The World Junior Championships have been over for a few weeks but we had an interesting thought about them. The United States won gold for the second consecutive time while Canada underperformed. Canada was once again this year’s host nation as the tournament took place in Ottawa.
As January winds down Sam Cosentino of SportsNet released his January draft rankings for the 2025 NHL draft. James Hagens, a center from the gold medal winning United States squad, has been seen as the most likely first overall pick. Now Cosentino places him between two Canadians, Matthew Schaefer and Porter Martone, who had a limited showing at the World Juniors.
Cosentino’s fourth-ranked prospect, Canada’s Michael Misa, wasn’t even invited to Canada’s camp for the tournament. Anyone who watched the World Juniors might have expected the tournament to raise the draft stock of Hagens it might have done the opposite at worse and failed to move the needle at best. So here’s are thought about the World Juniors: Is their influence declining on prospect rankings?
Yes, we know evaluating a prospect involves a much bigger body of work than a roughly two week tournament. The placement of Hagens, Schaefer and Martone isn’t our only source of skepticism here either.
Russia has been banned from IIHF play since 2022 when their mother country invaded Ukraine (Belarus is included in the ban as well). That’s severely limited the amount North American scouts have been able to watch Russian players in person. During last year’s draft Bob Mackenzie noted this as "the Russian effect” when discussing draft positions for Ivan Demidov and Artyom Levshunov. Demidov was selected fifth overall by the Montreal Canadiens and Levshunov was selected second overall by the Chicago Blackhawks.
On Cosentino’s January 2025 rankings there is just one Russian skater
Ivan Ryabkin, currently ranked at No. 11 and playing in the USHL. Perhaps the most highly touted Russian to be drafted in the post IIHF ban era was Matvei Michkov. Michkov never played in the World Juniors but had previously played in 2021 World Under 18 Championships (where he was named tournament MVP) and 2021 Hlinka Gretzky Cup. Interestingly Bob Mackenzie used Demidov’s participation in that tournament as an example when he was discussing the “Russian effect” on last year’s draft.
Michkov was once thought to be a top two draft pick back in 2023 but slipped to seventh overall. His contract situation with Ska St. Petersburg of the KHL was thought to keep him in Russia until 2026-2027 was widely seen as the reason, not being absent from the World Juniors, that a small handful of teams skipped over him. That ended up not being the case as he’s currently with the Philadelphia Flyers this season and sure to be a Calder Trophy finalist.
Enough about Russia, let’s talk about Canada. Specifically, let’s talk about the three aforementioned Canadians in Cosentino’s top four. Mathew Schaefer suffered a tournament-ending injury at the beginning of Canada’s second game. At the time NHL.com called him a “top-three pick” and the draft’s best defensive prospect. Nobody ever doubted Schaefer. A tournament-ending injury raising his draft stock does raise a few eyebrows in the sense that that’s not really expected.
In Schaefer’s defense, Cosentino specifically pointed his absence as a reason Canada struggled. It was one of those “you’ll notice him when he’s gone” type things. Michael Misa is still expected to go top five overall with an impressive skit set, described by “The Hockey News” as “ one of the most complete players in all of junior hockey. His intelligence and commitment to the game's little details would have made him a natural fit up and down the roster.” Clearly his World Junior camp invitation being lost in the mail was more a temporary shock than drafting red flag.
Canada remains the world’s top hockey superpower. Can the talent of its individual players overcome the Junior team's downfall? After all we’re more looking at individual performances and not tying that into Team Canada’s failure to medal. Maybe the World Juniors just isn’t the “king maker” for tournaments it once was for more than variety of reasons.