It’s coming to that time of year… playoffs! A lot of leagues, both professional and amateur. The WHL starts its playoffs on Friday, and the KHL has started its first round already. Now is also the time of year when the competition is tougher, and each shift has an added intensity. Playoffs are always a good time to see what you have in a prospect. Can they deal with the added pressure? Do they shy away when the game gets a little tougher? Questions like that can start to receive some answers during the postseason.

Tommy Lafrenière had a great end to his regular season by joining the 40-goal club and then adding one more to put his season total at 41 for the year. The Blazers’ versatile forward enters the postseason riding high with eight goals and 12 points in his last 10 games played. Lafrenière surpassed his point total from last year by 21 points with one fewer game played, and the best part is that the right-shot forward only had one more power-play point than last year, meaning most of his scoring jump is because of his even-strength play. The Western Michigan University commit and Kamloops start their playoff run against the 2026 Memorial Cup hosts in the Kelowna Rockets. Kamloops is the underdog heading into the matchup, and their star players, including Lafrenière, will have to be at their best if they want to pull off the series win.

The 2025 third-rounder had a great final run of the season, but his game from March 21 was excellent. What stands out is the progress from an NHL draft prospect a year ago to where we are today. Leading up to the 2025 draft, I found Lafrenière to be a complementary winger, mostly effective on the forecheck, but with a good nose for the soft spots on the ice. Now I watch him drive a line as the centre of it or provide the proper support to standout players like Nathan Behm and J.P. Hurlbert. Lafrenière commands the play more when he’s on the ice, and the first clip below showcases that in my opinion.

Lafrenière is the player pushing the pace and defenders back. As a sidenote, the first touch after the pass reception is just spectacular, Lafrenière is able to pull the puck to open space avoiding the oncoming stick check from the Vancouver Giants player. The sneaky release does give goalies some trouble trying to track it as the point-per-game forward is able to shoot it around defenders and has a numerous amount of release points. The next clip below is much of the same thing, where Lafrenière pushes back the defence and takes a deceptive wrister blocker side.

Whether Lafrenière is forechecking or has the puck on his stick, the quick forward wants to play fast and that is a great attribute to have as you continue your path to the NHL. Lafrenière finished the game with two goals (including the overtime winner) and an assist, even without the production this would have been a great game from the young prospect. Below are his two goals from the game and both come in different ways.

Both goals are a great display of Lafrenière exploiting the soft ice in the defence. Getting yourself open is just as important as finishing off the chance once you get it. The overtime winner is another example of Tommy pushing the defenders back with his speed and even managing to sneak in behind the Giants last defender back (who is Ryan Lin, a sixth overall WHL pick, and a potential first-rounder in the 2026 NHL draft) to get a stick on the pass. I think my favourite play of his night comes in our last clip below.

This is the type of progress I wanted to see throughout the year from Lafrenière. If the puck wasn’t already off the wall the Oilers prospect struggled to get it to the middle of the ice and there has been a good amount of progress made in this area. The pre-scanning and keeping his head on the move has been used more effectively this year compared to last; this could be one of the significant reasons for this step up. As I said earlier Kamloops will have it tough against Kelowna, but if the Blazers can get their big guns going they have a decent shot at sending the Memorial Cup Hosts home early in the WHL playoffs.

Lafrenière has signed with the NCAA’s Western Michigan Broncos to play college hockey starting next season.

Like his 2025 draftmate Tommy Lafrenière, David Lewandowski also had a good end to his regular season by finishing his final 10 games with two goals and 11 points. The German import was the only player on the Saskatoon Blades to average a point per game or better with 17 goals and 68 points in the 57 games he suited up for. Lewandowski had a point on 30 per cent of Saskatoon’s goals and that is a great rate for a player in his draft-plus-one season. Now Lewandowski’s first-round matchup is a bit more difficult than Kamloops as the Blades have to go up against the Edmonton Oil Kings who have allowed the second-fewest goals against in the conference. Saskatoon is a team that already struggles to score and out of the 16 teams that qualified for playoffs they rank 15th in goals for. I hate to say it, but the Blades need to catch lightning in a bottle for them to pull off the upset.

