2025 Montreal Canadiens Top 25 Under 25: The Near Misses (34-26)

Introduction

The past couple of years this has mostly been an extension of the Top 25, with too many players showing NHL ability to fit into the official countdown. With the six graduating NHLers, the quality isn’t quite the same this year, and more in line with what this section of players has usually been: skaters with an NHL skill or two but not the full set required to crack a roster, and some unproven goaltenders.

Every one of the nine players we’ll profile here did receive at least one placement in the Top 25 from the panellists, so there is still hope for them to realize their NHL dreams.

#34 Quentin Miller

Goaltender – 21 – Western Michigan University (NCAA)

The biggest difference between Quentin Miller and Emmett Croteau is that Miller didn’t experience a dip when his NCAA career began, and he’s simply been the more consistent goaltender throughout his development. Miller’s 2025-26 season may not have been as impressive on an individual level as his counterpart’s, but consistency is his most encouraging trait, continuing to perform as the stage gets bigger.

He played 25 games in his freshman season at the University of Denver and got to hoist the championship trophy alongside fellow Habs prospect Sam Harris at the end of the season. But he did so as second fiddle to Johnny Hicks, also a freshman, who sparkled with a .957 mark on the season.

Not wanting to spend his collegiate career as a backup, Miller made the decision to transfer to Western Michigan University — the team Denver had beaten in the regional finals, incidentally. There the technical goaltender will unquestionably be the starter, with a chance to have more of a role in his team’s performance as it seeks payback for last year’s playoff loss.

#33 Brett Berard

Left Wing – 23 – Laval Rocket (AHL)

Thirty-third in the order seems too low for a player who has 48 games of NHL experience in the past two years. What gave many of the voters pause was that he didn’t hit the scoresheet once in 13 games on the goal-starved New York Rangers in 2025-26, and he also saw a drop in his AHL offence despite playing in more games.

In his first two years with the Hartford Wolf Pack he produced about two points every three games, but he dropped to a half-point-per-game rate in 2025-26. It was nowhere close to the 25 goals and 23 assists he had in his first year in the minors following a three-year collegiate career.

He did sustain a torn labrum in an NHL game during the 2024-25 season and played through the rest of the year, and that seems the likely cause of his poor offensive performance. We witnessed the negative impact a shoulder injury had on Cole Caufield a couple of seasons ago that heavily impacted his shot, and the same thing might be plaguing Berard. He missed time toward the end of the last AHL season with an upper-body injury as well.

Hopefully the Canadiens’ medical team will fully assess him when he arrives for training camp and make sure he doesn’t have lingering issues that will bother him once again. With Joshua Roy no longer in Laval, the Rocket will need Berard’s offence to make up what was lost this off-season. The low production in 2025-26 will probably allow him to get through waivers, and should his offence return to its typical level he will slot himself high in the queue for an NHL recall.

#32 Rasmus Bergqvist

Defenceman – 21 – Skellefteå AIK (SHL)

Offence barely factors into Rasmus Bergqvist’s game. His Elite Prospects page goes back to when he was 13 years old, and features a total of 27 goals. He hasn’t found the net in two SHL seasons, with just five assists. He has played 65 games in one of the top leagues outside the NHL, which is an accomplishment for a defenceman who just turned 21 at the end of the most recent campaign.

He is the definition of a defensive defenceman who concerns himself solely with play on his own half of the ice. He became more comfortable with his talents in 2025-26, not getting overaggressive in his physicality and puck retrievals, but making sure to patrol his area and stop cycles along the boards. It was more composed and more effective, reducing his penalty minutes and ending his second professional season with a positive goal differential.

The prevailing thought coming out of Montreal’s post-season showing was that the team needed to get bigger. One of the main issues was the inability to gain the puck as the opponent played it around their zone, leading to long, tiring shifts on defence. There is value in being able to pinch off a cycle along the boards and keep a forward from getting open in front of the net, and those are the things Bergqvist has focused on and begun to perfect. You would like to see him add some offence to his game just to show that he has the ability to play the puck in transition, and he will need to add more of that to complement his defensive skills to grab Montreal’s attention.

#31 Aatos Koivu

Right Wing – 20 – TPS (Liiga)

The features of Aatos Koivu when he was drafted back in 2024 were his attention to detail on the defensive side and his elite shooting ability. In 2025-26, the most notable thing that happened during his time with Team Finland at the World Juniors was directly playing a part in two goals against in the New Year’s Eve game versus Canada and getting benched for the rest of that match and the next two. In league play, that NHL-ready shot resulted in four goals in 47 games.

It’s not the case that the initial reports were inaccurate, and we saw proof of his shooting ability one year ago when he lit up the World Junior Summer Showcase. His issue seems to be finding a level of engagement to show his abilities at all times, and not even getting embarrassed on the international stage inspired him to find that in the second half of the year.

I have to think a lot of voters are waiting for something to click in him to find the same drive his father Saku and uncle Mikko showed in their playing careers. Until that happens, it’s hard to regard him as a veritable NHL prospect.

