Film Room: Maddox Dagenais’ resurgence has made him the 2026 NHL Draft’s fastest riser

There are maybe three prospects in the 2026 NHL Draft who can hold a candle to Maddox Dagenais’ effort level.

But that wasn’t always the case.

Dagenais came into the 2024-25 season with the weight of a province on his shoulders. Highly touted in the Québec hockey sphere, the Remparts’ first-overall pick in the 2024 QMJHL Entry Draft had bloodlines, size, skill, and a tremendous flair for twine. His pace and motor, however, didn’t live up to QMJHL standards — a trend that continued early in the 2025-26 season.

“Dagenais’ effort and pace went down a little as the game went on,” I wrote in an October 2025 game report.  “Still inconsistent on that end. By the time overtime came around, he couldn’t keep up — lost a shoulder-to-shoulder battle with a much smaller forward leading up to the overtime goal. He still didn’t look like a top-100 prospect in this game, but looked like a pick. Seems like he’ll have to pivot away from the low-pace, high-skill game he developed in M18AAA and lean heavily towards his checking prowess to be an effective NHLer.”

Then, out of nowhere came a drastic switch flip — and with it, the top-15 value.

Pace

Dagenais added tremendous pace to his game, going from approaching most attacking plays from a glide to moving his feet incessantly through his offensive sequences.

With aggressive straight-line speed, he out-races defencemen to favourable spots, chips and chases with crossovers, muscles through checks using his forward momentum, and then keeps it up off the cycle. He started using cuts and pivots down the wall when attacking off the boards, along with some serious off-puck intensity. Impressive knee and ankle depth, along with powerful legs, make those non-stop, high-velocity rushes possible, as he wastes little energy with each stride and gets up to speed extremely quickly.

Motor

Last year, Dagenais used to engage exclusively with his stick along the wall, leaving a lot of value on the table in his battles.

Now, the centre is a one-man forecheck.

While his skating allows him to out-race defenders to pucks from a disadvantage, Dagenais also applies himself defensively with dogged efforts, digs pucks out of scrums with his teeth, attacks carriers with back pressure in the neutral zone, and keeps his feet moving through wrap attempts along the wall.

This switch flip in Dagenais’ game occurred right on time for the CHL USA Prospects Challenge, where his incessant puck-hounding caught scouts’ attention in a massive way and put his name squarely back in first-round conversations. He was no longer a skillful but detached centre with a vastly underexploited asset in his frame. He was a pitbull who could battle in corners with the best prospects in junior hockey.

Crushing physicality

Dagenais isn't just a one-man forecheck, either. More than any forward in this class, the 6-foot-4, 196-pound centre embodies the concept of a one-man wrecking crew.

A violent checker with a growing desire to punish opponents along the wall, Dagenais has started leveraging the wall scenarios his motor creates to be a crusher. Where he used to primarily hit as a post-pass message, he now lines up opponents proactively, times his checks with opponents’ receptions and gaps in protection, and squares his weight right through their chests. 

Dagenais has also mastered the reverse hit. A frequent tool in his arsenal to catch aggressive pressure off guard and create separation, he uses it just as frequently and effectively on receptions and retrievals as he does in possession. High-end timing and inside-edge weight-loading make him absurdly sturdy, as he can send defenders flying despite them closing on him with pace while he stands still.

Contact skills

While he can crush and hustle at an elite level, Dagenais’ frame and motor won’t be enough to win battles in the NHL. He’ll need true contact skills and strategies to maintain this style of play against NHL defencemen. Luckily, there are glimpses of those in Dagenais’ forechecking and puck protection plays — with room to add some layers.

The first clip shows a disadvantaged position; Dagenais is on the outside of this battle with a defenceman between him and the puck along the wall. Instead of reaching for the puck, he sees the defenceman aim to lean into him to create separation. Less aware battlers would normally lean in return, but Dagenais opts for a shoulder shrug instead, identifying that he has speed and momentum in his advantage. He pushes the player past the puck, spins off, and easily recovers the puck.

The second clip shows more classic stick-and-body layering, as Dagenais cuts off the defender’s hands after a stick lift to gain positional advantage and make a play on the puck.

