How ‘uber talent’ Sascha Boumedienne re-emerged as a top 2025 NHL Draft prospect

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ST. LOUIS — In the end, Sascha Boumedienne made the right call.

Even in defeat, his hands shaking and a lump in his throat outside of Boston University’s locker room at the Enterprise Center following his Terriers’ 6-2 loss in the national championship on Saturday night, he knew it.

“No regrets at all,” he said. “No regrets at all. I 100 percent made the right decision to come in to BU. I wouldn’t change a thing. The way I’ve gotten helped by the coaching staff and the setup at BU has been great for me. I’m thankful for everything. I’ll just remember the fight that’s in these guys. I’ve learned a lot.”

Youngstown Phantoms head coach Ryan Ward and co-general managers Jason Deskins and Ryan Kosecki will all tell you not just that they wanted Boumedienne to stay in the USHL for another year, but that they felt it would have been in his best interest.

“I can only think of (Macklin) Celebrini before him that I know of that went in a year early and had tons of success,” Kosecki said on a phone call last week.

“We were disappointed to learn that he was going in at 17 years old just because we kind of had some reservations in terms of ‘Is he ready to play against 24-25-year-old guys?’” Deskins said.

They weren’t alone in that. Coming out of a disappointing showing for Sweden at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup last August, NHL scouts wondered the same. Was the Boston University commit ready for the jump? He would be the youngest defenseman in college hockey and, until William Horcoff left USA Hockey’s NTDP and joined the Michigan Wolverines for the second semester, was the youngest player.

“It’s a massive jump,” Ward said, “especially if you’re that young and you’re making it. It’s a very unique situation where he accelerated and joined BU early. You don’t see that very often, especially with a defenseman.”

Eight months later, though, all three of Ward, Deskins and Kosecki agree about another thing: Boumedienne’s bet on himself has paid off.

In the two games at the Toledo regional that got the Terriers into the Frozen Four, he played 26 minutes against Ohio State and 24 against Cornell alongside Canucks first-rounder Tom Willander. In Thursday’s semifinal, he played nearly 24 minutes again and was plus-1 in BU’s 3-1 win over Penn State, helping them to get the national championship game.

Deskins watched him play half a dozen times with the Terriers this season and said that the “substantial” steps he took in the second half mirrored those he took in the back half of his one season with the Phantoms.

Kosecki said he was simply “unbelievable for BU” in the last two months of the season.

After registering just six assists through his first 28 college games, he scored three goals and seven points in his last 12 games. With it, Boumedienne, a left-shot defenseman who was named to the USHL All-Rookie Team as a 16-year-old last season when he registered 27 points in 49 games for the Phantoms (one point shy of the league’s under-17 record by a defenseman), has regained his status as a first-rounder in the 2025 NHL Draft.

“It has been good for the kid,” Kosecki said. “I’ve been happy for the kid and the progress he has taken. Watching BU at the beginning of the year and just watching BU now, it has been good to see his development throughout the year.”

It wasn’t immediately clear that his bet would pay off.

Boumedienne was quick to acknowledge ahead of the Frozen Four that “it was pretty hard” for him early on this season.

“I was just kind of finding it tricky,” Boumedienne said. “Coming in, I wasn’t the strongest guy, and it was a little bit of a shock at the beginning of the year. Battles were a little hard, just being knocked off the puck and being able to protect the puck.”

Terriers head coach Jay Pandolfo and his staff decided to bring him in ahead of schedule after one of their D, Ty Gallagher, went into the transfer portal. Instead of going into the portal themselves, they called Boumedienne.

Boumedienne had been waiting for that call, and had worked to finish high school a year early in case it came.

“You don’t see too many defensemen do it but it was something I kind of had in the back of my mind for a while, for a couple years, and I knew I wanted to try and I’d be able to do it, I just needed to hear that BU wanted me,” Boumedienne said.

Early on, the Terriers worried that Bouemedienne’s struggles might get to him during the biggest year of his career so far, his draft year.

