The draft board is moving out of the top-5, and landing on a familiar name. Caleb Desnoyers — whose name will be well known to Flyers prospect watchers, as his older brother Elliot was drafted by the team in the fifth round back in 2020 — is having a huge season for himself. He’s tops on his very good Moncton team in points, and fifth in the whole of the QMJHL, and looks to step out of his brother’s shadow and into a position as a top prospect in this year’s draft.
Pre-draft rankings
Ranked #9 by Elite Prospects
Ranked #5 by Sportsnet (Jason Bukala)
Ranked #5 by The Athletic (Scott Wheeler)
Ranked #6 by TSN (Bob McKenzie)
Statistics
What’s there to like?
On the most basic level, there’s a lot to like about Desnoyers’s profile. He’s got good size already, at 6’2 and 172 pounds — he has room to bulk up still, but he’ll fill out his frame with time — and he’s already showing that he’s willing to use that frame to keep engaged physically.
Desnoyers has a good scoring touch — he didn’t score 42 goals this season by accident — and has shown a good nose for the net, and that he can create a good volume of scoring chances, which is a real positive. But even more so, his playmaking is his real strength.
His passing is sharp, he’s decisive in getting pucks to his targets, and the puck is on their sticks quickly and with precision. He also has a particular aptitude for finding his teammates in good areas of the ice, evidenced by the high volume of shot assists that he’s been able to create this season. That passing, too, is deceptive, as he often uses his feet to fake that he’s passing one way, while he aims to set up a teammate in the other direction. We talk a lot about players who are able to find the soft areas of the ice to get open for a shot, and we see something similar to that, in a way, in how Desnoyers is able to quickly and effectively finding passing lanes to hit, and the decisiveness with which he hits them.
Desnoyers is strong along the boards as well, and he does well both to protect pucks and win them away, and isn’t afraid to take a bit of contact there in order to prolong a play. He’s deceptive coming off the wall, too, and all of this makes him difficult to defend.
Along with this, notable in Desnoyers’s game is the patience with which he plays. He brings good enough speed (he isn’t exactly explosive, but he has good enough speed to always seem to get where he needs to go), and can play with pace when the moment demands it, but he isn’t an all gas, no brakes kind of player, and rather, shows more patience in building up to the play he wants. The way he’s willing and able to stick with plays in the offensive zone makes him a particularly effective cycle player, as his tenacity and processing speed means that he’s dependable in being able to readjust and reload after an initial chance to keep an offensive zone shift going.
And, back to the basic level, Desnoyers has often been praised for his “winning mentality,” how he’s a player who just doesn’t seem to have any quit, who just gets what it takes across all areas. We see that in how he’s used — even in his first season with Moncton, he quickly earned himself a top-6 role — that he’s a player that can quickly earn the trust of his coaches, and there’s a lot of value in that.
What’s not to like?
We’ll begin here with the elephant in the room — Flyers fans have seen his brother Elliot working his way up through the Flyers’ system, and after an explosive burst in development over the end of his junior career to his rookie season in the AHL, have also seen his development stagnate as he struggles to figure out his game at that level. And while Caleb is certainly ahead of where Elliot was at this point in his career, and overall has more dynamic of a skillset, there are some legitimate concerns that his game also might not translate as well to the professional level as this high projection might suggest.
As Will Scouch points out in his ranking, he sees Desnoyers as not “particularly proactive but is very good at being reactive, and in my opinion that limits your NHL potential.” That is, a good portion of his game at the junior level relies on taking advantage of mistakes by opponents — jumping on turnovers and creating pressure through lapses in positioning — but those mistakes are going to be fewer and farther between as he moves up the levels. Additionally, as far as his offense is concerned, he can get caught relying on shots from the perimeter a bit too much, and overall can function a bit too much as a complimentary player on his line, rather than as a driver — which likely fuels some of the lack of consensus about his projection, as detractors point to him as someone who might be more of a third-line center, but a good one at that, at the NHL level. There’s still a very good player here, but is he one that is worth spending a top-5 (or so) pick on? That’s up for debate.
How would he fit in the Flyers’ system?
Stripping out the projection side of things — that is, resisting the urge to quibble about whether he can hit second line center potential, or if he maxes out as a 3C — there does feel like there could be a good fit here, purely from a positional standpoint. The Flyers are in pretty desperate need of bolstering of their depth chart at the center position, and while Desnoyers might not be the game-breaking top line center that the Flyers are also probably hoping they can pick up in short order, he would help to give them a boost a little further down in the lineup. And it’s hard not to imagine that his competitive style of play, and his strength in playmaking, is one that would complement the already assembled core of young players in the organization.
Could the Flyers actually get him?
The projections here are a little all over the place. If we say that the Flyers remain in the fourth spot in the draft, some would suggest that he might have just come off the board by the time to make their pick, while others might have him still on the board by the time their potential middle of the round picks come around. Now, the lack of consensus around where Desnoyers will or should go certainly makes the selection question a slippery one, especially for a team with a number of picks in the first round, but on the most basic level, Desnoyers should almost certainly be in play for the Flyers to grab, at some point.
What scouts are saying
“His attention to detail is impressive, and even though he’s not blessed with the raw talent some other players have, there’s no doubt he’s capable of producing offense with underrated playmaking abilities. Desnoyers projects as a rock-solid second-line center that all NHL teams need.”
Kareem Elshafay – FC Hockey
“Desnoyers is competitive and has great habits. He’s committed to playing defense, supporting pucks, staying in good positions and not cheating for offense. He’s opportunistic and gets open really well.”
Scott Wheeler – The Athletic
“Desnoyers is the ultimate complementary player in this draft class but doesn’t drive the bus on his own. He is a smart off-puck mover who can get to his spots, make intelligent passes and connect plays. He can adapt to various styles of players because he can be a shooter or a facilitator.
Tony Ferrari – The Hockey News
Another name gone, another name added: welcome to the poll, Brantfold’s Jake O’Brien!
“O’Brien moves up a bit on the board, and he leads the crop of smart playmaking centres who may not carry a ton of pace in their game, but simply go with the flow making great reads, adapting to pressure well, keeping pucks away from opponents and driving great possession results with their overall impact. Similar to Kindel, blocking shots isn’t necessarily his forte, but his off-puck results are great. His shot selection is one of the best available, rarely wasting his chances and not shooting pucks from places he won’t score from, and his slot pass numbers are also quite good. He’s one of the best players in the class at finding creative ways through opponents and adapting to play on the fly, I just wonder what his upside is going to be in the NHL as he is. I think there’s plenty to work with though and plenty of traits that I think should help him find a role somewhere in the middle of an NHL lineup.”
Will Scouch, Scouching