The third example is an area of improvement: posture depth. If Dagenais deepens his stride to get hip-to-hip with his check in that battle, he probably succeeds in pinning his man. Instead, the opposing forward gets his right hip under Dagenais’ left, and manages to escape contact through a pivot.

Finally, Dagenais shows another path to NHL-level battle skills: spinoffs. He clearly displays the wall awareness to time his cutbacks and spin-offs with opponents’ routes, cutting across their heels to find open ice up or down the boards. If he can time those spins with cross checks rather than relying on passive coverage, he’ll be in a better position to work hip drops into those moves, both adding agility off the boards and scaling up his contact game as a whole.

The puck skills

The first half of this article includes all the elements of an elite checking game in the making — elements that Dagenais added to make his stock soar.

For the most part, the elements in this second half were already present in his game. Namely, an elite release, tremendous hands, and a budding playmaking game.

The added pace, effort, and physicality in his game have only brought those puck skills to light more frequently and in more effective sequences.

Shooting

Dagenais’ shot has been his calling card as long as statistical memory serves, scoring 27 goals in 32 Québec M15 AAA games as a 13-year-old and 42 in 35 at the Ontario U16 AAA level. 

That hasn’t changed in the QMJHL. Even throughout his rough rookie campaign last season, and despite a difficult start to his 2025-26 campaign, Dagenais still managed a 30-goal regular season.

With a heavy, accurate one-timer, Dagenais is a constant power play threat. He keeps his upper body square to the puck, rotates it to square up to the net as he goes through his weight transfer, and his top hand extends violently through his rotation to create absurd stick torque. While he can drop to a knee and use downforce for added power, Dagenais can also create a ridiculous amount of velocity through pure upper-body rotation. As he plants his front leg, Dagenais can comfortably keep his hips square while turning his upper body fully across its axis, creating a release that doesn’t require much space or adjustment to rip. 

Dagenais’ one-timer is also highly adjustable; he can shorten his wind-up when receiving quicker passes to beat netminders mid-shuffle, but can wind and crank a bomb when aiming to beat set goaltenders on slower passes.

Speaking of adjustment, the biggest factor in Dagenais’ scoring uptick has been his shooting diversification. 

While he still rips mid-range bombs, the centre has added valuable tools to his arsenal; he shoots off patterned carries, can rip pucks off both his front and back leg off the curl and drag, and has added valuable give-and-go plays where he’d normally settle for outside shots and screened wristers from the high slot.

Continuing the progression in his shooting habits will be key; Dagenais still has a tendency to take those low-percentage wide entry wristers from distance, but as EliteProspects Head of Scouting and Director of Pro Content Mitch Brown wrote in a recent game report: “His overreliance on perimeter shooting remains a minor frustration but he’s usually just making quick decisions – it’s fine.”

Handling

A major area of growth directly impacted by his addition of tremendous pace, Dagenais is now a high-end handler. Simply put, he beats QMJHL defensive structures with NHL-translatable patterns.

Beating NHL structures off the carry requires more than just blistering speed. It requires pace manipulation; accelerating, decelerating, and working East-West patterns into North-South attacks. Dagenais has started showing more of that. He isolates defenders, drags them out of position, slows down on entries after ridding himself of back pressure with his speed, and then executes with the space he creates.

Dagenais’ handling foundations are solid, too; with his top hand away from his hip and dynamic crossovers, he attacks structures at angles, leveraging stutter steps and head fakes throughout his carries to send defencemen one way before escaping the other. He has tricks up his sleeve to solve more aggressive gaps in tight areas, slipping pucks under triangles and driving his inside knee through the shafts of defenders’ sticks as they extend to find space inside their reach and access valuable ice behind them.

Passing

A budding area of his game, Dagenais’ passing is starting to shine in two key ways: on-puck patience and quick-touch wall-to-slot passes.

The first clip shows Dagenais’ patience and vision. He chips and chases down the wall, slams on the brakes at the dot and backs off into space, instantly snapping his head up to spot support. He sees the collapsed Victoriaville defence and a teammate trailing from the neutral zone, so he extends his puck touch with a couple of quick handles, then dishes into his teammate’s route for a high-slot connection and a goal.

