Top NHL Prospects Make Immediate Impact in Late-Season AHL Auditions

Victor Eklund converted the deciding attempt in a shootout on the first night of his professional career. That is not a developmental courtesy; it is exactly the kind of clutch moment that justified the New York Islanders' decision to give the 2025 first-round pick live pro minutes in Bridgeport rather than a quiet offseason.

Eklund's debut, a 3-2 shootout win over Laval on March 27, anchored a broader late-season trend: NHL organizations are compressing prospect timelines by inserting top picks into real AHL competition with the explicit goal of arriving at 2026-27 training camps with answers rather than questions. He backed up that debut by recording three assists across his first three games, making him among the most productive newly-turned professionals in the league over that span.

The Islanders are running a two-prospect experiment in Bridgeport. Cole Eiserman, their 2024 first-rounder, has two points (one goal, one assist) in six games. That production trails Eklund's pace, but six games of consistent pro exposure carries its own value when roster construction decisions arrive in June.

In Providence, James Hagens has been harder to ignore. The No. 7 pick in the 2025 draft signed an amateur tryout agreement with the Bruins on March 23, arriving directly from Boston College where he led Hockey East with 47 points in 34 games as a Hobey Baker finalist. In just three AHL appearances, Hagens already has two points and 12 shots on goal. That shot volume is the number worth circling: 12 shots in three pro games, against professional goaltenders and structured defensive systems, is not the output of a player being handled carefully. It reads like a player forcing the issue.

The most strategically layered commitment belongs to Detroit. Trey Augustine, a 2023 second-round pick out of Michigan State, signed a three-year entry-level contract and will finish 2025-26 on an amateur tryout with the Grand Rapids Griffins. His junior-season numbers, a 2.11 goals-against average and a .929 save percentage, produced gold medals at the World Junior Championship and a scouting profile the Red Wings clearly trust. Grand Rapids is not giving Augustine a courtesy look; they are beginning to build the case that he can carry their goaltending future into the next decade.

Across Providence, Bridgeport, and Grand Rapids, the organizational logic is identical: use the final weeks of the AHL regular season as compressed evaluation, not placeholder development. The early numbers suggest the prospects are holding up their end of the arrangement.