2026 T25U25: Rylan Fellinger is #25

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We kick off this year's Top 25 Under 25 with a 19-year-old right-shooting defender out of the OHL. He was left unranked coming out of the draft last year with a label as one of Brad Treliving's Large Adult Sons. As a reminder, the only player taken by the Leafs in 2025 that wasn't 6'3" or larger was centre Tyler Hopkins, and Fellinger was the tallest of the bunch. So in an effort to shed that label for a player who doesn't deserve it, let me introduce you to Rylan Fellinger.

Rylan Fellinger	Vitals
Age as of July 1	19.13
Position	RD
Height	6'4"
Weight (lbs)	196
Shoots	R
Draft Year	2025
Draft Number	185

The Player

Fellinger is the youngest of three brothers who are all defenders and came up in the Soo Greyhounds system. As someone who was born and raised in the GTA and the farthest north in Ontario I've ever been is Parry Sound (except for Ottawa), it's often hard for me to appreciate the size of Northern Ontario. For context, Fellinger's hometown of Wawa is as far away from the Soo as Sudbury is from the Soo, which is a bit of a shorter drive than Sudbury to Barrie.

In 2023, Fellinger was drafted by the Flint Firebirds to play in the OHL. Being in Southern Michigan, Flint is once again about as far away from Wawa as Toronto is, and is about how far you have to travel to get from London, England to the top of Scotland. Once again, all the distances of Canada are more than my mind can handle. Anyway, back to Fellinger.

Fellinger joined the Firebirds and put up a grand total of 11 points in 130 regular season and playoff games up until last year. However, you've missed the point if you point to points being the point. What I found most interesting is that Fellinger quickly jumped into a regular second-pair role with Flint and was relied upon heavily defensively in his draft year. His coaches quickly recognized how well Fellinger understood the game and how reliable he was defensively.

At this point I'd really recommend reading Brigs' Getting To Know article on Fellinger because he has lots of video clips showing Fellinger's defensive instincts, understanding of gaps, and skating skills. These video clip articles Brigs does are invaluable because the most important things a defender does never end up on the scoresheet or would be a third assist at best, and I think that's why Fellinger gets a lot less credit than he deserves.

In the year since that article I've seen good things from Fellinger. I watched his playoff games against Owen Sound and then Windsor and his defensive game has only gotten better. Fellinger is aggressive in his skating and stick work to disrupt zone entries and then play the puck up the ice for his forwards.

Game 3 of Flint's shellacking of Owen Sound had enough moments where Fellinger got into the highlight reels for me to share. Skip to his second period because you'll see him single-handedly break up an odd-man rush and turn it up the ice for a goal, and then later drive the defense back with a rush that gave him a primary assist. By the way, Owen Sound was clearly out-classed by Flint in this series – the goals were 35-3 in four games!

And again in the Windsor series you can see Fellinger doing his thing. I found that he had strong awareness when he could make a move to break up a play vs when to not get caught out. The highlight starting at 1:10 shows him keeping a gap to his opponent, jumping at the right time to poke the puck away but keeping control of it to make a tape-to-tape pass to his teammate for a goal.

Both of these highlight videos are from games where Fellinger scored a point, but both points were primary assists and highlighted more things about his game that are valued in defenders than getting the odd lucky assist.

I found Fellinger to have a lot of confidence in his game, both defending transitions, holding his own in front of the net, and skating with the puck. Overall I'm quite impressed with his defensive-zone and neutral-zone play and the improvements he's made since last year.

As we've seen in countless OHL prospects, points are a function of first line minutes and power play time. This season, Fellinger will very likely be "the guy" in Flint with the departure of basically the entire defense group. Their overager and the other NHL prospect are both going to the NCAA. I'm very interested to see if Fellinger's game rises to the occasion when it comes to eating lots of minutes, handling the puck in the offensive zone, and overall being part of the offense.

