2025 U18 Worlds standouts and disappointments: Martin, Stenberg impress, Frondell falls flat

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After 29 games in 11 days in Texas, the 2025 IIHF U18 World Championship is over. I was in Frisco and Allen all tournament, splitting time between Comerica Center and Credit Union of Texas Event Center.

Canada defeated Sweden in Saturday’s final, winning its first-ever back-to-back golds at the event. And Switzerland was relegated for the first time in two decades, losing to a Norwegian program on the rise in recent years.

At the end of the event, I had notes on nearly 100 of the top prospects in the 2025, 2026 and even 2027 draft classes. Here are my standouts and risers, and disappointments and fallers — as well as a couple of notables I had mixed feelings about.

Standouts and risers

Filip Ekberg (F, Team Sweden/2025 NHL Draft)

Where else to start but with Ekberg, who pulled away in the tournament scoring race and set Sweden’s all-time single-tournament goals and points record. It felt like everything he touched ended up in the back of the net, and that every time he was on the ice, he was creating looks inside the offensive zone.

He’s a fascinating story because he didn’t have a great year in the OHL, registering 45 points in 53 games, and came into the tournament ranked 178th in North America by NHL Central Scouting as a 5-foot-9.75 winger. There are layers to the way his season went that haven’t been fully contextualized, too, including that he was very ill when he first showed up in Ottawa and it lingered throughout the fall, impacting the full first half of his year while they tried to figure out what was ailing him. That, combined with playing on a bottom-of-the-standings Ottawa 67’s team that struggled to score, and for a coach in Dave Cameron who I don’t think got the most out of him when he was healthy, has likely made him a little underrated. He’s still ultimately a small winger who’s destined to be a mid-round pick, but the last two weeks were still a clear indication of his real talent.

He found soft space in the slot. He showed a slick release. He can pick his spots in the net. His standup skating stride can look a little unconventional, but he’s agile on cuts and can play with tempo. He finds his way around of ton of chances in the home plate area. He showed a quick catch and release and quick hands. I even liked how he won body positioning on the cycle. He was a driver of offence at both five-on-five and made his power-play unit the de facto go-to unit after it wasn’t always that way this year. Awesome week for the kid — though his gold medal game was his first quiet one of the event.

Ivar Stenberg (F, Team Sweden/2026 NHL Draft)

Stenberg continues to look like the second-best forward in next year’s draft to me, and was a standout in most of Sweden’s games. (He scored on a lucky bounce in the semifinals against USA, but I actually thought that and the final were his least impactful games after he was one of the best players on the ice in group play and the quarters.)

He’s very strong on pucks, protecting pucks and pushing through contact for a 5-foot-11 winger and drew a few penalties holding pucks along the cycle. He gets off the wall and wants to take inside ice. He’s dangerous on the flank on the power play and likes the one-timer, but can also pick apart seams. He’s got a multi-faceted shot. The puck comes off his stick extremely quickly and hard. He’ll make effort plays. Pucks stick to him on first touch. He’s got dynamic one-on-one skill with defenders and goalies. And despite being among the tournament scoring leaders, he hit a couple of posts and could have had more looks. He’s going to be one of the first players picked in next year’s draft.

Brady Martin (F, Team Canada/2025 NHL Draft)

Martin is one-of-one in this draft class, and that was never more evident than over the last couple of weeks in Texas. He rocked two or three players per game and was eventually ejected for interference in the first period of Canada’s semifinal for what amounted to hitting a kid too hard after he’d made a pass. He’s not a dirty player, but he only has one mode out there. His presence is felt in every game he plays in and he was great in the gold medal game.

That is why Brady Martin is going to be a first round pick in the 2025 #NHLDraft! 😱

The @OHLHoundPower star has his second and 🇨🇦’s fifth of the #U18MensWorlds final! pic.twitter.com/SVhKWLE2lg

— Canadian Hockey League (@CHLHockey) May 4, 2025

I thought he started the tournament a little slow offensively but as the event wore on he made some skill plays one-on-one, his skating looked quick and he did it within his established identity as a fearless forward who sticks with plays, is always in the thick of it, goes to the dirt areas and forces turnovers, willing plays into existence. Don’t be surprised if he sniffs the top 10 in June.

Keaton Verhoeff (D, Team Canada/2026 NHL Draft)

Verhoeff joined Team Canada late after his Victoria Royals lost to the Spokane Chiefs in the second round of the WHL playoffs. I thought he didn’t have his best game in his debut against Finland and he was just fine in the gold medal game, but he was Canada’s best defenseman as an underager in between.

