This time of year represents a great time of year for hockey fans and fantasy owners alike. With  playoffs right around the corner, the time is quickly approaching where managers can reflect on what players met, exceeded or fell short of expectations in fantasy leagues or on the ice. 

Justin Carbonneau, the newest member and first this season of the 50 goal club, joined a group that is exclusive to 26 players since the 2004-05 season. This is an example of a player who can give great optimism for fantasy managers who likely used a first round pick on him last summer in dynasty formats. 

This got me to wonder how a player can be projected at the next level based on when they find the 40-50 goal plateaus in the QMJHL, and how we can project the trajectory of their career based on that data. For fantasy owners, the game is all about projecting where you think prospects will get to and how long it takes them to get there. 

Today, we’ll dive into some of the prolific goal scorers this season who are on pace to smash the 50 goal benchmark, and who comparably reached that level at the same point in their junior careers. This could be an indicator of a player’s future value, and where you can expect them to produce at when they are at their peak, or just breaking through into the NHL. 

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Draft Plus Two

Maxim Masse

Masse has been one of the more prolific goal scorers in the league two years removed from his draft year. This is the sweet spot for a lot of players, coming back for their third or sometimes fourth seasons in the league. Typically older than most of the league, these players tend to dominate as a result. It doesn’t hurt that Masse is built like a truck. 

Other players in this company include Alex Barre-Boulet, Zac Bolduc, Jacob Melanson, Alexandre Doucet, Josh Lawrence. 

Of the players on this list, Zachary Bolduc is the most experienced player on this list, compiling 34 goals and 71 points through 158 NHL appearances between the St. Louis Blues and Montreal Canadiens. Barre-Boulet is next up with just 71 games. Where he has just 12 goals and seven assists to his name. The jury is still out on guys like Melanson, but with Lawrence in the Slovak league and Doucet, who had an electrifying 56 goal performance in 2022-23, has been a career AHLer to this point. 

The sample size is not friendly to players like Masse who do not become prolific before their overage season, and one who is an exceptionally sized player. Time will tell, but historically, Masse may be in tough to become a consistent impact goal scorer in the NHL. His pace fell just short of 50 in 2024-25, however, so he still has a bright future as a complementary point producer. 

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Draft-Plus-One

Justin Carbonneau

Carbonneau is an interesting addition to this category, as he paced just over 50 goals in his draft eligible season, and could have reached it, had he not missed six games with injury. 

The group is a little more palatable of players who reached the plateau in their D+1 season. Players include Anthony Duclair, Anthony Mantha, Vitaly Abramov, Samuel Poulin, Joshua Roy, Jordan Dumais. 

So, already, we are moving into players who were taken in earlier rounds with pedigree who were not just late bloomers, but ones who entered their junior careers with pedigree. 

Mantha followed his season up with a 57 goal campaign, while Duclair spent some time in the NHL with the New York Rangers as a 19 year old. 

The more recent examples give a bit of reason for optimism, save for Dumais. Roy has been a consistent presence on the Laval Rocket, with a 0.74 points-per-game pace, and pacing close to 25 goals this season. 

Vitalii Abramov has seen his career move on after just five NHL appearances, while Poulin and Dumais have yet to make an impact at the NHL level. The bar is a little higher for Carbonneau, given he did have the ability to top 50 goals in his draft eligible season. Let’s have a look at what that could mean in our next section. 

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Draft Eligible

Alexei Vlasov

It is extremely rare for a player to net 50 goals in their draft eligible season in the QMJHL, which would have made it more impressive if Carbonneau had hit the mark. Vlasov, however, is clicking at the exact same rate that Carbonneau did last year, pacing around 50.4 goals on a 68 game schedule.

De toute beauté! Alexei est le premier marqueur de ce match🤩#GoTigresGo pic.twitter.com/1QVufzyomQ

— Tigres de Victoriaville (@TigresVicto) March 7, 2026

Only two draft eligible players in the last 20 seasons have hit the mark: Justin Poirier and Sidney Crosby. That’s the list. 

For a player ranked as low as Vlasov has been on NHL Central Scouting lists (#108 for North American skaters), Vlasov is among some elite company, even if he doesn’t hit the mark this season. 

His accurate shot coupled with the power he brings off his release make him dangerous from all areas of the ice.

Poirier was overlooked for his defensive and mechanical shortcomings when it came to his skating ability, and Crosby, you know the story with him. Poirier, who is currently over a point per game (29 points in 27 games played) at the University of Maine, has maintained some of his superstar level production as a diminutive 5-9 forward.

While his stature may prevent him from being a first round pick and early on day two at the draft, Vlasov has the profile of someone who could fall into rounds three or four at the draft, and sometimes further depending on the appetite to take a chance on a small forward. These historical comparables show that there is upside in taking a chance on a player of his archetype, one who knows how to find the back of the net as a 17-year-old. If he falls in the NHL draft, he just might in fantasy drafts. And that’s stock up for fantasy managers. 

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Thanks for reading this month’s edition of the QMJHL Report! The playoffs are right around the corner, and we’ll have a preview coming up later in the month. Good luck to all fantasy managers entering postseasons of their own, this is why we play the game!

Sean