Welcome to Broad Street Hockey’s Summer 2025 Top Under 25! The series is back and with the Philadelphia Flyers focusing so much on the future, it’s more important than ever. Join us as we rank the 25 best players under the age of 25 for the next few weeks.
Editor’s note: we had a small issue in our original ranking calculations, which has left the bottom of that ranking a little scrambled. Everything’s fixed now (and if you saw yesterday’s false start, no you didn’t). We’re kicking things off with the 25th spot for real today. Back to business.
No. 25: Hunter McDonald
2024-25 Primary League/Team: Lehigh Valley (AHL)
2024-25 Statistics: 4 G, 14 A in 71 GP
Age as of 9/15/2025: 23 (5/11/2002)
Acquired Via: 2022 NHL Draft – Round 6, Pick 165
We’re kicking off this ranking — for real this time — and welcoming back to the mix Hunter McDonald. A big, physical, left shooting defenseman, he’s a player that the organization has clearly put a lot of stock in, has had a lot of praise for, but his introduction to professional hockey hasn’t been a perfectly smooth one. But while there have been some rough spots that he had to work on in his rookie season with the Phantoms, and will continue to work on in this next season, the glimmers of what the organization value so highly in him managed to shine through.
How did McDonald’s 2024-25 season go? Is his stock trending up or down from where it was entering the year?
This past year has been, all in all, a bit of a strange one for McDonald. After getting his first taste of AHL action down the stretch and into the postseason after the close of his college season back in 2024, McDonald made the jump to full time AHLer status this past season. And it was a jump that came with pretty sky-high expectations — after all, it felt like at any opportunity he got, Keith Jones was talking about how much the organization likes him as a player and how much they already see him as part of the future with the Flyers — but the season that unfolded was a little tumultuous.
McDonald started the season clearly trying to play a hard and physical game, but struggled to find the line of what’s an acceptable physicality without going over the line into the realm of something worth penalizing (and also too often found himself drawn into scuffles after the whistle) and while some progress was made in this area, it was a little up and down, and there was a noticeable backslide into some bad habits when the moment was biggest in the postseason (though, in fairness, this was hardly exclusive to him either). On top of that, McDonald (along with much of the defense group, once again in fairness) was seeming to be working through some ongoing struggles with understanding the expectations for his play within their defensive structure — at times, he would look a bit adrift in the defensive zone, or look a little indecisive with how to play defending a rush chance — and while some progress would be made as the season went on, there was still a periodic backsliding, despite everyone’s best efforts.
Of course, there were real positives in this up and down season as well — McDonald at times looked like a sound and dependable defensive presence as well, and his fearlessness in blocking shots was a boost across the board, and particularly in the postseason, while he also unlocked a level of offense that we weren’t quite expecting, as he showed some sneaky very good playmaking ability when he had the opportunity to activate in the offensive zone (something that might have been a bit stifled by the focus on defensemen creating shots from the points, and something that we might well see further unlocked as the team shifts away from that this season). All told, there’s a solid enough foundation in place here, but the next step is just smoothing out some of those rough edges.
What are we expecting from McDonald this season? What should we be looking for from him?
This season is primed to be a big one for the Phantoms, and while we’re expecting a number of players to be able to take big steps forward under their new coaching staff and system, McDonald remains the most prime candidate to do this. The defense group is going to be pretty loaded, and the battle for minutes is going to be a big one, but McDonald, with a bit of experience now in the back pocket, should be a good candidate for a significant role with the team. What’s more, as the Phantoms are clearly emphasizing getting their defensive zone system more clearly defined and well locked down, a player like McDonald, who throughout last season showed flashes of looking a bit uncertain of the expectations for how to play certain situations, should benefit nicely from that refinement process and added level of guidance from his coaching staff. The jump up from college to the AHL is still a steep one, even for a more physically mature player like McDonald, and that’s worth remembering, that the growing pains were always built in to the expectation for his first full season. But now, the setting feels more favorable for him, and he should be able to take a nice step forward again, hopefully looking a little more settled, a little more decisive in his defensive reads, and a little better equipped to hold up physically.
How does McDonald fit in the Flyers’ rebuild? Is it likely he’s going to be a part of the next good Flyers team?
The defense position generally is still a slightly weaker point in the Flyers’ pipeline, and even if they aren’t in a desperate rush for him to graduate upwards, the organization’s clear hope is that McDonald can step into that role before too long, offering them a much needed steady balance to some of the smaller, more offensively minded players already in the mix at that level, as well as a bit of ever-coveted physicality. And this likely factored into why the Flyers were putting in so much energy talking McDonald up around this time last year — perhaps it was less an indication that they figured he would be quick to get to the point of finished product at the AHL level, but rather an assurance of their belief that he’ll get there someday and fill what they see as a big need for the organization. Who knows. All the same, a player with McDonald’s size and style profile has been a clear target for them of late, and it’s clear that they’re giving him a long runway to get himself ready to factor into the future for them. Whether he’s able to seize that chance is up to him (and their development staff), but they’re certainly leaving the door open for him.
What do we think McDonald’s ultimate NHL upside is, and how likely is it that he gets to something approaching that?
There’s still some work yet to be done to get to this point, but McDonald has the chance to develop into a useful second to third pair pivot at the NHL level, filling that Rasmus Ristolainen type role of anchoring things through some difficult minutes and bringing a requisite bit of physicality, to boot. Even after a rookie season in the AHL that was at times challenging, the projection hasn’t changed, nor the hopes of what he can become. The challenges that he has to work through at the AHL level are pretty major — looking more settled within a defensive zone structure, limiting the number of needless penalties taken — but the potential to develop into a useful contributor at the next level remains unchanged. And with the defense still well settled for at least another season at that next level, there’s no real need to rush McDonald to get ready, and rather, they can take something of a patient approach and see how he fares with a more cohesive developmental infrastructure in place.
