Jean-Christoph Lemieux

June 2026 — Lemieux spent the first half of his draft year buried on a deep Windsor team, then turned a January trade to Sudbury into the breakout the situation had been blocking.

He jumped from a fourth-line role to a featured one: 25 points in 23 games with the Wolves, just over a point per game, with assists doing most of the climbing as he got time to create. He’s a fast, smart two-way center who plays the right way in all three zones, and he carries enough finish to contribute on the power play, where he showed a one-timer and a nose for rebounds into the playoffs. The arrow is the appeal, but the sample is the caution: the big production came in a half-season after the move, and a quiet Hlinka Gretzky Cup over the summer is part of why Central Scouting kept him at 103rd among North American skaters, in fourth-round range.

For fantasy, that profiles as a middle-six center who chips in secondary scoring and a little power-play value if the Sudbury form holds, rather than a driver. He’ll return to the Wolves in a top-of-the-lineup role next season, the runway he needs to prove the second-half rate was real and not just due a change of scenery. If it carries and he settles into a top-nine job, a two-way middle-six center near 45 points is the ceiling, which is where the 4.5 upside lands. Andrew Epps