The Votes

Only four of us voted Fellinger in our rankings, a complete reversal to #24 on our list coming out tomorrow. Fellinger clearly suffers from name recognition, something only points or a fun name can get you.

Voter	Vote
Cathy	21
Species	NA
Hound Line	NA
Shinson93	18
Cameron	NA
Sclodiggity	NA
Brian S	17
Svalbard38	NA
Zone Entry	NA
Hardev	17
Adam	NA
Weighted Average	23.18
Highest Vote	17
Lowest Vote	21

What Cathy will find funny is that she ranked Fellinger 21st last year as well and was the only one to do so.

The Opinions

Cathy: Rylan Fellinger is a player who I know very little about. I ranked him low largely on the strength of his age since that means he has a lot of years to improve, and that he's tall and is a right-shooting defender. I don't rate my own ability to judge junior defence prospects very well, and it's historically been something everyone paid to do this does pretty poorly. So, the future seems full of all sorts of possibilities for him.

Sclodiggity: I didn’t rank Fellinger based on very broad strokes analysis. A 6th round pick (2025) that failed to take big strides in his D+1 year. He’s not supposed to be a big point producer so don’t read into his counting stats (but if you do want to, 16 points in 65 games as a 19-year-old in the OHL) but his offense should be better than that if his more fundamental skills are there (ie good skaters and puck movers just get some points). If these skills are so lacking, no amount of size and defensive responsibility will get him to the NHL. Minor bonus points for being from Wawa, Ontario though.

Shinson93: As I mentioned in my blurb, I watched a full season of Fellinger this year, so I’m aware I have some bias going into this. At the beginning of the season, I found Fellinger was relying too much on his size and reach in his shut down defender role. I wanted to see him engage more physically to move players out of the crease and freeze them along the boards. Additionally, while I think he was a good puck mover in his own zone, I wanted to see more engagement in the offensive zone. I saw good development in both areas by the end of the season. His other strength is as a communicator on the ice; he is constantly talking with his partner and the goalie about positioning. He generally played a second pair role for most of the season and was heavily relied on for PK and end of games. While he’s never going to be a huge point producer, he was near the top of the team in +/- during the season and led the team in the playoffs. It wasn’t a huge jump in development, but this was a very good season for Fellinger. He will be asked to take an even bigger role for Flint next year which should be good for his progression.

Brigstew: Fellinger doesn’t appear to have taken a leap in his play, but seeing where he was this time last year compared to now it’s easy to see his growth and it wasn’t just a little bit. His skating got even better for speed and agility, his defensive reads have become more consistent, and he looks more confident handling the puck on breakouts and on transitions. Don’t pay any attention to his points, that’s not the point of his game. I ranked him 17th, towards the bottom of the tier of guys I still have even a remote hope in any NHL potential. If he makes the NHL it will be on the strength of his size, mobility, defense and transition impacts. This year he has an opportunity to become a top pairing defenseman for Flint that gets heavy usage on the penalty kill and at even strength, where he can show more of an all around game that he’s developed.

Svalbard38: I didn’t rank Rylan Fellinger, not because I don’t believe in him but because I haven’t seen enough from him yet. That said, he’s got some things going for him. He’s young, a May birthday. That gets less important as time goes on but in your D+1 year, it’s still a factor. He’s got a big body and he’s willing to use it, that’s obviously not enough on his own but it’s a plus. He doesn’t have many points, but I’ve never felt like he lucked into the points he does have just by virtue of being on the ice. He works for his points and has more offensive skill than the numbers suggest. This time next year I’d love to have him in my top 25, I just need to see a step. I think he has a step in him.

I'm looking forward to seeing what Rylan Fellinger can do in his age-19 season in the OHL. He's still got a few years before he makes the transition to the AHL, but I expect by then the jump won't be very difficult for him. He's got a well-rounded game that coaches like. He plays a similar style to that of Ben Danford, in fact, and I hope he gets some recognition for it.

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