2025 T25U25: John Prokop is #25

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John Prokop is from Wisconsin and played his junior years in the USHL. He then went on to three years at Union College where he played NCAA hockey. He was signed by the Leafs this spring to a one-year NHL deal and an ATO to play out the season with the Marlies. He is less than a year away from age 25, and he is as of now, an AHL player. The possibility is there that he plays some ECHL time as well.

John Prokop	Vitals
Age as of July 1	24.13
Position	D
Height	6'3"
Weight (lbs)	190
Shoots	L
Draft Year	Undrafted
Draft Number	NA

The Player

The Elite Prospects guide to NCAA free agents in summer 2023 said this:

Defencemen rarely manage to lead their team in points. John Prokop did it last season with 35 points in 36 games. And he almost repeated that exploit this season, as the defenceman continued to flirt with the top of his team’s leaderboard during the season.

While the defenceman is not as dynamic as other top-producing defencemen in the league, he can activate into the play, carry the puck, and find open passing targets. He acts as the team’s primary puck distributor at the offensive line, too, creating some tic-tac-toe and backdoor plays.

More than his offence, however, it’s his tools that give him the most professional upside, especially his combination of mobility and size. At the next level, if he manages to speed up his pace of play and processing of the game, we anticipate that he could become more of a shutdown player or a net-front defender with some puck-moving ability.

You'll see this description repeated below by two people who have seen him on the Marlies in his brief foray this spring. Flo Hockey (who broadcast the AHL now) reported that his points got the attention of scouts who then saw other things to like about him.

In his last two years at Union College (ECAC in the NCAA), he was setting up goals from people who, I assure you, you've never heard of unless you're a diehard NCAA fan. None of his teammates in his final two years have been drafted or signed to contracts with NHL teams.

You can see that he formed a unit with two top forwards for a lot of those clips. As usual with that sort of compilation, it's all offence, so we're left with reports about his defending.

Prokop is an example of what you see in defender scouting today. Yes, he's tall, but he's not just tall. Scouts are looking for the defencemen who aren't obvious from big points numbers on top teams, but who can defend, start transitions and play successfully at both bluelines. You have to go out and search for these guys because sometimes they do show up later on the radar than a forward with a slick shot. The points got him noticed in what is essentially a hockey backwater, but the thing that got him signed is some of that potential to defend in addition to moving the puck. This is the holy grail of defence today defence and puck moving.

Of course the trick is to find a player like this at a few notches higher up in the skills required to do that job.

The Votes

This vote spread isn't meaningfully different to several for the players who didn't rank at 25 or higher this year. Prokop is, by this vote, of a piece with a group of players who are known now to be AHLers like he likely is or who are projected to be that level in the future.

Voter	Vote
Cathy	NA
Brigstew	NA
Species	NA
Hardev	17
shinson93	NA
Cameron	23
Zone Entry	NA
Svalbard38	NA
dhammm	19
adam	19
Weighted Average	23.4
Highest Vote	17
Lowest Vote	23

If there is a change in the eligible players for the T25 in the last couple of years, Prokop represents it. At the bottom, there are AHLers or good ECHLers. Some of those players actually play in the KHL, the SHL etc. but that's the level they have hit, which puts them in near elite company.

No one should expect the 25th ranked player for any team to be in the NHL as an impact player, but Prokop is a pro who will have a good career, work hard and grow as a defender a small amount from where he is now.

The Opinions

Brigstew: I watched him a bit when he signed with Toronto, then watched some Marlies games of his. He seems pretty good, but he’s already 24. Odds are, he’s pretty much what he will always be by now. Pretty good in the AHL at his age didn’t inspire me enough to rank him.

Shinson93: I got a look at Prokop in his Marlies stint at the end of the season. He seems to have the physical tools for a defensive style, but he seemed to struggle with reading plays and making good decisions. The jump from a smaller college program to AHL can be tough, but at 24 I think he’s pretty much out of time so I didn’t rank him.

dhammm: Prokop isn’t going to make it as a scoring defenseman and he doesn’t have a lot of runway to develop his game as a pro considering he just celebrated his 24th birthday, but his work at Union College is nothing to sneeze at and suggests enough puck skill that I can entertain a future for him as a credible bottom-pair defensive defenseman (cf. Shayne Gostisbehere, who achieved similar boxcars albeit at a younger age). The Marlies shedding a number of defensive prospects means the path for Prokop to big AHL minutes and NHL depth duty is a little clearer to me than it seemed when he was first signed.

Cameron: Honestly feels like a Webber lite, bigger dman who is more of a shutdown guy than an offensive blue liner while not having the size like Webber does, feels like a penalty killer for the Marlies as there are many LHDs in the pipeline I consider better. At his age I don’t anticipate a big improvement in development within the next year or two.

Hardev: I started the same way as with Brigs. I watched as many of his highlights from last season as I could find, watched some interviews, and read what people were saying about him. What I see is a mobile defenseman with good size and good offensive instincts. He’s smooth, meaning he knows where to go by thinking ahead and has the ability to get there at the right time. He finished top-20 in defenseman scoring in the NCAA on a middle/bad team and was top-10 the season before when Union was better. I’m not sure what his in-zone defending looks like just because that’s not usually what gets turned into videos (unless you’re Brigs covering Danford, thank you again Brigs). I think the skills he has instantly puts him ahead of most of the Marlies defenders. I ranked him just above Webber and below Villeneuve. I think he’ll surprise a lot of people next season, if he was eligible for the list next season he would go much higher.

That sums up the voters' opinions for the most part, and is a good summation on a very large number of good hockey players who help entertain thousands of minor league fans every year.

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