To combat that, Boumedienne and BU’s defense coach Kim Brandvold, who used to work in player development for the Bruins, did a lot of video work together and talked often “just to talk.”

“We knew there was going to be growing pains for him, there was going to be no question about that. There is, for any freshman defenseman really, never mind a kid that is 17 years old in Hockey East. But we felt with his skating ability — and we knew we could get him stronger during the season — that he has the ability by the second half to, we thought, really help us,” Pandolfo said. “And it has played out that way. We took a little bit of a risk but we watched him enough and we felt like he was going to be able to handle it and get better over the course of the season and it has worked out really well. He has come a long way.”

Throughout, Boumedienne also leaned on his dad, Josef, a 1996 fourth-round pick of the New Jersey Devils who played 47 NHL games across parts of three seasons and had a two-decade pro career in North America and Europe. (In retirement, Josef worked for the Blue Jackets for a decade, rising to director of European scouting and director of professional scouting before taking a job as Team Sweden’s men’s national team assistant general manager and their general manager for the 4 Nations Face-Off.)

Josef was also on board with Sascha coming in early and “understanding that some of those opportunities offensively may not be there right away,” according to Pandolfo.

As he navigated learning to defend against bigger, stronger, older players, Boumedienne also got to work in the gym with BU’s strength and conditioning coach Ken Whittier, eating a ton and trying to put on weight in-season.

“I feel like I’ve done a really good job in the gym just showing up and working my bag off every day and staying consistent with what I’m trying to do,” Boumedienne said. “It has been hard but I’m proud of myself and I’m not looking to slow down any time soon.”

Over the course of the season, the work paid off and he said he put on nine-to-10 pounds, which Pandolfo called “a lot” when you’re skating and sweating every day. Though NHL Central Scouting lists him at 6-foot-1 and 175 pounds, BU lists him at 6-foot-2 and 183 pounds.

On the ice, it began to show.

“He’s pushing more guys off the puck than he was in the first half,” Pandolfo said. He’s separating guys from the puck more. He’s getting stronger around our net.”

With the added strength came added offense as well. Pandolfo said he expects Boumedienne’s offensive role to continue to grow at BU, too.

“He definitely wants to help provide offense and the first half was just him trying to figure out surviving more than anything really,” Pandolfo said. “And then as his confidence grew his offense is starting to pick up too and he certainly has that ability. He’s getting more chances and joining the rush at the right time. A little bit earlier on in the season he was forcing some of those things and now he’s reading the play a little bit better and understanding when the time is to jump in.”

His skating has been one of two constants, and has allowed him, according to Pandolfo, to become “a big part of our D core” and “get tough matchups” with Willander.

“He can really skate. So that part for him there’s no issue there. So we knew he was going to have that and that was a plus for him, he can get out of trouble with his feet,” Pandolfo said. “And I think that’s helped him. His feet are great. (And) he defends really well with his stick and his angles.”

His attitude has been the other.

“I’ll tell you this: The kid’s a pro from a mindset standpoint,” Pandolfo said. “He does a lot of extra work in the gym, he does a lot of extra work on the ice, he’s always early, he’s always one of the last guys to leave. Like all of those habits he has are already like a pro and he’s only 18, so those things are never going to have to be taught to him, which is great.”

The skating was the first thing Kosecki and Deskins saw when they first watched Boumedienne play for the AAA Ohio Blue Jackets, too.

“He could skate like the wind and he had an NHL shot when he was 15 years old,” Kosecki said of his first impression of Boumedienne. “And then that transitioned right into the USHL. His skill, his shot, his passing were all elite right at 16 in the USHL. And his decision-making, not trying to do too much is really what I thought he progressed at throughout the year and then by the end of the year he wasn’t making those 16-year-old mistakes and he was making the right decisions with the puck every time. He thinks it at a high level, he can fly, he shoots it a ton and as a 16-year-old, he was on our power play most of the year, which just goes to show you how special he is.”

