Jonas Kemps

September 2026 –  Jonas Kemps is a towering, mobile defenseman the Florida Panthers selected 98th overall, exactly the tall, rangy defender the organization tends to target. At 6-foot-6 he covers enormous ice, and his game is built on reach and mobility rather than production.

He posted just nine points in 57 United States Hockey League games with the Chicago Steel this past season, but the appeal is defensive: he denies zone entries, and when beaten he simply reaches back to knock the puck away, then looks for outlets across the rink and can move pucks through traffic. There are flashes of offense in his activation and shooting, hinting at more than the box score shows given his more productive youth-hockey background. A Sebastopol, California native and a long-term project, he is signed to play for the Western Hockey League’s Seattle Thunderbirds in 2026-27 before heading to Michigan State in 2027-28.

For fantasy he is a deep-league monitor, a size-and-reach bet whose timeline is long, so file him away and watch whether the mobility and any offensive growth come together as he moves to major junior. Andrew Epps