The second clip shows the same principle of extending his touch through quick handles, but instead of using it to delay for support, he uses it as deceptive leverage. With his head up and facing the point, he fakes a pass to his quarterback, then targets his immediate check’s triangle on the cross-seam pass. The third and fourth clips show more of the same, as he steps out of wall receptions and instantly looks to threaten the middle, holding onto his pass until a lane opens up.

The rest of the compilation shows Dagenais’ ability to take pucks off the wall and through the neutral zone, and threaten the slot through more direct drives and quick processing. This’ll likely be how he produces assists in the NHL. Low-cycle playmaking is much scarcer in Junior hockey than high-cycle playmaking, but it’s by far the more translatable creation pattern. Ripping pucks off the wall and driving the net before finding teammates at the back door, taking wall passes in-pivot and feeding them off his first touch to slot-driving teammates… these are NHL-translatable assists. 

Finding space off high reloads and getting extended puck touches in the high slot is near-impossible with modern man-on-man NHL defending and elite structural coverage. Dagenais’ low-cycle game bypasses those less-translatable sequences altogether, and he can also create by barrelling through coverage in transition, drawing defenders, and popping the puck out to a teammate.

Hockey sense

While Dagenais’ combination of on-puck patience and quick down-low playmaking hints at high-end processing, his positioning is where that processing shines best.

While hockey sense is often brought up when discussing skillful creators, it is just as important a checking tool. Dagenais’ net drives and wall interventions aren’t just aggressive; they’re pre-planned and well-timed. He swings out of scissor plays along the wall and arcs between checks to find space in the slot, activates off the far wall to the crease, times his net crashes with point shots, and anticipates teammates’ slot passes to attack the space they’re targeting. Meanwhile, although his involvement rate could improve defensively, he generally spots threats well, controls the centre lane, and doesn’t overcommit, allowing enough room for his man’s teammate to see a pass before taking it away with two hard strides.

Dagenais’ space identification in the offensive zone has also progressed well over the course of the season. Where he would previously overload the short side and gravitate to the puck, he now scans for open ice, pops out into that space off of quick turnovers, and instantly offers himself up as a passing option.

There’s still room to grow in this area. While Dagenais’ sense for space and scanning habits serve him well away from the puck in the offensive zone, he can get tunnel vision off the carry, focusing on beating his immediate man and attacking the slot rather than using delays to create. He can delay, but more often than not, if Dagenais is barrelling up the ice, expect a shot. 

What’s next?

With the drastic growth in his effort level and work rate, Maddox Dagenais now has the foundations of every skill required to succeed in the NHL. He already had the deep stride and powerful crossovers of a pro skater, an NHL frame and shot, a violent checking game, clever stickhandling ideas and patterns, a budding passing arsenal, and glimpses of defensive impact. His next steps are all about adding layers.

To complement his stride, he could add some agility off the jump. To support his puck-acquisition skills, he could work on deepening his posture against sturdier defenders. To upscale his goal-scoring, he could leverage more angle changes on his release. The progression in his handling and playmaking will come through increasing the layers of deception and manipulation, of which he already shows the creative foundations.

Most of all, however, Dagenais’ processing will play a major part in his progression. He already shows the tools to identify and attack dangerous ice offensively through great scanning, quick processing, and advanced spatial reads; adding those scans, intakes, and reads to his threat identification and puck-carrying games will be key. 

As currently constructed, Dagenais could translate his checking game fairly quickly to the NHL. With only marginal natural development, — the worst-case scenario — Dagenais probably ends up as a third-line, second power play energy scorer. There is, however, significant top-six upside with the right investment.

This is likely what most of Dagenais’ goals will look like in the NHL. A neutral-zone give-and-go, a chip-and-chase entry, retrieval scanning and protection, climbing the wall, extending the cycle, cutting back down, driving the net off the puck, banging and crashing at the rebound. Add a half-wall one-timer to the mix, and you’ve got the general outline of a 30-goal season. As he continues to explore with zone-entry deception and playmaking manipulation, Dagenais could become a true creator and play-driver on top of it.

A 6-foot-4, hard-working checking centre with a high-end release, great hands, and clever playmaking is every NHL team’s dream. Don’t be surprised if Dagenais is gone by pick 20; he’ll be a top-15 prospect on our next board.