The first question I always ask myself about prospect opinions post-World Juniors is: Does this build on what I've seen from this player before, or is it just recency bias? Tournament performance doesn't directly correlate with NHL success, after all—a guy can go on a scoring tear at World Juniors against his peers and then struggle in professional hockey. But if you're watching specific facets of a prospect's game and examining how those facets connect with the whole, you can draw useful conclusions.

Now that the tournament is complete, here are our observations on which prospects have raised their profile, which ones have lost a step in the eyes of careful observers and who has stayed about the same.

Honorable mentions to guys who had fantastic tournaments but aren't featured on this list:

Danny Nelson (USA), Adam Jiricek (CZE), Felix Unger Sorum (SWE), Otto Stenberg (SWE), Juraj Pekarcik (SVK), Jesse Kiiskinen (FIN), Eriks Mateiko (LAT), and Linards Feldbergs (LAT).

Also: With his 11 points, Cole Hutson (USA) became the first defenseman to ever be the tournament's sole leading scorer.

Stock Up: Leonard, Perreault, Schaefer, Dvorsky, Sandin Pellikka, Eklund

Ryan Leonard (USA): Team USA's captain was unreal, scoring, drawing penalties and making smart plays as he did what he does best and drove to the net. It was no surprise that he won the tournament MVP award.

He was relentless both with and without the puck. It's easy to see why the Washington Capitals love him, and it's terrifying to consider a Capitals team with Leonard and Tom Wilson on the roster. Leonard finished the tournament third in scoring with 10 points, including five goals.

Gabe Perreault (USA): We said in the summer that Perreault not turning pro was the best decision, and this tournament showcased exactly why. However good he looked last year, he looked even better this year. He was all over the ice, making plays sometimes out of seemingly nothing.

Perreault finished the tournament fifth in scoring, with 10 points, including three goals, and was a whopping plus-10. Plus/minus isn't everything, but as a means of showing how many goals against Perreault were on the ice during a short tournament, it speaks for itself.

His vision and ability to anticipate where the play is going is extremely valuable. Look for the New York Rangers to push hard to sign him this summer and lure him away from Boston College—although, with the current state of the Rangers, that may not be the best decision for Perreault.

Axel Sandin Pellikka (SWE): Despite Sweden not medaling, they had several players who could've deserved a shoutout in this section if we had unlimited space (see the honorable mentions on the previous slide).

Defenseman Sandin Pellikka, their captain, set the tone early and often. He was fourth in tournament scoring, including four goals, and his high-level playmaking ability was a huge reason Sweden was a significant threat every time they went on the power play. I lost count of the number of times that he and teammate Felix Unger Sorum connected for plays that were both extremely smart and, honestly, also pretty.

The Detroit Red Wings will no doubt try to get him over to North America as soon as they can.

Matthew Schaefer (CAN): Ignore that Canada went out in the quarterfinals. Ignore that defenseman Schaefer broke his collarbone very early in the tournament and had to have surgery, and that he'll miss a significant chunk of the rest of the season. The way that he can fully take over games, and is a menace from one end of the ice to the other, was on full display when he did play in this tournament.

Scuttlebutt is that he has passed James Hagens for quite a few scouts. Spend some time watching his shifts and you'll understand why. His vision and defensive awareness, his skating, his decision-making with the puck—they're all pointing toward a very long and productive NHL career.

Victor Eklund (SWE): Winger Eklund is on many people's draft list as the top European prospect for 2025. Watching this tournament made it extremely easy to understand why. Despite being one of the younger players on the roster, he was key to the success that Sweden had.

Eklund was relentless on the forecheck and puck retrievals and was dedicated to doing all the little things right. His tenacity is just as important as his vision, and his high-end passing skills were on full display. Eklund ended the tournament with six points, including two goals.

Dalibor Dvorsky (SVK): The St. Louis Blues prospect will be in the NHL sooner than later. Every time you turned your head during Slovakia games in this tournament, Dvorsky was connecting with teammates for dangerous chances.

