Trevor Connelly

April 2024 – Connelly continues to establish himself as one of the most dynamic offensive threats in this year’s draft. His ability to string together improbable routes through multiple defensive layers is matched by few. He also showed some progressing maturity at the WJAC, where he was involving his teammates a lot more, and playing effective playmaking hockey without losing a step. Tri-City definitely lets him run a lot wilder, and when Connelly gets his engine revved it’s something to behold. He’s a monster in transition and is one of the fastest, most mobile skaters the draft has to offer. On regular occasion you can find him taking laps in the offensive zone simply because nobody can catch him. As far as raw speed and skill goes Connelly is arguably a top 5 option in this year’s draft. That said, he comes with his fair share of cons. Connelly can at times go too wild and skate himself into disaster, or he will look off his options too quickly and turn the puck over with a bad pass/poor shot. He will never be a two-way forward either and there’s plenty of reason to suspect the defensive end of his game. You will almost definitely have to take the good with the bad with Connelly, but he’s really that good. There’s significant first line potential here. David Saad

April Rankings: 14th 

November 2023 – Connelly plays with unmatched confidence. He constantly tries to take on opponents one-on-one, pushes through checks with shoulder drops and great puck placement, and always goes for the throat with his offensive zone incursions. A major difference between Connelly last year versus this year, is that he is trusting his teammates a lot more to complete his plays. As a result, his playmaking game has grown and he has adopted a distributor role that fits his skillset better than the finisher role he was trying to force last year.

Despite the absurd skill level, there are some worrying setbacks in Connelly’s game. His defensive game is lackluster, the motor is very inconsistent, and there have been major questions with character that will likely have some teams very hesitant to bet on his upside, no matter how high it is. Developing a more mature game and showing whoever picks him that he can improve will be essential if he is going to reach his top-line ceiling. Hadi Kalakeche (November rankings: 19th overall)