QMJHL Stock Watch: Justin Carbonneau's game is evolving in fascinating ways
The QMJHL standings are taking an interesting turn.
The Chicoutimi Saguenéens seem to have found their identity as a team, leading the Eastern conference in win percentage while playing a hard and heavy forechecking game. Meanwhile, the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada look like less of a super-team as of late, though they remain the best in the West.
At the same time, with October in the bag, the QMJHL’s top prospects are settling into the groove and exceeding expectations.
Justin Carbonneau’s impressive preseason impact has continued with Blainville-Boisbriand, as the St. Louis Blues’ recent first-round pick has added layers to his game while leaning into his goal-scoring instincts. Meanwhile, Noah Laberge is breaking out in Newfoundland, further building on the tools that led the Buffalo Sabres to take a flyer on him in the mid-rounds.
We’ll start with them in this edition of the QMJHL Stock Watch.
Stock Rising 📈
Justin Carbonneau, RW, Blainville-Boisbriand Armada (St. Louis Blues)
After missing the start of the QMJHL campaign while impressing in preseason with the Blues, Carbonneau is back in Blainville. With 17 goals since his return, he has already grabbed the league’s goal-scoring lead.
His four assists in 16 games might hide a budding playmaking game — where he previously forced passes to high-danger areas, looking to assist with every pass, he now plays a more nuanced distribution game, working give-and-gos to solve defensive structures in transition while opting for cycle-extending plays down low. Above all, however, Carbonneau has added a layer of translatability to his defensive game, which we highlighted in a recent game report:
“I like this version of Carbonneau — poised, responsible, and still just as dynamic. (...) His backcheck effort and defensive-zone interventions were a lot more efficient in this game than in previous viewings — he’s starting to use his motor in a more well-rounded fashion. (...) He’s going to be really, really good if he manages to lean more into these projectable defensive habits — created a lot of prime puck touches for himself while also bailing out his team, which directly contributed to the Armada’s comeback in this one.”
The Armada’s offensive cornerstone hasn’t taken his foot off the gas offensively, either, as his scoring tally clearly shows — he’s still taking full control of shits, dominating sequences through his exceptional blend of handling, vision, manipulation and contact skills. A lot of his offensive ideas are just as effective as they were last season, but the pattern recognition that goes into his off-puck routes and on-puck decisions has improved. He looks a whole lot more like an NHL creator, relying on pre-scans and quick-touch plays to solve hard pressure, rather than muscling his way through every check and then finding the highest-danger option.
It’s early, and there’s still work to do, but Carbonneau’s 19th-overall selection in the most recent NHL draft is already looking like a plus-value pick. He is already the most dynamic forward in the QMJHL, and is adding layers on top of that high-skill game, solidifying his top-six projection.
Noah Laberge, D, Newfoundland Regiment (Buffalo Sabres)
Currently sitting on a six-game points streak, Laberge has seen his minutes climb drastically since the start of the season. The Buffalo Sabres’ fifth-round pick in this past draft has exceeded the 25-minute mark in eight of his last 10 matches, including a 34-minute regulation game against the Halifax Mooseheads — and it’s well-deserved.
A mobile left-shot defenceman, Laberge’s main limiting factors heading into the draft were clear — we highlighted them in our 2025 NHL Draft Guide:
“To become a three-zone stopper and facilitator at the professional level, however, Laberge will have to continue developing his tools. While he can contain and intercept plays, he lacks the strength and physical skills needed to box out and immobilize opponents on the wall. And while he can join the rush, adding more explosiveness would give more opportunities to influence the offence. If he improves those elements, he could fill a bottom-pairing role in the NHL.”
Good news: we’re seeing those exact improvements so far.
Laberge’s uptick in minutes has come in tandem with his increased engagement level, defensive motor and physical growth. He now attaches to net-front threats diligently and aggressively, forcing himself into a strong defensive position through permissible cross-checks, stick tie-ups and box-outs. He is developing into a net-front bully, clearing his goalie’s sight even against bigger, stronger bodies — all without losing his trademark retrieval-and-exit specialization. He still fakes with his feet when retrieving pucks, still finds intelligent middle outlets on exits, and still activates just as frequently.
Add to that Laberge’s growth as a blue-line distributor — moving his feet through receptions at the point, controlling defensive boxes and finding passing solutions that not only extend possession, but improve it — and you have the blueprint of a projectable NHL defenceman. Laberge is becoming a well-rounded player: creative, yet safe. This bodes extremely well for his ability to turn pro and continue improving.
Émile Guité, LW, Chicoutimi Saguenéens (Anaheim Ducks)
At one point in his draft year, Émile Guité looked undraftable. Many concerns plagued our viewings, but above all, he struggled to develop a consistent identity. His pace remained low in most games, he struggled to get involved on the forecheck, and disengaged defensively, while his scoring touch only surfaced sparingly. The 2024 QMJHL rookie of the year headed into his draft year looking like a top prospect, and by the end, the notoriously QMJHL-confident Anaheim Ducks only took a flyer on him in the fifth round.
Now, Guité looks like an offensive cornerstone in Chicoutimi, and has been one of the top factors in their phenomenal start to the 2025-26 season with his 11 goals and six assists in 15 games.