Ending the tournament with nine points, including five goals, in only five games, Dvorsky finished seventh in scoring. He doesn't have anything left to prove at the junior level. From here, he'll head back to the Springfield Thunderbirds of the AHL, but don't be surprised if you see him called up at some point later in the season.

Stock Steady: Hagens, Radivojevic, McKenna

James Hagens (USA): Interestingly, Hagens could either be in our stock steady or stock down sections. It isn't that he had a bad tournament—far from it, ending with a gold medal and nine points (tied for fifth-most in a draft year for an American).

But what we didn't see from Hagens was a clear progression. Much like we've seen from him in college this season, he is precisely the player we think he is. Good, steady play, but nothing jaw-dropping, and certainly nothing flashy enough to cement him as the sole first-overall option.

Schaefer passing him in the eyes of some scouts feels like it's more about what we saw from Hagens being nothing new, while Schaefer was taking over games every other shift in a way that a lot of people who don't watch the Erie Otters haven't witnessed yet. There's a lot of season left and time for Hagens to reclaim that top spot. We'll see if he does.

Luka Radivojevic (SVK): While I didn't see anything from defenseman Luka Radivojevic that would cause me to say he should rise in our rankings, what I did see confirmed that we're right to consider him as highly as we have up till now.

Despite Slovakia going out in the quarterfinals to Finland, Radivojevic had a great tournament, making smart decisions and jumping into the play. He ended the tournament with two assists, but his impact felt far greater.

Gavin McKenna (CAN): Canada was, to put it simply, not good in this tournament. But there were flashes—especially in the third period of the quarterfinals—where we were treated to glimpses of exactly why Gavin McKenna played at this tournament as a barely 17-year-old who isn't draft-eligible until 2026.

When the coaching staff finally played him with Cal Ritchie (COL) and Easton Cowan (TOR), he looked positively electric. He connected well with both Ritchie and Cowan, making plays on the half-wall and getting pucks to the right places for some dangerous chances. It was too little too late for the team, but was quite promising regarding what is to come for McKenna.

Stock Down: Hensler, Hockey Canada

Logan Hensler (USA): We mentioned Hensler in our Prospects to Watch piece, noting his skating and defensive play as strengths that the USA would likely rely on. What we saw from Hensler in the tournament was repeated turnovers and penalties taken. It was frustrating to see these issues repeated game after game.

He was the USA's second-most penalized player in the tournament, ending with eight penalty minutes, many of which were in key moments. Despite the gold-medal win, puck management and sloppy decisions regarding passing was an issue for the USA in general, and Hensler was right in the mix for that.

Hockey Canada: I'm not going to single out any Canadian players as a problem for this stock-down section—the players made mistakes and those should not be negated, of course, but I want to focus on some systemic problems.

Canada's top scorer in this tournament had three points in five games. At the end of the day, that level of scoring is simply never going to be enough to win in best-on-best tournament play. Canada also stuck to bringing role players and constructing its roster much like an NHL roster, a long-time strategy that has shot them in the foot for two years in a row.

They left so many good players at home that one could almost construct a successful roster of players who didn't make the team.

And to make matters worse, they didn't even let the players they did bring do what they were good at. An easy, extremely obvious move would've been to play draft-eligible Porter Martone with OHL teammate Carson Rehkopf, as that is a pairing with a lot of evidence behind it when it comes to scoring goals.

It took them far too deep into the tournament to make another obvious decision—playing Oliver Bonk on the bumper of the power play, a spot he has been so successful in that many people call him Bumper Bonk. Canada's poor performance shouldn't, by rights, affect the stock of the three draft-eligibles the team brought to this year's tournament. We'll see if it does.

Bonus Note

Sam Dickinson (CAN): I don't think Dickinson's stock has fallen due to World Juniors, but wanted to make a note on the defenseman, who had difficulty in multiple places during the tournament. I wonder how much of those struggles are because he's gotten so used to playing in the London Knights' system, which insulates prospects from struggle in a way that doesn't do them any favors developmentally.

Dickinson wasn't making the smart decision on many occasions (and to be clear, he wasn't the only one on Team Canada with this issue). The opportunity to jump to a higher level and be challenged, and struggle against players who are older and more experienced than him, could be good for him.