2027 QMJHL Draft Preview: Max McCarthy, Bishop Kearney’s Big Three highlight stories to watch
The 2026-27 QMJHL draft season is barely underway, and a vast array of storylines are already surfacing.
In Québec, the crop of forwards continues to be strong. Between Édouard Béland, Jérôme Daigle, and Enzo Paradis, the QM18AAA has retained its fair share of potential top-10 talent up front.
The ever-shifting landscape of youth hockey is playing out primarily among the defence crop this year. A prospective top-five pick, Justin Harding, will be suiting up for The Hill Academy in Caledon, Ontario. Meanwhile, two of the draft’s top defencemen, Charles-Olivier Bédard and Cédric Déry, are lining up South of the border with Bishop Kearney, with a third big name — a potential top-10 forward — joining their ranks at the 15U AAA level for the upcoming season.
Out East, the top talent keeps flowing, with Newfoundland looking ever-stronger. Max McCarthy’s time to shine has come, and he looks like an early candidate for a top-three selection in the draft. Meanwhile, the Halifax McDonalds’ U18 roster has seen a drastic change in demographic that brings with it a steady flow of 2011-born talent.
A new contender has entered the race in New England prep school hockey, and they have recruited tonnes of QMJHL draft talent. Masters Academy International has secured commitments from forwards Zyon Decaens and defencemen Beckett Forsyth and Connor Grace from Nova Scotia, as well as one of the top goaltender prospects in the draft in Liam Boily. They’ll be worth keeping an eye on throughout the season.
Let’s dive in.
A strong forward crop in Québec
Last year, the likes of Jacob McKinnon, Pierre-Alexandre Lemieux, and Julien Bergeron made for a solid crop of forwards out of QM18AAA for the 2026 QMJHL Draft. This year, the same trend remains, and the battle for top Québec-born forward in the class looks to be a three-headed race.
First, Édouard Béland. The Trois-Rivières Estacades centre offers an intriguing profile, as a 6-foot-2 power forward with high-end skill. He missed considerable time last year, lining up primarily in RSEQ M15 D1 with Séminaire St-Joseph and scoring 20 points in nine games in the process. In QM18AAA pre-season, he was the best player on the ice, working the boards with impressive effectiveness while showcasing his pace, playmaking, and scoring skill on a near-shift-to-shift basis.
While Béland dominates through tools advantages, Jérôme Daigle is contending with him for a top spot in the class through his processing and versatility. Highly intelligent and creative as a playmaker, Daigle ran over the competition last season at the QM15AAA Elite level, scoring 70 points in 29 games and earning himself a one-game call-up to Marie-Rivier’s QM17AAA roster, in which he scored a goal. With his polished approach to defence, he provides cover for activating defencemen while supporting their rush suppression with backpressure, and the skill is just as evident. He could dominate with the Magog Cantonniers this upcoming season and set himself up for a top-five selection.
Finally, Enzo Paradis. The Saint-Hyacinthe Gaulois forward scored 45 points in 29 QM15AAA Elite games last season, suited up for two QM17AAA games with the Richelieu Gaulois, and is now primed for a top-six spot at the M18 level. A premium checking forward with skill, Paradis looked just as effective in pre-season, managing the boards better than the vast majority of kids his age while displaying playmaking tools in spades. This should help him separate from the pack and earn his way into top-10 conversations.
Québec continues to develop and churn out quality forwards with well-rounded skillsets; this year seems to be no exception. With tonnes more talent in the pipeline, the QM18AAA is in great shape for this upcoming year.
Justin Harding and the Ontario Prep School path
By all indications, potential top-three pick Justin Harding will be spending the 2026-27 season with The Hill Academy, likely splitting time between the program’s Prep, Varsity, and U16 AAA teams.
After 12 points in 30 games as a 12-year-old with the Outaouais Intrépide in 2023-24 and 25 in 30 games in 2024-25 at 13, Harding joined The Hill’s ranks last season and put up 52 points across 46 games with their U15 AAA squad. He even earned a call-up to the U16 squad for the OHL Cup, suiting up for four games.
His path is unusual; not a single QMJHL Draft prospect has gone through The Hill Academy in their draft year. The level of competition, however, is top-tier. The Hill regularly faces off against other Ontario prep schools and top AAA teams in Ontario and the United States, allowing Harding to test his abilities against the likes of Upper Canada College, BioSteel Sports Academy, Little Caesars, Mount St. Charles, and more.
Harding’s game reflects a need for steeper competition in his age group. A highly polished defenceman with a solid shutdown foundation and premium offensive tools, he blends poise with awareness to connect plays from the back end and dictate with the puck on his stick in the offensive zone. Quick scans set the table for deception on retrievals, and from there, he attacks on the breakout, finding outlets with impressive ease. He’ll likely play most of his minutes against older players, with more games under his belt heading into his draft year than his peers.
Harding is heading down an unpaved, yet potentially highly promising road; if the bet pays off for him, there’s a chance we see a growing number of prospects eyeing Caledon, Ontario as their next destination out of Québec’s M15 AAA level.
Bishop Kearney’s Big Three
A Tier 1 15U AAA program with a tremendous track record, the Bishop Kearney Selects have been developing talent for the QMJHL Draft for a while. Now, they’re gearing up for historic QMJHL draft representation in 2027, with three potential top-10 picks.
Their first of two graduates from their 14U program, Charles-Olivier Bédard, has some of the most refined rush defence details in the draft class. With Bishop Kearney’s 14U AAA team, 6-foot-2 blue-liner’s gap control looked effortless. He surfed across the neutral zone, stepped up aggressively, closed distances with impeccable timing, and executed timely pivots to stop wide drives, all from a projectable stance. He did it all while scoring at above a point-per-game pace, too, earning nine goals and 40 assists in 46 games in league play. He could challenge for first overall in this class.
