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One thing the Habs have a decent supply of is right-shot wingers. That’s a good thing for them as that spot is an area of weakness in their prospect pool.
We’re going to try something a little different this year. Rather than do five-player segments, we’re going to go position by position and then do a full 1-49 prospect ranking at the end. Knowing how Martin St. Louis views his winger positioning as interchangeable, we’ll do the same here and cover the wingers by handedness only.
Overview
Here are the criteria that each player had to meet to be eligible to be in these rankings:
1) The player must be 24 years old or younger as of October 1, 2026
2) The player must have no greater than 50 games of NHL experience (including regular season and playoffs)
3) The player cannot be signed to an AHL contract
Right-Shot Wingers
1) L.J. Mooney, Minnesota (NCAA)
Drafted 113th overall in 2025.
In terms of raw skill, Mooney should have been drafted way higher than the fourth round. Of course, things aren’t that simple and his 5’8 stature helped him slide as far as he did. While smaller skill players have more success now than in recent years, a lot of teams still shy away from taking them.
That’s great news for the Habs as it allowed them to get a player with some legitimate NHL upside well later than they should have. Mooney is a quick and offensively dynamic winger (he leans a bit too much into playmaking though) and isn’t willing to mix it up physically and in board battles. That last bit will give him some extra runway in the pros. He did well at the World Juniors and arguably exceeded expectations in his freshman year at college, coming in at a little under a point per game.
If all goes well, Mooney has second-line potential and it’s easy to think about him and Ivan Demidov developing some chemistry down the road. But if his limited size proves to be more of a hindrance than it has shown so far, he’s also someone who could top out at being a strong AHL player. But given where he was picked, the reward side of the scale vastly outweighs the risk side.
2) Vinzenz Rohrer, Laval (AHL)
Drafted 75th overall in 2022.
I had high hopes for Rohrer heading into last season, thinking there was even an outside chance that he could do what Oliver Kapanen did and push for a spot with Montreal in training camp. Instead, he underwhelmed in preseason action and it wound up being a precursor for the year to come.
After putting up 25 points in 52 games in 2024-25, his output dropped to 12 points in 41 contests in Switzerland. He went down on the depth chart as a result. But I’m not ready to write Rohrer off just yet.
While he’s undersized (5’10) and still needs to fill out, he plays with a pro-style tenacity that endeared him to Laval’s coaches at the end of the season as he was used regularly in the playoffs. Rohrer also showed at the Worlds that he still has a scoring touch. The fact he can shift to centre in a pinch doesn’t hurt either.
It would be fair to say that Rohrer’s ceiling isn’t particularly high. This isn’t a case of a top-sixer who could fit in the bottom six. No, this is a third-line-if-all-goes-right type of profile, where his skating and intensity give him a chance to mesh on either an offensive or defensive line. I think he can bounce back in 2026-27 but if he doesn’t, his stock in the organization is probably going to tumble.
3) Filip Mesar, Laval (AHL)
Drafted 26th overall in 2022.
While much has been made about the Habs drafting Juraj Slafkovsky’s friend, it should be reminded that Mesar was ranked as a legitimate first-round prospect. The problem is that players like him are typically more boom-or-bust selections. And so far, he falls into the latter category.
Mesar flashes plenty of speed and skill but it hasn’t really amounted to much in the pros. He plays a perimeter game, not really willing to go to the dirtier areas, and, given his size, I get that. However, he hasn’t been able to do enough other things well to earn a chance in the role he’s best suited to fit. Mesar often played in the bottom six with the Rocket but lacks the defensive skills or physicality to have a chance at success there.
Accordingly, it’s hard to have Mesar ranked all that high in these rankings. He’s in the top half here given the weakness at this position but he’s not in the top half team-wide when factoring in all of the prospects. I have a hard time thinking that’s going to change but you never know, sometimes it just takes finding some chemistry with someone to get going. Entering the final year of his entry-level contract, it feels like this is probably his last chance.
4) Tyler Thorpe, Laval (AHL)
Drafted 130th overall in 2024.
The book on Thorpe is fairly simple. He has the requisite skill set to be an effective bottom-six NHL player. He’s physical, has good defensive awareness, and a sneaky set of hands that he doesn’t display too often. The problem is that he skates like he’s in quicksand and that is incredibly difficult to overcome.
Thorpe played his first full professional campaign last season and was a regular most nights in Laval’s lineup, albeit almost exclusively from the fourth line. He added some grit on a line that played a crash-and-bang style somewhat regularly. Unsurprisingly, his offence was limited. I expect that should improve a bit this coming season.
For me, Thorpe’s development comes down to skating. Sometimes, incremental improvements can be enough. That’s not the case here. If he can make a significant improvement on that front over the next couple of years, Montreal would have an intriguing fourth-line prospect here. But that type of skating improvement is very difficult to accomplish. I’m not sure he’s going to be one of the few who gets to that level of improvement.
5) Ben Merrill, Boston University (NCAA)
Drafted 166th overall in 2024.
Drafted as a centre, Merrill spent last season on the wing so he lands in the winger column this time. Frankly, I think his game fits better on the wing anyway as much as it would be nice to have another centre in the system.
Merrill made the jump from the BCHL to college hockey last season, going to a good program at BU. Overall, he produced at a pretty similar clip compared to the year before despite a limited role which is a little encouraging. His shot is particularly strong and that gives him a chance of carving out a bottom-six role with a plus asset.
However, like Thorpe, his skating is a big problem (which also puts him with more of a winger profile). It’s going to need to get a lot better for him to have a chance at an NHL future. Unlike Thorpe, he has more runway with an incremental approach given that he’s not already in the pros but there’s a long way to go.
6) Wesley Royston, Owen Sound (OHL)
Drafted 190th overall in 2026.
Royston’s selection back in June was the latest attempt to find that fourth-line crash-and-bang piece. The good news is that he has the speed to effectively throw his weight around. Given that they have some slower players with that profile (such as Thorpe and Merrill), I can see why Royston’s speed would appeal to them.
The problem is that there isn’t much to build off past the speed. Royston’s consistency has been an issue thus far in junior in all facets. His offensive intensity comes and goes (his already-low production dropped last season), his defensive engagement is sporadic, and even his physicality wavers from game to game. The good news is that this is correctable and can be improved on.
If that happens, Royston should start to move up the rankings pretty quickly as his skating is more than good enough to give him a chance. But his overall ceiling is rather low given his general lack of accomplishments in junior. Those don’t tend to take a big turn for the better in the pros.
7) Tyler Deakos, Penticton (WHL)
Drafted 224th overall in 2026.
It took until the last pick of the draft for Montreal to at least try to chase down someone with a bit of an offensive profile. Deakos has a decent all-around offensive game but has only been tested at lower levels and even then, injuries have limited his game action in the last two seasons. For a player drafted in his second year of eligibility, that’s not good.
What is good is that Deakos is moving up a level and if he becomes a reliable scorer in the WHL next season, there’s room for his stock to rise. He’s probably college-bound in the long run and if that happens, he could be one of those slow-and-steady improvers that amounts to something down the road. Or he could turn out like the last guy they drafted like this.
8) Makar Khanin, AKM Tula (VHL)
Drafted 210th overall in 2024.
That last guy would be Khanin. Drafted as a seventh-round pick based on a reputation of being someone with an above-average shot, he has not progressed at all since being drafted and had an injury-riddled 2025-26 season to boot. Still just 21, there’s still some time for things to click but the probable outcome is that he never winds up signing and just stays in Russia.
