The Anaheim Ducks have missed the playoffs every year since 2017-18 and in doing so, have drafted in the top ten for seven consecutive seasons and procured one of the NHL’s deepest and most potent prospect pools.
Despite several young players having graduated and become full-time NHLers, such as Leo Carlsson, Cutter Gauthier, Mason McTavish, Pavel Mintyukov, and Olen Zellweger, the Ducks still have an impressive pipeline of potential impact and depth prospects yet to make the jump.
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For this exercise, only players who haven’t lost rookie status are eligible for a ranking, and to be clear, these are my (Patrick Present) subjective rankings.
Honorable Mentions: Yegor Sidorov, Herman Traff, Tarin Smith, Lasse Boelius, Calle Clang
Top Ten:
10. Nathan Gaucher, 21, C, San Diego Gulls (AHL)
9. Ian Moore, 23, RHD, San Diego Gulls (AHL)
8. Sasha Pastujov, 22, W, San Diego Gulls (AHL)
7. Tomas Suchanek, 22, G, San Diego Gulls (AHL)
6. Eric Nilson, 18, C, Michigan State University (NCAA)
5. Lucas Pettersson, 19, C, Brynas IF (SHL)
4. Stian Solberg, 19, LHD, San Diego Gulls (AHL)
3. Tristan Luneau, 21, RHD, San Diego Gulls (AHL)
2. Roger McQueen, 18, C, Brandon Wheat Kings (WHL)
If it were guaranteed that Roger McQueen is currently 100% healthy and will be moving forward, he would have easily sat atop this list of Ducks prospects. However, if that same guarantee could have been made just over a month ago at the NHL Draft, McQueen would have certainly been selected higher than where the Ducks were picking (10th overall in 2025).
“There's certainly power forward written all over him in how he plays the game,” Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek stated after McQueen’s selection. “He has a little bit of a mean side to him, which I like. There's high compete there with him.
“And so I think that when we went through the injuries that he had, I think that we felt comfortable drafting him. Just all the things that he's gone through to overcome the injury, we felt comfortable drafting him.”
McQueen has the makeup of a dominant, elite top-line center in the NHL. He measured in at 6-foot-5.25 and 198 pounds at the NHL Draft combine in early June, and uses every bit of that frame and reach to control play in all three zones.
As of now, his skating is about NHL average, which, given his size, is a tremendous advantage. He has a long, powerful stride and is as fluid on his edges as it gets. He can cover a huge amount of ice incredibly quickly. The only area for improvement in the skating department could be with adding explosion to his first three steps.
He’s immensely gifted with the puck on his stick: his hands are elite, he can operate in tight spaces, he can operate in open ice, he can protect pucks, he threads needles to open teammates in dangerous areas, and his shot is NHL-ready.
McQueen’s defensive attention to detail is surprisingly advanced for someone who’s missed as much time as he has and for someone who is as offensively gifted as he is. He stays well on the defensive side of the puck in coverage and uses his closing ability and active stick to kill plays in low-danger areas before they can develop.
He has every tool necessary to be one of the best players in the NHL in his prime. However, the question marks surrounding his back injury will remain until he can prove he’s fully recovered and unhampered.
McQueen missed all but 17 regular season games in 2024-25 with a fracture in his vertebrae, needing ample rest to properly heal and recover. He returned for three playoff games, but he sustained a muscle injury, reportedly from overcompensation, which ended his draft season.
"I think being off (the ice for so long) really helped me (develop my skills)," McQueen said during his post-draft availability. "I think the other side of the game, the mental side, really got a lot sharper for me in the sense of just having five months off to take that on myself and work on that. I think just being able to stay positive and stay resilient really helped me out. The other side of the game is watching our team play. You learn a lot (by doing that) too.”
Moving forward, the priority for McQueen’s development is to ensure he’s fully healthy and plays as many games as possible in 2025-26. Signs are currently pointing toward him returning to the WHL to play for Brandon, but with the new CHL/NCAA agreement in place, college hockey remains an option, and there’s always the (very) outside chance he makes the Ducks’ NHL roster following rookie and training camps.
McQueen, along with fellow Ducks prospects Beckett Sennecke and Tarin Smith, was invited to Team Canada’s World Junior Summer Showcase, but both he and Sennecke were listed as “unable to attend.”
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Photo Credit: Anaheim Ducks PR
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