Then, there’s Cédric Déry, who presents an even more potent offensive game, having scored 30 goals and added 39 assists in 55 14U AAA league games last season. Highly explosive off his edges and willing to use it to activate, he jumpstarts rushes with crisp passes, joins attacks both as an off-puck activator and a carrier, and then leverages his playmaking to hit seams. With a sturdy physical game and a proactive rush defending game, he has all the tools QMJHL teams look for when projecting a defenceman to their top pair.
Another potential top-10 pick has joined their ranks, however: forward Christophe Chabot, who was Harding’s captain last year at The Hill. He scored 54 goals and added 49 assists in 54 games with The Hill’s U15 AAA squad. A sharpshooter with high pace, he led the team in scoring by doing most of his damage downhill, stealing pucks in his own zone before flying up the ice with crossovers before threatening with his plus-calibre release. With a strong delay playmaking game to support the scoring tools, he looks the part of a dual-threat scorer with size and speed.
It’s early, but Bishop Kearney have set themselves up wonderfully to increase their exposure as a top-tier hockey academy for under-16 talent in Québec looking to develop abroad.
Newfoundland continues to raise the bar
Canada’s easternmost province continues to punch well above its weight in emerging hockey talent. At last season’s QMJHL Cup Atlantic, Team Newfoundland managed to disrupt the natural order of Atlantic Canadian hockey and finished in second place for the first time since the tournament’s inception in 2022. Entering yet another QMJHL Draft class headlined by Newfoundland talent out east, it’s safe to say that this result wasn’t a fluke.
With three first-round QMJHL selections in the past two years (Benjamin Veitch, Quinn Norman, and Damian Norris), it’s all but guaranteed that this streak will continue with Max McCarthy. The St. John’s native smashed the Newfoundland U15 points record for a third straight season (107 points in 36 games), which was previously set by 2026 Moncton Wildcats pick Luke McGuire. McGuire’s 90 points in 35 games topped recent Hlinka Gretzky Cup standout Veitch, who set his own short-lived record of 84 points in 28 games during the 2023-24 season.
Like McGuire and Veitch, McCarthy will be departing his home province to play out his QMJHL Draft year, heading south of the border to play at Shattuck St. Mary’s in Minnesota. As the point totals suggest, McCarthy has been unstoppable not just in Newfoundland but against the best competition in Atlantic Canada, capping off his U15 career with a hat trick in the Eastern Hitmen’s victory in the regional championship game. Now, at one of hockey’s greatest development programs, McCarthy will have the opportunity to hone his game-breaking pace, goal-scoring, and details against his top peers from across North America.
With a long-standing tradition of seeking draft-year opportunities beyond The Rock and its prohibitive geography, McCarthy is far from the only Newfoundlander setting sail. Elijah Jack (Upper Canada College U16 AAA) and Alexander Abbott (Notre Dame Hounds U18 AAA) will be entering their second years playing out-of-province, and defencemen Aaron Tellenbach (Bishop’s College School U17) and Jack Clarke (South Kent School 15U AAA) are also slated to depart the province following excellent U15 seasons.
Passing the torch in Halifax
The 2026 TELUS Cup silver medalists Halifax McDonald’s U18 have plenty of roster spots to spare, seeing the graduation of their 2008-born class that produced 10 QMJHL Draft picks in 2024. With that crop of players leading the charge, they have won the Nova Scotia U18 title in those past three seasons. Is there a chance they could go for four?
Given the strength of the Halifax area’s 2011-born prospect pool, it’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. Four of last season’s top five NSU15MHL scorers are trying out for the team, led by 2012-born Bowen Cranston. In the 15-year history of the modern Nova Scotia U15 league, Cranston holds not just the most productive 13-year-old season in the league’s history, but the best point-per-game output of any player of any age (84 points in 30 games). If Cranston is to make the U18 squad, he’ll be the first 14-year-old player in the NSU18MHL since Jacob Quillan in 2016-17.
Among the wealth of U16 players at Macs training camp are Grayson Sears and Miller Cannon, who also put up gaudy point totals on a line with Cranston on the Halifax Gulls U15 — Sears being the high-end playmaking complement to Cranston’s scoring prowess and Cannon bringing two-way sensibilities. With as many as nine roster spots up for grabs, Halifax’s U18 squad is going to look very different, but don’t be surprised if the results remain similar thanks to their QMJHL Draft prospects.
The new Masters of New England
In a league where its draft scouting is divided quite stringently along three distinct geographies — Quebec, Atlantic Canada, and New England — the inaugural Masters Academy International is bringing these regions together like never seen before. Not only is their 15U squad populated with top 2027 QMJHL Draft talent, but their 14U team is also amassing promising futures for 2028. The Stow, Massachusetts-based academy is quickly cementing itself as a must-watch program for any and every QMJHL Draft scout.
Masters’ 15U recruitment kicked off on a high note with Zyon Decaens of New Brunswick, who played last season for the Moncton Flyers U18 with exceptional status similar to what’s expected to be granted in Nova Scotia this season. Decaens’ season of U18 hockey allowed him to continue improving as a physically mature power forward with a scoring touch, and if he can continue that work in this new environment against select talent in the U.S., he’ll be a first-round pick.
Decaens will be joined at MAI this season by standout Nova Scotia defencemen Beckett Forsyth and Connor Grace. Liam Boily is also a top goaltending prospect from Québec to watch with the program. With at least six Atlantic Canadians, four New Englanders, and two Quebecers slated to play on their 15U squad, MAI’s first season will be one to watch as a hotbed for QMJHL Draft talent from all over. The exposure and success of this first draft class will certainly lay the groundwork for Masters to become a destination for top hockey talent, particularly from the Atlantic provinces.