Much more consistent from the half wall, Guité keeps his feet moving with the flow of play, constantly remaining available in open lanes. His pace remains low in transition — he mainly settles into pockets as the F3 off the entry — but even that is an uptick compared to what we saw last year. Meanwhile, his defensive involvement has increased. He back-checks, lifts sticks through back-pressure, attaches to mid-slot threats, and gets involved along the wall.
While Guité will need to find a more effective way to distribute, he has shown some connective passing skills. He solves lane clogs with backhand comfort, moving the puck around stick checks in tight space to find smart small-area outlets, and repositions quickly off those decisions to receive the puck in space. If he can become a dual-threat chance creator through more advanced and layered passes, he has a very good shot at an NHL career. His size and shot alone will make him a pro, but the NHL requires an added layer of offensive impact — Guité’s smarts and engagement improving should lead him to grow in this area.
Philippe Veilleux, LW/C, Val-d’Or Foreurs (2026 NHL Draft)
We believed Philippe Veilleux should have been drafted in 2025. Our C grade for him in the 2025 NHL Draft Guide serves as a testament to that belief — despite the evident size concerns. Now, with improved contact skills and sustained production, Veilleux is in a great spot to earn a pick as re-entry.
With 26 points in 19 games, the Val-d’Or Foreurs’ offensive cornerstone is three points away from the league lead in scoring. More importantly, the vast majority of these points have come in increasingly impressive and translatable ways, which we highlighted in a recent game report:
“He still brings a lot of the same level of tools we saw last year — creative, compact, lightning-quick handles to solve defencemen, inventive passes through layers — but his sequences blend much more cleanly now. (...) he also scored three goals in this one, including a tidy piece of tight-quarters dangling before sliding the puck far-side low. His skating is still not strong enough to overcome his lack of size, but his contact skills and defensive engagement are improving.”
One of the key components of translatable contact skills for undersized forwards is the ability to use one’s lower centre of gravity to sustain checks from bigger bodies. Veilleux does that much more effectively now than he did last year — he anchors his outside edges on retrievals, pushes back against defenders’ chests proactively, and gets his shoulders under their arms to force them into a less effective check. From there, he uses his skate-to-stick coordination to quickly corral the puck, and works tight cutbacks into handling attempts to shake pressure.
Veilleux’s sense and trifecta of puck skills put him on our radar despite his room for improvement in the way of physical tools, but now that he is improving in that regard, he has solidified himself as an overager option for our 2026 rankings.
Honourable mentions: Louis-Étienne Halley (2027 NHL Draft), Yegor Shilov (2026 NHL Draft), Oleg Kulebyakin (2026 NHL Draft), Maddox Dagenais (2026 NHL Draft)
Stock Steady ↔️
Tommy Bleyl, D, Moncton Wildcats (2026 NHL Draft)
After featuring in our Stock Rising segment last month, Tommy Bleyl’s stock has stabilized, mainly due to some up-and-down performances. He has six points in his last five games, including a three-point performance in a 4-3 Moncton loss against the Sherbrooke Phoenix, all while continuing to leverage his high-end skating and distribution games. At the same time, some of his games this season have highlighted some noticeable adaptation hurdles to this level of play.
Bleyl’s physical game has ways to go, and when faced with the league’s more advanced net-front and board battlers, he loses some effectiveness. On some nights, his skating helps him explode up the ice off of retrievals and create from advantageous positions, but against tougher opponents, he can get pinned or pressured into mistakes.
As he develops, Bleyl’s ability to out-battle his opponents will need to become a staple of his game. Right now, he relies on his tools rather than his motor to overcome his lack of pure strength. Still, the skating, sense and skill offer Bleyl a great avenue as a puck-moving defenceman. He’s going to be a smart project pick on draft day if he continues on this path, and could climb into third-round consideration if he increases his defensive work rate and adds some strength over the course of the season.
Stock Falling 📉
Benjamin Cossette-Ayotte, D, Val-d’Or Foreurs (2026 NHL Draft)
The Foreurs’ 2nd-overall pick in the 2024 QMJHL Draft, Benjamin Cossette-Ayotte looked to be on his way to top-50 consideration for the NHL draft after adapting seamlessly to the CHL pace. Since the start of the season, however, his game as a whole has been trending downwards as more concerns arise.
Cossette-Ayotte’s mobility has proven noticeably inconsistent. In terms of edgework, he can evade tight pressure despite his lengthy frame, using his outside edges to ride checks along the wall before finding an outlet, but his transitions and acceleration make him quite easy to overwhelm wide. Over the past month, few defencemen in the QMJHL were beat off the rush cleanly more often than him. Once he’s in positions where speed differentials don’t matter, his game stabilizes. His breakout distribution and composure make him a phenomenal play-stretcher, and he defends the house with aggression and purpose, but still gets caught puck-watching at times.
There’s a lot of time to right the ship in Cossette-Ayotte’s case, and playing in an environment that forces him to defend as often as he does in Val-d’Or could potentially see him correct the positional issues. Bottom-pair NHL defenders, for the most part, are either high-end positionally or possess high-end mobility. The best have both. In Cossette-Ayotte’s case, developing either into a bona fide strength will be key to unlock his NHL potential and help him turn into a shutdown and breakout specialist.