Outside of average skating (his feet can look a little heavy under his 6-foot-4 frame at times), he looks like the real deal in every other area of the game. He became a 25-minute guy for Canada, moved up the lineup, played in all situations and made some big plays, including a great play to set up the overtime winner against the Czechs in the quarterfinals. He’s big, he’s poised, he can play both ways, he’s highly talented, he can make plays, he’s got great instincts offensively and defensively, he likes to involve himself in the play offensively both on and off the puck inside the offensive zone and he’s a summer birthday who is still 16 and has a ton of runway to get even better. He’s got a real chance to go No. 2 next year and looks like a star prospect.

L.J. Mooney (F, Team USA/2025 NHL Draft)

The 5-foot-7 Mooney was USA’s driver all tournament until he got injured and left early in the second period of the bronze medal game. I actually thought his least impactful game of the tournament was USA’s semifinal loss to the Swedes and he still had points on all three American goals in the game. His line with 2026 forward Mikey Berchild and 2025 forward Jacob Kvasnicka (who I thought made a case to at least get picked and looked like he’ll be a solid college player for Minnesota with his work ethic all tournament) was USA’s best, too.

His smarts stood out on the puck. He put a ton of pucks into space for his linemates. He flowed with play beautifully and found ways to navigate around the ice with his cutbacks in control. His ability to spin on a dime and lose and separate from guys, both in open ice and even inside the offensive zone, popped very consistently. He made some magic happen, putting defenders in the spin cycle inside the offensive zone with his ability to slip and slide around them. He was a neutral zone machine, creating a ton of entries and finding holes in coverage to weave through, cutting into space/gaps so well. And maybe most impressively, he was a competitive driver as well, playing in the guts of the ice and laying a few of the biggest non-Brady Martin hits of the tournament, tagging guys such as Anton Frondell and Ivar Stenberg. He was going to the net. He was winning battles along the wall. It was a very impressive week after an up-and-down season. I thought he outplayed the other two top little guys, Adam Benak and Cameron Schmidt, pretty clearly.

When he went down, USA looked like a completely different team. Team USA outscored the opposition 12-2 with Mooney on the ice in the tournament at five-on-five and he was my final cut for my tournament all-star team ballot at forward (it was down to him and Martin).

Viggo Bjorck (F, Team Sweden/2026 NHL Draft)

Bjorck got better as the tournament went on and played his best game in Sweden’s semifinal against Team USA. I don’t think he was quite the standout that the players ahead of him on this list were, but the top of the 2026 class stood out more in the event than the 2025s, and his skill level was a distinguisher at times.

He will go outside to attack back inside with his agility and ability to carve into defenders’ hands. He’s strong for his size (he’s listed at 5-foot-9 but he looked bigger than that to me) and will take pucks to the blue paint on D. He’s got adjustable feet to slip away from sticks and turn away from coverage. He shakes his man so well and has high-end stick skill to combine with his cutting game to make guys miss (which he drew some penalties out of). He’s got a quick first three steps and can accelerate around D from a standstill. He’s also got a quick release. He was a go-to five-on-three penalty killer for them. He can turn over some pucks trying to be too cute at times, but he also showed a good stick on lifts to get pucks back and attack quickly out of it.

Jack Ivankovic (G, Team Canada/2025 NHL Draft)

This tournament had a weak crop of goaltenders, and that made Ivankovic look comparatively speaking like he was in a different class. He was outstanding yet again for Canada, building on his legacy with the Program of Excellence. He needed to remind people of that after getting lit up a couple of times by the Gens in the first-round of the OHL playoffs (though it should be noted that Oshawa also lit up Brantford and Barrie in the next two rounds), and after his numbers with Brampton were good but not great in the regular season. It’s especially important for him to continue to show people that he’s a top goalie because of his 5-foot-11 listing.

I still think he’s got it. His reads, anticipation and hockey sense are very high-end and those combined with impressive movement allow him to get to east-west plays and make big saves. He plays the puck extremely well and was an important part of Canada’s breakout at times. And he battled in the net and held the line on scrambles and jam plays all week. There were extended stretches when Canada struggled at five-on-five against the Finns, the Czechs and even the Slovaks, and they don’t even get to the gold medal game without a couple of big saves in overtime of the quarterfinals.

