It may be the dead of summer and a quiet time in the hockey world, but I've still been to the rink once a week thanks to a numberofcamps, either skills-based or for international tournaments.
Because I'm watching teenagers, I know that most of them still have a lot of growing to do – but how much?
If a kid is already huge, such as 2026 NHL draft prospect Ethan Belchetz of OHL Windsor (he's already 6-foot-5 and 228 pounds), there's no need to worry. But a lot of the kids at Canada's U-17 camp, eligible for the 2027 NHL draft, are harder to forecast.
A 5-foot-9 defenseman would have to be really special to make the NHL, but that same kid could easily grow three inches in the coming years, and no one would have any questions about his viability.
Famously, Mitch Marner was listed at 5-foot-7.5 and 130 pounds when the London Knights took him 19th overall in the 2013 OHL draft. Marner, now one of the most dangerous forwards in the NHL, grew up to be six-feet tall and 180 pounds, according to NHL.com. On the other hand, some players never shoot up, and it doesn't matter anyway – Johnny Gaudreau and Cole Caufield being prime examples.
But just for funsies, I asked a bunch of scouts and agents (whose job it is to convince scouts their clients are still growing) what their favorite unscientific way is to guess if a teen player is going to get a lot taller in the coming years. Here's a cross-section of responses:
"How big are his feet? A shorter kid with big feet is going to grow."
"Look at his skate size."
"Look at Mom and Dad, or look at the feet and hands."
"Look at the mom."
"Brothers."
"I've tried it enough to see there's no concrete way of predicting it. I usually look at Mom and Dad and try my best to see which parent the kid takes after the most. Grandparents are looked at, too. I know a guy who swears it's Grandpa on the mom's side, but I have counter-examples of that."
"Take the height difference in inches between the dad and mom, divide by three and add to the kid's height at 16 or 17."
"It's all guesswork."
I suppose if there were a tried-and-true answer, it would be a lot easier to predict which players will have both the talent and size to become NHL stars one day. In the meantime, teams will continue to take leaps of faith on kids they like, or simply value safe size – as prospect writer Jerome Berube noted after the 2025 NHL draft, not a single sub-six-foot defenseman was taken this year. But I'll leave the last word to one scout who lives by a very strong axiom:
"If the kid is 5-foot-6 and he shaves every day – he's cooked."
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