#30 Logan Sawyer

Left Wing – 20 – Providence College (NCAA)

Logan Sawyer had a fair start to his university career, producing six goals and 10 assists in 37 games, though not quite enough to move the needle on his status as a prospect. In 2025-26 he nearly doubled his offence, scoring 14 goals in 35 games for Providence College and ending one point back of John Mustard, a player chosen 11 picks earlier in the 2024 NHL Draft, for the team lead. With that production, he sees an eight-position rise from 2025.

He’s not a big player, but will have the ability to pack on more than 174 pounds to his 6’1″ frame as he matures. He plays much larger than he is so that doesn’t impact his play in the NCAA. His work ethic should still help him battle bigger defenders once he turns pro, but it will take more effort to accomplish the same things he does now.

I had some of the goaltenders we’ve already profiled ahead of him as well as the new AHL additions who once enjoyed the same level of production or above in college as Sawyer has shown. I wouldn’t have placed him above Sam Harris, but he was in a block of players that currently project to sit on the bubble between the AHL and NHL.

#29 Alexis Cournoyer

Goaltender – 21 – University of Wisconsin (NCAA)

It was an eventful 2024-25 season for Alexis Cournoyer, starting out in Junior A with the Truro Bearcats and returning to the QMJHL after a one-year hiatus with the Cape Breton Eagles to end the season, posting a stellar .942 save percentage. The rapid rise caught the eye of the Nashville Predators who invited him to their development camp, but the Canadiens swooped in to select him in the fifth round of the 2025 draft. That was enough for voters to place him at 41 last year, one spot behind Miller in 40th. This time around he passes Miller in the order, jumping 12 places.

Just months after playing games in Junior A he was starting games at Cornell University, showing the same level of play he had at the end of last season. He played 28 games at Cornell, and had a .915 save percentage.

He’s nothing if not a journeyman, and has already opted for a new challenge, transferring to the University of Wisconsin. As was the case with Emmett Croteau, he’s switched to one of Denver’s rivals, as it was the Badgers that the Pioneers beat in the NCAA championship game.

#28 Filip Eriksson

Centre – 21 – Luleå HF (SHL)

A great run in HockeyAllsvenskan in 2023-24 rocketed Filip Eriksson all the way up to 26 that summer before dropping last year. In 2026, he’s flirting with a place in the Top 25 once again after scoring 15 goals with Luleå in the SHL.

As our Patrik Bexell pointed out in his season review, Eriksson had an uncharacteristically high shooting percentage, making him much more productive than he had been the two previous SHL campaigns. But we do have that previous performance with the Nybro Vikings that serves as evidence that such offence is possible.

Offence is something that comes in flashes, disappearing in 2024-25 and even in the latter half of last season. The SHL isn’t an easy league to score in — there were two players who eclipsed the point per game mark — so tying for 21st in goals is a bit of a feat. That rank would have been much higher if he could have maintained his form throughout the season, and that will be his challenge when the new season begins in a little over a month.

#27 Filip Mesar

Right Wing – 22 – Laval Rocket (AHL)

Filip Mesar’s steady drop from his initial debut at 10th in 2022 has stopped, but he’s still on the outside of the Top 25 for the second year in a row. He did enjoy a healthier season in Laval, playing 71 of 72 games, and that was a good sign of him adapting to the AHL, as were the nine goals he produced. He wasn’t called upon to play in the Rocket’s playoff series versus the eventual champion Toronto Marlies, and that was a bit of a sour note to end his AHL season on.

He did finish his 2025-26 calendar with a place on Team Slovakia at the World Championship, and there he received more trust from his coach, playing seven games, recording three points, and seeing his ice time rise as the tournament went on.

There’s little to dislike about his game. He’s a smart player who puts in the effort and has a lot of skill as a puck-mover, while displaying more in the shooting department last year. His only limitation is his size, but it is a significant one and will probably prevent him from becoming a full-time NHLer without developing strategies to battle through contact.

#26 Luke Mittelstadt

Defenceman – 23 – Laval Rocket (AHL)

Interviews with Luke Mittelstadt’s coaches over the past couple of years always mentioned his defensive play as his main trait and something that could get him to the NHL. Perhaps it became a bit easier to believe that a 5’11” player could be an effective defenceman largely using stick skills after we watched what Lane Hutson was able to do last season in Montreal, which boosted Mittelstadt’s stock.

He isn’t only a defensive player, however, showing consistent offence in his four years at the University of Minnesota with between 18 and 21 points a season. Most encouragingly, that offence followed him to the AHL when he signed both a one-year contract to play in Laval and his two-year ELC that will begin this season. He had five points in nine games to close out the regular season, and two assists in the Rocket’s brief playoff run. He was a plus-four in the best-of-five series, tied for the highest mark on the team.

Now that he’s playing in Laval and can be directly compared to several of the defence prospects in the system, we will be able to get a strong read on his value relative to his peers. It’s going to be a big year for the Rocket blue-liners to establish themselves in the pecking order, but Mittelstadt’s brief debut suggests the 2023 seventh-rounder is ready for the competition with defencemen selected much earlier in their draft years.

Click the play button below to listen to our latest podcast episode, discussing this year’s near misses.

With the 30 players who didn’t make the cut now revealed, the official countdown of the top 25 players under the age of 25 is about to begin. The list includes NHL players, familiar prospects, and two of the new draftees, and we’ll start with an in-depth look at the 25th-ranked player on Monday.