s Medicine Hat Tigers, was on the ice for the entertainment of both fans and scouts alike, but due to his birthday falling later in the year he will actually have to wait all the way until the 2026 draft before he is eligible to get picked (which will likely happen with the very first selection. He’s just that good, already).

However, there were a lot of other young men in Edmonton who prepared for weeks or months to showcase their stuff specifically at that event. And while most of those names aren’t well-known right now to casual hockey fans, that anonymity won’t last for long, because the majority of them are now entering their all-important draft years and will later be hearing their names get called by NHL teams next June.

Here now is a rundown of the 10 draft-eligible prospects for 2025 that had the strongest tournaments at this year’s Hlinka Gretzky Cup. They’re arranged alphabetically, and this list isn’t a ranking or a prediction for which ones will get picked the highest in 2025, but rather, a snapshot in time of which ones stood out the most in this instance.

Adam Benák — Forward — Czechia

Benák talked during the tournament about his quest for revenge against Canada, in reference to the gold medal game at this same event back in 2023. Unfortunately for him, the Czechs once again had to settle for silver at the hands of the Canadians. However, one impressive consolation prize that he walked away with was the new tournament record for points, with 21 in total split between last summer and this one. He is an electrifying presence who deals damage through his combination of quickness, hockey sense and slick hands.

Blake Fiddler — Defense — United States

Fiddler was an absolute rock on the back end for the Americans. He was always in the right position without the puck and consistently stopped opposing possessions whenever they came near him. The U.S. captain even chipped in a bit of offense as well, including a gorgeous individual goal in a win over Germany. He played his heart out in the bronze medal game against Sweden, but despite playing a mountain of shifts and emptying the gas tank he wasn't able to will his team to victory.

Jack Ivankovic — Goaltender — Canada

Ivankovic may be a little lacking with regards to his height, but he makes up for that by being one of the best big-game goalies that Canada has produced in quite some time. He started four of his team's five games and provided exactly what was needed in all of them, with expert efficiency on all the routine saves he had to make, and then a few show-stopping ones mixed in as well. He was in complete control between the pipes, and you could clearly see how much confidence that his teammates had in him.

Viktor Klingsell — Forward — Sweden

Klingsell wasn't involved in a particularly high quantity of offensive chances for the Swedes, but he certainly made the most of those opportunities, finishing as the tournament's top scorer, with 12 points in just five games. That’s now two events in a row where he filled up the score sheet, with a point-per-game pace at last year’s World U-17 Hockey Challenge. The skilled winger has quick-strike ability in the offensive zone, with a small edge to his goal-scoring over his playmaking.

Matthew Lansing — Forward — United States

Lansing hasn’t been much of a scorer while coming up the ranks over the past couple of seasons, but you wouldn’t have been able to guess that by his play at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup. The top center for the Americans, he had four goals throughout his five games, including one of the fanciest of the entire tournament. But far from being a one-trick pony, he was also one of the best defensive forwards on his team, killing a lot of penalties and handling touch matchups. This was a great showing for him to get on the radar of NHL scouts.

Radim Mrtka — Defense — Czechia

Most NHL scouts in attendance at this year's tournament surely watched all of Mrtka's shifts with enhanced focus and scrutiny, because defenders like him are a hot commodity in the league these days. He's huge (listed at the event at 6-foot-6), a right-handed shot, makes smart decisions, plays assertively in all three zones, and has workable mobility and puck control. His shutdown abilities were instrumental in Czechia's march to the championship game, and he helped generate some offensive chances, too, by constantly looking for opportunities to activate up the ice. There were some hiccups with his play here or there, but overall, it was easy to get excited about his long-term potential.

Eric Nilson — Forward — Sweden

The son of former NHLer Marcus Nilson, Eric saved his very best performance of the tournament for the bronze medal game, scoring a hat trick and adding one assist against the United States. He didn't generate very much offense in his other outings, but he was a workhorse for the Swedes in other ways in those contests, taking a lot of important faceoffs and doing crucial work on the penalty kill. And just like his dad, his NHL upside is more so as a two-way forward than as a major point-producer.

Michal Pradel — Goaltender — Slovakia

Slovakia wrapped up their trip with a victory over Germany in the 5th-place game, but they likely would have finished even lower than that had it not been for the play of their number one netminder, Pradel. The massive, 6-foot-5 goalie naturally covers up a lot of the net, but he also displays a lot of maturity and fine details that echo how netminders that are his size play in the NHL. His 42 saves against Sweden helped eke out an important point in that overtime loss, and his save percentage for the tournament would have ended up a lot higher had it not been for his team badly falling apart in front of him in the game against Canada, a match where he still managed to turn aside 38 shots before being mercy pulled.

Matthew Schaefer — Defense — Canada

With all due respect to McKenna and also to the other names on this list, Schaefer was easily the best player at the 2024 Hlinka Gretzky Cup, from his very first shift all the way up until his last. The two-way blueliner is an excellent skater and has a prodigious level of hockey IQ, and he maximized those traits to influence this tournament at his whim. Canada consistently tilted the ice whenever their captain was out there, and his ability to carve through traffic and then distribute the puck resulted in some beautiful assists at key junctures. There's already early buzz about him being the undisputed best defenseman available for the 2025 NHL draft, and don't be surprised if he never loses that status between now and then.

Vit Záhejský — Forward — Czechia

The Robin to Benák’s Batman, Záhejský really turned heads in Edmonton, both metaphorically and literally. He’s dangerously slippery and is quite adept with the puck, and he prefers to keep himself in motion as much as possible, which makes him that much harder to contain. He put forth great performances against Finland in the preliminary round and then against Sweden in the semifinals, and finished with seven points in five games overall.