Others I liked or I thought helped themselves:

• Milton Gastrin (F, Team Sweden/2025 NHL Draft)
• Adam Novotny (F, Team Czechia/2026 NHL Draft)
• Cole Reschny (F, Team Canada/2025 NHL Draft)
• Mikkel Eriksen (F, Team Norway/2025 NHL Draft)
• Niklas Aaram Olsen (F, Team Norway/2026 NHL Draft)
• Tomas Chrenko (F, Team Slovakia/2026 NHL Draft)
• Xavier Villeneuve (D, Team Canada/2026 NHL Draft)
• Drew Schock (D, Team USA/2025 NHL Draft)

Disappointments and fallers

Anton Frondell (F, Team Sweden/2025 NHL Draft)

Frondell came mid-tournament from a championship celebration across seven time zones after helping Djurgarden to promotion into the SHL. He was going to be jet lagged and probably not at his best in the earlier games in the tournament. But with scouts from all of the top teams in attendance and him in the conversation at the top of the draft coming in after an up-and-down year that finished up with excellent HockeyAllsvenskan production in the regular season, he was a letdown.

They broke up their most successful line all year (Milton Gastrin between Ivar Stenberg and Viktor Klingsell) to put him with prominent linemates, but as the games went on, he wasn’t used as a go-to player in offensive or defensive situations for the Swedes. His boots looked big and choppy at times. He couldn’t generate offensive looks for himself. And while he still showed his strength, puck protection and willingness to play a team game and support pucks or pick up assignments, he didn’t look like a surefire top-five talent, at least not in these viewings. And while they aren’t the be-all and end-all of a year, there were other similar stretches (between some excellent ones where he looked like a stud) this year as well. I’ve seen enough that I still think he projects as an excellent 2C in the NHL, and he’s got some definite fans, but he didn’t have anywhere near the impact that James Hagens and Porter Martone, two players in his range, had at this event a full year ago.

He was better early on in the final but still struggled to break through.

Others I wanted to see more from:

• Charlie Trethewey (D, Team USA/2025 NHL Draft)
• Cole McKinney (F, Team USA/2025 NHL Draft)
• Jack Murtagh (F, Team USA/2025 NHL Draft)

Mixed feelings

Jackson Smith (D, Team Canada/2025 NHL Draft)

There has been a lot of conversation this year about who the second- and third-best D in this class are after Matthew Schaefer. Smith didn’t make a convincing case for most of the tournament that he was one of them for me, but he played his best game in the gold medal game and scored a big goal.

The @TCAmericans‘ Jackson Smith has his fourth of the #U18MensWorld! 🇨🇦

One of the top defenceman available in the 2025 #NHLDraft, Smith extends Canada’s lead in the final to 3-0! pic.twitter.com/DjmU8xK8JU

— Canadian Hockey League (@CHLHockey) May 4, 2025

He played top minutes for Canada, skated some pucks in neutral ice and showed his good edges opening up. He can shoot it. He’s still got a pro build, was productive for Tri-City and made some high-end plays this year. But there were also times on a blue line that was made up almost entirely of 2026s where Team Canada needed some of their 2025s to step up and I thought he, Alex Huang and Quinn Beauchesne all struggled in stretches and were outplayed certainly by 2026s Verhoeff and Carson Carels at times (and also Ryan Lin to a lesser degree).

It’s the IQ piece that my attention was drawn to on a number of occasions. He skated some pucks into trouble, turned some pucks over on outlets, took some bad routes and made some bad reads defensively, getting beat or making mistakes a little too often for my liking. He’s got the tools, but his game needs to be more buttoned up. I think he’s more of a teens guy than a 9-12 guy for me.

There was some good and bad, but ultimately, I still have the questions I had coming in.

Sascha Boumedienne (D, Team Sweden/2025 NHL Draft)

Boumedienne broke the tournament’s all-time D scoring record and played more minutes than any other player in the event. He was on my tournament all-star ballot. But picking the two D on the all-star team was also a challenge this year and Boumedienne had some real highs and lows.

He needs to move the puck a bit quicker at times. He doesn’t always think his D-zone coverage and pick up his man that well. His execution isn’t always clean and he seems to bobble and mishandle a lot of pucks. He turned over a bunch of pucks and got caught cheating and out of position a few times.

But he’s also a brilliant skater and 6-foot-2 and at this level that allows him to be a top player. He got first touch on pucks on the PK and cleared the zone well. He was jumping into the rush and deep into the offensive zone off the line. He looked to create and wanted to be a difference-maker. He got a lot of shots through from the point and was obviously involved in a lot of offence. He closed out plays in neutral ice.

If he can just improve the speed at which he processes the play, he’ll be an NHLer. But he’s still learning the game in a lot of ways.

(Top photo courtesy of Tim Austen / IIHF)

This news was originally published on this post .

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