Corey Pronman
Corey Pronman treats the NHL’s prospect landscape as a system to be graded and explained, giving structure to how young players and future draft classes fit into each organization and across the league. He is the senior NHL prospects writer at The Athletic, covering the NHL Draft, team pipelines and under-23 players in a national role. His work blends scouting insight, organizational context and clear grading to turn prospect coverage into ongoing series rather than one-off draft-night stories.
NHL Draft guides and grades
The draft is the core of Pronman’s coverage, and he treats it as an annual project that starts well before the event and continues years after. He produces detailed draft guides that break down each class, offering rankings, player evaluations and notes on which prospects he would target or avoid. His long-form guides to drafts such as 2018 show a willingness to document his board in detail, including skill breakdowns and risk assessments for top and mid-round players.
On draft week he shifts into team-focused work, grading and analyzing every club’s performance and identifying which organizations added the most value relative to their position. Pieces grading the 2026 NHL Draft, for example, go team by team to assess who drafted well, who reached, and where he disagrees with consensus.
He frequently follows up with “draft grades” and “big board” updates that clarify how his pre-draft evaluations compare with what teams actually did at the table.
Pronman also revisits past drafts through re-drafts and self-audits, ranking classes again with the benefit of hindsight and openly cataloging his biggest evaluation misses. He has written re-drafts of recent classes and separate pieces ranking the players he misjudged most from older drafts, turning his own track record into a subject of analysis.
His work on the 2026 NHL Draft extends beyond one night, including projection pieces that draw on scouts and executives to frame the top of future classes and highlight prospects such as Gavin McKenna in early top-10 discussions.
NHL Pipeline Rankings
A major distinguishing feature of Pronman’s coverage is his league-wide pipeline rankings, where he grades each team’s system of players 22 and younger. These pieces rank organizations from top to bottom and explain why one club’s prospect group sits above another, with attention to both star power and depth.
He treats pipelines as living systems, updated annually as drafted players develop, prospects graduate and new talent enters the pool.
His pipeline work is both league-wide and team-specific. He produces individual articles on clubs like the Winnipeg Jets and Calgary Flames that detail where those teams rank in a given year, why they moved up or down, and which prospects drive their position. In those pieces he names key players, evaluates their ceilings and timelines, and ties them back to the overall health of the organization’s youth base.
Similar coverage extends to newer or evolving systems, such as his evaluations of the Seattle Kraken’s collection of players 22 and under, where he explains why a relatively young franchise can still rank highly.
Across these rankings, Pronman uses consistent language and grading to allow comparisons over time. He identifies “difference-makers” at the top of systems and points out whether a team’s prospect pool is thin, balanced or star-heavy. His pipeline series has become a central reference point for understanding how NHL organizations’ futures stack up against each other in a given season.
Prospect and under-23 rankings
Beyond team pipelines, Pronman builds large-scale lists focused on individual players, especially those under 23. He has produced rankings of the top 100 NHL players and prospects under 23 and companion pieces identifying the best under-23 cores across the league.
These lists combine players already in the NHL with high-end prospects, reflecting his view of future impact rather than just minor-league status.
In these rankings he clearly separates tiers and explains why certain players sit above others, often citing skating, hockey sense, production and projectable roles.
He uses them to spotlight emerging names who may be undervalued in broader conversation and to show where past draft decisions are paying off in real NHL contributions. His midseason under-23 rankings are substantial enough to be treated as tentpole coverage, and they anchor broader discussions of the league’s future talent.
Pronman’s rankings extend to position groups and specific age cohorts, often feeding back into his draft and pipeline analysis. He will highlight when a team’s under-23 core is strong despite a weaker traditional prospect pool, or vice versa, and he is explicit about how that difference affects an organization’s outlook. That cross-referencing of lists, draft work and pipeline grades is a hallmark of his approach.
The Athletic Hockey Show and fan engagement
Pronman’s analysis is not limited to written work; he is a regular voice on The Athletic Hockey Show, where he helps break down prospect systems and draft topics in audio form. Episodes featuring him cover subjects such as world junior championship rosters, under-23 rankings and listener questions about specific prospects and team pipelines.
The show positions him as a go-to analyst when the focus turns to the future of NHL rosters.
He maintains an active presence on social platforms, using them to share updated draft boards, prospect notes and statistical nuggets about young players. His posts call out goal totals, save percentages and other performance markers for prospects and recent draftees, reinforcing the data points that underpin his written evaluations. He also invites questions for mailbag-style segments and Q&A episodes, reflecting a habit of engaging directly with fans on draft and prospect issues.
Pronman participates in public question-and-answer sessions focused on the NHL Draft and prospect topics, positioning himself as accessible to dedicated followers of this niche. These interactions mirror his work on The Athletic, where he answers the same kinds of questions at scale through rankings, guides and grades.
Across formats, his coverage stays tightly focused on prospects, draft outcomes and the long-term shape of NHL organizations.
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