Nonetheless, Lewandowski took a step in his development, much like Tommy Lafrenière, however it was in a different way. Lafrenière was able to develop an area of his game that wasn’t as strong as in past seasons and it took his game a step up. David Lewandowski took what he was already good at and continued to refine it into something that could be great, which is his passing ability. The first clip below displays David Lewandowski’s progression to a tee.

My main worry continues to be the pace of play that the left-shot winger plays at, but in the clip Lewandowski slows the game right down allowing his centre to build speed under the play and then feeding him the puck when he’s at his top speed. With no defender in sight until the Blades player hits the faceoff dot to the right of the goalie and it’s too late as the puck is already past the goalie. It’s a subtle play, but it shows off the processing ability Lewandowski continues to make better. The German power forward also had a goal in the game and it makes you wonder why he doesn’t shoot the puck more.

The Saskatoon Blades will need every ounce of skill that Lewandowski has if they want to move on to the second round of the WHL playoffs. The formula to win is hoping that you can keep the score low enough and close enough to allow your star player to takeover on the powerplay and our final clip of fourth-rounder shows the chances he can create with the man advantage.

It didn’t result in a chance on net, but I love the use of the bumper player to open up the cross ice pass. It’s another good example of his playmaking instincts mixed with the high-end passing ability. Chances like this will have to go in the back of the net if you hope to steal four games from Edmonton. It has been a great year for David Lewandowksi and if his season ends with a loss in the first round of the playoffs then so be it, but there has been progress made this year.

The massive Russian winger is starting to heat up again and just in time as Lokomotiv Yaroslavl looks to defend their KHL championship from last season. It hasn’t been the best of years for Maxim Beryozkin as he saw his point total fall by 10 points in only two fewer games played. But as I said he is starting to heat up again and in his last 10 games played Beryozkin has nine points. Lokomotiv has played and won their first playoff game and is up 1-0 in the series, but no points for Maxim in that contest. Whenever I tuned into a game of the fifth-rounder I felt like his play was better than his numbers suggested and now at the end of the season he is finally being rewarded.

March 20 was one of the better viewings I’ve had on the 2020 draft pick and luckily enough he finished the game with a goal. Finishing is a serious problem with Beryozkin as he shot only 5.2 per cent this year and it should see some positive regression in the future, but other than his 10.5 per cent last season he has never shot above 8.6 per cent. The goal he scored in this game however was excellent and showed off a small flash of potential still.

Excellent display of shooting in motion and taking absolutely no time to get the release off once it got onto your forehand. Beryozkin is so big, fluid, and skilled that this almost seems like second nature to him. In an NHL-sized rink I still believe he will be a handful to take care of along the wall during a cycle. As I said there is a bit of a finishing problem here and in the next two videos he generates excellent grade-a scoring opportunities, but fails to capitalize on them.

A game or two of these chances going by is okay, but this has been the whole season and if this can be addressed there is a real chance to unlock a goal scorer here. Everything is there, but the most important part and that’s the finish.

Maxim Beryozkin’s contract is done after this season and I’m hoping the Oilers can get a deal done to bring him in next year. The finishing is my only real problem with Beryozkin, as I stated before I do love his size and mobility combination, but his work along the boards goes with what the Oilers want to do. I think the six-foot-four winger could be a great bottom-six addition next year and with some seasoning there is a chance Beryozkin can turn into a highly effective third-liner.

Those three players are the main prospects I wanted to highlight for their excellent ends to the regular season. William Nicholl is starting his playoffs with the London Knights as they go up against the Soo Greyhounds. Nicholl didn’t finish his season as hot as the others, but he continues to show the same pace-pushing ability as Tommy Lafrenière. The Knights centre continues to show off his great two-way play though and Nicholl excites me as a bottom-of-the-lineup player one day down the road. Ever since his loan to Ketterä in the Mestis league, Eemil Vinni has been excellent. Finishing the regular season with his new team, Vinni played in four games posting up a 1.23 goals against average and a 0.951 save percentage. The Finnish netminder has started in six playoff games and has a 1.52 goals against average with a 0.943 save percentage. What a great last quarter Vinni has had and it should carry into next season when we see him fight for some professional minutes.