Stars expect Emil Hemming to make full-time AHL jump this season
Emil Hemming was set for a full-time AHL leap after five Texas games, and Dallas is betting his 63-point Barrie season will hold up at pro pace.
Emil Hemming was expected to make the full-time jump to the AHL this season after a five-game look with Texas last year, and Dallas is treating the 29th pick in the 2024 NHL Draft as the next prospect to test in the same pipeline that carried Jason Robertson, Wyatt Johnston, Mavrik Bourque and Logan Stankoven to bigger roles.
Hemming, a 6-foot-2, 211-pound winger from Vaasa, Finland, spent most of 2025-26 back in Barrie and finished with 63 points in 46 regular-season games before adding 28 points in 21 playoff games. That postseason push matters as much as the raw totals. He did not just stack points in junior hockey; he produced when the games tightened, which is the kind of scoring translation Dallas wants to see against AHL pace and structure.
The next step in Texas is less about whether Hemming can score and more about how he scores. He already showed enough in his five-game AHL stint to convince the Stars he can handle the league, but the real exam now is physical: winning pucks along the wall, taking contact through the middle and keeping his release quick enough when the ice shrinks. Before that, he logged 40 Liiga games with TPS in 2023-24, then posted 48 points in 60 games for Barrie in 2024-25 before climbing again last season. The trend points up, and Dallas is asking whether that climb survives a more demanding league.
Hemming said the brief AHL taste showed him he belonged there and opened his eyes to the speed and strength required in North America. That is the right answer, but it also sets the bar. A prospect can dominate junior on talent alone; the AHL asks for pace, strength and repeatable details every night. For Hemming, the question is whether the shot still gets off cleanly after contact and whether he can hold his ground when opposing defensemen close faster than they do in the OHL.
Dallas has been deliberate about building this lane. Director of amateur scouting Joe McDonnell said the organization has leaned harder toward skill in recent years because those players are harder to acquire in trades, and general manager Jim Nill said development is the club’s daily work and the point of camp. That philosophy has already paid off with Robertson, Johnston, Bourque and Stankoven, all of whom moved through the system before becoming core pieces.
The setup in Texas should give Hemming a clear target. The 2025-26 roster already featured young forwards such as Arttu Hyry, Samu Tuomaala, Chase Wheatcroft and Matthew Seminoff, so Hemming’s minutes will have to be earned in a crowded group rather than handed out because of draft position. Dallas is betting that the production follows him north, and that the next meaningful step in his development comes in the AHL, not back in junior.
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