Holy Smokes! Cameron Schmidt falls to Dallas, who take him at #94 in the 2025 NHL Draft

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

When I previewed the forwards Dallas could theoretically draft, as you can imagine — I left out a lot of names for obvious reasons. Dallas wasn’t picking until basically round 4, so that left out the players with first round potential likely falling into the second round. The Malcolm Spences. The Shane Vansaghis. The Ivan Ryabkins. All players I had my personal first round.

I didn’t have Cameron Schmidt in my first round, but not because he wasn’t good enough. On the contrary. Singling out only 32 players is difficult. Usually the reason somebody doesn’t make the cut is because the players “above” have just a little more certainty in their game. But certainty is not what any draft is here to guarantee. Nope. Just raw, uncut potential.

And that’s exactly what Schmidt is. He’s raw. But he has a ton of potential. So much so that his average rank across the main scouting services was 32. Statistically, he just made the cut. Needless to say, getting Schmidt this late in the draft if obscene. But while we’re all here for the hype — and you should be — we’re also here to be realistic about who Schmidt is. Yes, it’s silly for a player this skilled to be available so late. But he’s still just a prospect. Which leaves us with questions about what a projectable future looks like.

So: just how the hell does a 40-goal scorer in the WHL fall to #94? Was it just because he’s small, at 5’7 and 161lbs or…was it something else?

Programming note: Don’t worry unpaid subscribers. I’ll have a full scouting report, and complete grades for everyone Dallas picked this Monday.