With Mace’o Phillips, Jacob Battagalia, Axel Hurtig and Hunter Laing being returned to their respective junior teams, suddenly there was a slew of high-end junior games to track.

This coming weekend, the college teams start getting going. Starting on Friday night, we’ll start to see the likes of Penn State (Luke Misa), Arizona State (Cullen Potter), Merrimack College (Trevor Hoskin), Quinnipiac (Ethan Wyttenbach), Michigan (Henry Mews) and Denver (Eric Jamieson) play their first games of the season.

And then the Wranglers get going the weekend after that.

We’ll do our best to help you keep track of everything. Here’s this week’s update!

Jacob Battaglia – LW, Kingston Frontenacs, OHL

19; Calgary’s second round pick (62nd overall) in the 2024 NHL Draft; 6’1″, 196 pounds; shoots left; FN’s 7th-ranked prospect 2025

	GP	G	A	P	P1	5v5 P	5v5 P1	SH	NHLe
Season to date	2	2	1	3	3	2	2	12	39.73
2024-25 (OHL)	68	40	50	90	67	57	45	239	35.06

Battaglia is wearing the C in Kingston this season, and he’s going to be leaned on to drive the bus offensively for the Fronts this season. So far, so good, as he has two goals in two games as he’s adjusting back to the junior game.

Axel Hurtig – D, Calgary Hitmen, WHL

20; Calgary’s seventh round pick (208th overall) in the 2023 NHL Draft; 6’4″, 202 pounds; shoots left

	GP	G	A	P	P1	5v5 P	5v5 P1	SH	NHLe
Season to date	1	1	0	1	1	1	1	1	24.76
2024-25 (WHL)	55	5	11	16	12	14	10	66	7.20

Due to the quirks of the Dub’s scheduling, the Hitmen have played once in the last week. Hurtig resumed his spot atop their lineup and was a stabilizing force in a win.

Hunter Laing – C/RW, Saskatoon Blades, WHL

19; Calgary’s sixth round pick (170th overall) in the 2024 NHL Draft; 6’5″, 205 pounds; shoots right

	GP	G	A	P	P1	5v5 P	5v5 P1	SH	NHLe
Season to date	2	1	1	2	1	1	1	9	24.76
2024-25 (WHL)	64	25	23	48	40	35	29	153	18.57

Playing primarily on the wing so far, Laing has gotten off to a solid start for the Blades.

Jakob Leander – D, HV71, U20 Nationell

18; Calgary’s seventh round pick (208th overall) in the 2025 NHL Draft; 6’4″, 196 pounds; shoots right

	GP	G	A	P	P1	5v5 P	5v5 P1	SH	NHLe
Season to date	6	0	2	2	2	2	2	9	5.47
2024-25 (J20)	39	1	5	6	3	5	3	33	2.52

HV71 has won twice over six games… and they were on the wrong side of an 8-0 loss to Orebro HK over the weekend. (They lost both weekend games, one in regulation and one in overtime, by an aggregate score of 14-5.)

Yan Matveiko – C, Krasnaya Armiya Moskva, MHL

19; Calgary’s seventh round pick (211th overall) in the 2025 NHL Draft; 6’1″, 150 pounds; shoots left

	GP	G	A	P	P1	5v5 P	5v5 P1	SH	NHLe
Season to date	9	4	6	10	6	9	5	14	13.03
2024-25 (MHL)	42	10	14	24	20	21	17	68	6.70

Krasnaya Armiya enjoyed some off-time due to a gap in their game schedule.

Mace’o Phillips – D, Green Bay Gamblers, USHL

18; Calgary’s third round pick (80th overall) in the 2025 NHL Draft; 6’6″, 228 pounds; shoots left

	GP	G	A	P	P1	5v5 P	5v5 P1	SH	NHLe
Season to date	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0.00
2024-25 (USHL)	25	2	1	3	3	3	3	31	2.76

Phillips returned from Flames camp and he, and Green Bay, had a couple tough games against Muskegon, losing both games by an aggregate score of 6-2. They didn’t get run outta the rink, but they have some work to do.

Theo Stockselius – C, Djurgårdens IF, U20 Nationell

18; Calgary’s second round pick (54th overall) in the 2025 NHL Draft; 6’2″, 181 pounds; shoots left; FN’s 12th-ranked prospect 2025

	GP	G	A	P	P1	5v5 P	5v5 P1	SH	NHLe
Season to date	6	0	7	7	5	5	4	14	22.96
2024-25 (J20)	40	22	29	51	38	35	29	93	20.91

Stockselius is among the leading scorers for Djurgardens, but they’ve won just half of their games thus far. He’s taken more face-offs than anybody else on his team (121) and won just 43% of them, but two of the three other regular centres have even lower winning percentages (31% and 35%, respectively), so you can understand why the coaching staff keeps running him out there.

He won around 45% of his draws last season, but he also wasn’t the key guy taking the majority of the team’s face-offs, so we’ll see how that develops.

Yegor Yegorov – G, MHK Spartak-MAX, MHL

20; Calgary’s sixth round pick (176th overall) in the 2023 NHL Draft; 6’3″, 183 pounds

	GP	TOI	SV%
Season to date	4	239	.928
2024-25 (MHL)	20	1032	.904

Yegorov made 45 saves in a win on Monday. He’s rotating starts with Spartak-MAX’s other netminder.

Kirill Zarubin – G, AKM Tula, MHL

19; Calgary’s third round pick (84th overall) in the 2024 NHL Draft; 6’3″, 178 pounds; FN’s 18th-ranked prospect 2025

	GP	TOI	SV%
Season to date	5	284	.925
2024-25 (MHL)	21	1157	.935

Zarubin made 32 saves in a win over the weekend. He’s rotating starts with AKM Tula’s other netminder.

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