Asked about the skating specifically, Boumedienne said he has always been a good skater but that it’s also something he and his dad focus on. Growing up, they worked constantly on edge work. After moving to Columbus, he did twice-a-week power skating as well.

“My little brother is a hell of a skater too. It’s something that we really think is important and something that I really take pride in,” he said. “I work at it every day.”

That younger brother, Wilson, is a star at Mount St. Charles Academy who is eligible for the 2028 draft. Deskins called him “one of the best 2010s in the U.S. and probably the world.”

“His little brother is a stud,” Deskins said. “He’s a really talented kid and he’s another one who has a great personality and is always smiling.”

“His brother is really, really good,” added Pandolfo. “He’s fun to watch.”

Though he’s just 14, Boumedienne said Wilson motivates him.

“He’s unreal. He’s really dialed in, in what he does. I think he’s going to be a hell of a player one day and I’m just proud of him, seeing his drive and seeing his strides every day and what he does. It’s pretty impressive at the age of 14,” Boumedienne said. “I can’t wait to see him excel and get older and hopefully we’ll be able to play together sometime.”

He also joked that they’ve been known to get chippy in their offseason skates with their dad.

“We definitely go at it a little bit. It gets a little rough sometimes and a little grumpy sometimes but that’s how it is and that’s how we like it to be,” Boumedienne said, laughing. “He’s getting a little bigger and a little stronger now, so we should be able to have some good battles soon.”

Today, Deskins talks about Boumedienne as an “unbelievable player” with “uber talent” whose tools of skating and shooting are both NHL skill sets. Ward also said “he’s got a deadly NHL shot” and called his hockey IQ and vision “elite.”

“Sascha’s a really dynamic player with the puck,” Ward said. “I would say the biggest growth that he has needed to have the last two years is maturing as a player and as a teammate and without the puck defensively. And Jay and his staff and Sascha have committed to getting him to that point and you can see it in the second half with his play.”

That growth defensively over time has been particularly important.

“He’s got an elite stick,” said Deskins. “I think actually from watching him this year that he has come a long way in his defending, which is the area that we expected him to struggle with being a young kid in our league last year. And he actually did better than I think we would have even thought in our league last year and I think he has taken another big step this year.”

When Boumedienne looks back on his draft year now, he says the decision to enter college early has “been the best decision for me.”

Ahead of the Frozen Four, he thought he was really hitting his stride at the right time.

“Could I have stayed one more year in Youngstown and it probably would have been great? Yes, but my decision was to come here and I wouldn’t change a thing,” Boumedienne said. “I feel like I have done a really good job at getting better day after day here and I’m still getting better. I feel pretty good where I’m at right now. I feel like I’m doing really good.”

His season’s not done yet either. After the dust settles on the Frozen Four, he’ll represent Sweden at U18 worlds in Texas later this month.

Though he finished his minor hockey days in Ohio, he says, “Stockholm is definitely home.” It may be a while before he gets back there, though, too, because after U18s it’ll be off to the combine in Buffalo and then the draft in Los Angeles. His first development camp will follow that.

It’s all going to be a blur, but he feels like he’s on the right path to becoming an NHL player.

Asked to describe what kind of player he will be, his perspective on who he is has changed after a year of college.

“I’d call myself a two-way defenseman with the way I’ve grown my defensive game this year,” he said. “I love to join the rush and be that second wave who tries to find pockets for forwards to hit and generates offense from there. I play hard defensively and use my skating in all parts of the ice with and without the puck to close off quickly whenever the other team has it and make it hard on them and minimize time and space as quick as possible.”

Deskins thinks he’ll be a “two-way, 200-foot guy.”

“He’s big, he’s long, he skates extremely well, and as he continues to grow and put on strength and weight, he’s going to be able to not only offensively dictate play but I think defensively he’s going to dictate play and close plays,” Deskins finished. “And then offensively, I think he’s got a chance to be a guy who can be productive from an offensive standpoint in terms of point production and probably playing on a power play.

I think he’s got a very, very bright future.”

(Photos: Matt Woolverton / BU Athletics)

This news was originally published on this post .

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