Flames’ Ethan Wyttenbach already exceeding expectations as 2025 fifth-rounder

It’s always hard to evaluate prospects so close from their draft year, but even with the 2025 NHL Draft less than nine months old, Calgary Flames prospect Ethan Wyttenbach is emerging as one of the biggest steals. Selected in the fifth round at 144th overall, the winger has been electric in college, and produced far above what was expected of him.

Steven Ellis talked about Wyttenbach and how great he’s been this season on Daily Faceoff Live.

Steven Ellis: I think when you look at what he’s been able to do since getting drafted in the fifth round. Like, he was playing in the USHL last year. There was an argument for him to stick around a little bit longer and focus on his skating because the skating was probably the weakest part of his game in his draft year, other than the fact he’s also fve-foot-10. But it feels like he’s using his muscle a lot more, and he’s using that to his advantage now, to the point where you look at the numbers: 24 goals, 57 points in only 36 games. Outstanding numbers.

And yeah, you can argue and say he’s beating up a lot of weaker teams. You look at some of the games they played recently: 9-1 over Brown, 8-0 versus Yale. Those are games where you expect him to get a lot of points. But he’s doing it in a way that nobody else on his own team is doing. There’s other teams that are playing against weaker competition and their star players aren’t being able to match that.

So what we’re seeing from Wyttenbach is truly outstanding. A player that, given he was a fifth-round pick, given he’s going to college, a good season probably would have been 20 points. For him to go there and put up close to 60 points this year. Yeah, there’s a lot of reasons to be excited.

Should he be in the AHL next year? I think there’s an argument that maybe he’s got nothing more to prove at Quinnipiac. Maybe they’re going to try and go for a championship next year. I haven’t seen how their long-term outlook is, but I think right now, where he is, absolutely the biggest steal of the 2025 NHL Draft.

You can watch the full episode here…