Montreal Canadiens: 2024 First Round Prospect Cole Eiserman Off To A Hot Start

The 2023-24 NHL regular season is nearly upon us, with many teams wrapping up their preseason schedules next Saturday. With that the new scouting season begins, and the 2024 Draft hopefuls are approaching the beginning of their seasons or have already started. The three top-ranked players as we speak are Macklin Celebrini, Cole Eiserman and Ivan Demidov on many draft lists.

I would like to zoom in on Eiserman, and the torrid start that he has gotten off to with the U.S. National U18 team and the United States National Team Development Program juniors in the United States Hockey League. Based on the statistics, he has picked up right where he left off in 2022-23, using his all-world shot and release to burn goalies. The Newburyport, Massachusetts native has played just 10 games so far this season, and his stat line is pretty incredible; he has 19 goals and four assists.

The 17-year-old has a late birthday, so he won’t be turning 18 until after the ‘24 Draft, but if you watched him play you wouldn’t know it. He is projected as a first-line goalscoring winger, and even with the concerns about his skating and engagement on the defensive side of the puck, he is ranked as the second-best prospect for the draft, behind only Celebrini. You can coach him to play better positionally on defence, and added strength will help in the skating department, which he will certainly gain this season.

He is still not done growing, and at six feet tall and 196 lbs, he already has an NHL frame and one of the elite shots outside of the professional ranks. An aspect that is uncoachable is a feel for the soft spots in the attacking zone and an NHL-caliber shot at just 17 years old, which will only become more dynamic and multi-dimensional as he grows and gets more reps. Committed to Boston University for the 2025-26 season, he is likely, at least two seasons away from realistically battling for a spot on an NHL roster, which is ample time for him to round out his all-around game.

If his quick start is any indication of how his season will go, he could secure himself as one of the first picks off the board on draft night. The league has gotten faster, and goalies are as good as they have ever been, so having a pure goalscorer in the lineup has never been more important. Eiserman projects as the best of the pack, and he will one day make an NHL coach very happy, and make the powerplay coach’s life much easier as well.

Eiserman had a 2022-23 season for the ages, first winning a gold medal with his home country, the United States at the U17 World Hockey Championship, a tournament he led in goals with 12 in seven games.

He followed that up with another strong performance at the U18 World Junior Championships, where he won another gold medal with the Americans, and led the tournament in goals with nine through seven tournament games. He also split time between the U.S. National U17 & U18 Teams, where he scored 69 goals in 62 games, and he played 32 games in the United States Hockey League with the USNTDP Juniors, where he scored 28 goals in 32 games.

He looks to be primed for a huge draft-year season, which will cement him as the premiere goalscorer of his draft class. He has the ability to score goals from anywhere, and there aren’t a lot of players in the NHL that have that ability. He and Celebrini will likely battle it out right until the selections are made on the draft floor in late June.

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